Category: Life

  • People on the Streets

    Man, there are a lot of people on the streets. At least in Harlem, anyway. I know that I said this on Monday, but I did assume that it was due to schools opening up again, and every parent and guardian wanted to walk their kid to class. And walking to school this morning, there were kids and parents everywhere. Again, not real surprised. But, after I dropped the kid off, I had an errand to run which took me away from the school and our building.

    And good lord, there are people everywhere. It honestly felt like a pre-Pandemic amount of people on the streets. About half the people were in masks, and full disclosure, I only put my mask on if I go into a building or store, as I am fully vaccinated.

    Logically, I know that New York State, New York City, Manhattan, and Harlem have high vaccination rates, and low Covid infection rates. It could be better, sure, but compared to other parts of this country – we’re doing pretty well, and in that sense, relatively safe.

    Now, emotionally, I find myself uncomfortable being around this many people. Even when we were on vacation in Maine, only three times in that week were we around large amounts of people; Freeport, Portland, and Old Orchard Beach. The rest of the time, we were away from crowds and on our own. Now, I see buses full, subway cars filling up, and people right up against each other in stores. I can take about two hours of this, but any more time after that, I begin to creep myself out.

    At some point, we are going to be at herd immunity. At some point, life will kind’a be normal. At some point, I will have to go out and find a job, which will mean being near people for about eight hours a day. This is coming, and it is a good thing. What I am seeing now in myself is that there will need to be some work on my end to become comfortable with it.

    It will just take some time.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Coffee Mugs in Cars, Nothing But Ads, and the Last Weekend

    “Odds and Ends” is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    There are many things that I don’t get about this world. One of them is people who take coffee mugs, full of coffee into their cars. I’m not talking a thermos, or a travel mug. No, what I am talking about are people who take a normal, regular coffee mug with them in their car. How do they stop it from spilling? Is there a secret to this? It just seems like uncovered vessels that contain liquid in a car is a recipe for a disaster.

    Not that I spend a bunch of time on FaceBook anymore, but I was scrolling through this morning, and I noticed that about half of the postings on my feed were sponsored posts. I have one from NEWSMAX, which if the algorithm was working correctly, should know that type of post would find not purchase in my feed. I am sure this has to do with my lack of interaction with the site. So, if I keep up this level of inactivity, in like two years, my feed with be nothing but sponsored posts?

    So, not that this is a big deal, but this is the last weekend of Summer Vacation. Eleven weeks went flying by, and we are ready for school to start on Monday. We got the school shopping done, talked to the kid about have to wear a mask all day. The wife and I talked about what the morning routine will need to be, because we haven’t had to do this since March 2020. It also means the end of Dad teaching school, and playing board games, and Barbies. No more pirate ship and puppet shows. It needs to come to an end, as the kid needs to be back in school and around her friends. This was a special time together, and I don’t know if I will even get this much father/daughter time again. But the other side of this is that she will get that spark of excitement of learning, and the daily victories and defeats that come with friendships. She’ll start becoming her own person, independent of her parents, as it should be.

  • Planning for Fall?

    Summer’s over. It was a fast ten weeks for us, as that’s what the wife and I were saying to each other last night. We do have one final week until the kid starts school on Monday, but let’s be honest, it’s not much of a Summer week, being that we will be spending our time preparing for the start of classes.

    And it wasn’t that great of a Summer. I give it two and a half stars. And I will blame it all on the Delta Variant, and the half of the country that didn’t get vaccinated, for whatever reason that I don’t agree with, but here we are. The ability to return back to normal never materialized. Having normal fun with people? Not so much. A return to unobstructed travel wasn’t really possible either.. And now we are left with an Autumn that looks like it will be filled with anxiety and stress.

    But still, last night on the sofa, as we mourned our lost Summer, we still found ourselves falling into our old positive ways. We talked about our plans for the rest of the year; patching and painting the apartment, hanging new shelves in the kid’s room to free up floor space, getting tickets for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in October, making the kid’s Halloween costume, Thanksgiving, and the Granddaddy of all planning, Christmas! We even kidded about going back to Maine next Summer.

    With everything happening, and it is STILL HAPPENING, we find ourselves being optimistic, and trying to plan for a better tomorrow.

    I don’t think we are being delusional, just hopeful.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Doc McStuffins, Tottenham Again, and Ann Richards’ Texas

    “Odds and Ends” is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    So, the kid loves watching Doc McStuffins. If you don’t know it, don’t worry about it. I will say this, every episode they sing a song called, “Time for Your Checkup.” I’m telling you that if that song was available to do at karaoke, dude, I would knock that song out of the park. I mean, just nail it.

    Tottenham is undefeated in the Premier League. They have nine points and are sitting on top of the table. Just saying…

    There is a reason why I left Texas, and there is a reason why I will not be raising my daughter in Texas either. And it’s pretty sad, because I do like the state, and some of the best people I know are from there. But the Texas I grew up in just doesn’t exist anymore. The super-Christians and the crazy conservatives took over, and it just got coo-coo there. In my memory, Texas used to be like Ann Richards; middle of the road Democrat, fiercely independent, but looking out for each other. I just don’t recognize that state.

  • Caught in the Rain

    Man, that was a lot of rain last night. On the UWS, it started around 5pm, and I got caught out in it. I was coming back from a doctor’s appointment, and thought I could out run it. Not so much. Even a ride on the 1 train to get back to Harlem didn’t help, as the rain came down in waves. It would let up, and then come down even harder.

    There is something very humbling with being caught out in a downpour in New York. When a hard rain hits, you can watch as people going running inside, or to the subway, or hopping in cabs or on a bus. Then there are the people who hide out in doorways. Everyone waiting out the rain. You do see people running down the street with an umbrella or a rain coat, because people do have places to be.

    But the saddest of all are the people who are just walking; no rain coat, no umbrella. Just walking like normal, as if it’s not raining. Showing all the signs that they weren’t expecting to get caught out in it, but now that they are, they have accepted the situation.

    Everyone, at one time or other, gets caught in the rain. It’s like a right of passage. It happened to me the first week after I moved to New York. I learned my lesson though. I check the weather and carry an umbrella.