Frail forms

I’ve been listening to a range of music while working at home. One song I keep returning to is “Hard Times”, which turns out to date long before the Great Depression. It’s actually Ante-Bellum Stephen Foster.

But history sometimes seems to be cyclical, and hard time do recur. They take different forms, but we know them when we see them.

For myself, I consider 2020 to be not so much “hard” as “moderately firm”—I have a job, I have a house, I have food and access to medical care. And I’m doing something that’s worthwhile—I work in cybersecurity. But for many millions here in the US and around the world, these are indeed shockingly hard times. So—listen to Mavis Staples singing “Hard Times”, and take what comfort you can.

Lawmaking Barbie

Hey, who’s happy to bail out Boeing, a company that can’t manage its way out of a paper bag and kills its customers' customers in their hundreds as a business model? Or the airlines, who used the last two bailouts to buy back stocks, tack on billions in “fees” for their customers and pay executive bonuses? Or the cruise lines, who register their ships outside the United States to evade paying taxes, adhering to labor regulations and obeying anti-pollution laws?

Yeah, me neither.

But hey—whatever gives the lazy-ass sycophantic Senate the balls to take the next three weeks off work, because “legislating is so hard”.

Also—would someone please, please, PULEEZE bitch-slap that smirk off Mnuchin’s face?

  

Solve for X

Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve been out shooting, so here’s one from my files:

Dunno whether it’s Cadet Ten or Cadet X. But at least s/he’s clear about the anti-Navy sentiment.

Below normal but okay

Health update: went to my orthopod’s office yesterday for my second of three injections in my knees. The practice is located in the local People’s Republic hospital, so you have to enter the actual hospital to get to their offices.

This has meant undergoing a “screening” at the entrance. The screening involves answering questions about travel to or contact with people who’ve traveled to places, and whether you have any symptoms of covid19.

This time, however, I arrived at the office on the third floor to discover it closed and patients directed to the fourth-floor office. Where a masked staffer asked the screening questions again, and took my temperature, which she wrote down on a yellow stickie, which had to be turned in to the reception desk. (It also went in with me to the exam room, where I assume it was added to my chart.)

BTW—my temperature was 96.7, two degrees below normal. And I haven’t taken any Tylenol or aspirin in a couple of weeks.

According to the PA who’s giving me the injections, they’ve cancelled a lot of surgeries, are restricting appointments and therefore consolidated the two offices. Tough times.

Otherwise, I’m okay. Except for tearing an interstitial rib muscle on my right side from all the coughing. (Fortunately, this happened once before, while I was in grad school, so I knew what it was. Otherwise I’d have been freaking out.) I’m at the stage now where it doesn’t so much feel like someone’s sticking an X-Acto knife between my ribs as a butter knife. But it turns out that everything you do involves your ribs, including sneezing, clearing your throat and shifting a manual transmission.

I cannot wait for this to be over. Then I can deal with whatever I have to.

Gratitude Monday: thanks

One of the constants of tech conferences is swag—it’s how exhibitors lure people into their booths in hopes of turning the scanned badges into sales prospects.

Frankly, I’d expect the badges-to-leads ratio is pretty crappy, especially inasmuch as some booth staff scan your badge is you just pause before the display.

However, that’s the way it’s done, and I basically will never have to buy a tee shirt for the rest of my life, between the various conferences I’ve attended over the years.

The RSA Conference last month was no exception. By the time I left, I had 25 tee shirts, two umbrellas, five stress squishers and miscellaneous other stuff.

One of the tee shirts was destined for our office manager. SF runs the monthly office events, the weekly free lunch Tuesdays, the stocking of snacks and beverages, the in-office massages, local comms and dozens of other things. Without her, we’d all fall apart.

SF is a huge fan of Baby Yoda. I don’t know the story, but from images and GIFs posted to Teams, that’s clear. So when Juniper Networks handed out tee shirts with Baby Yoda on them, I reckoned that was a small thing I could do for her. I sat through the presentation a second time (they didn’t care—by the last day of a tech conference, exhibitors are practically heaving swag at you so they don’t have to pack it up and schlep it home) and got one for her. Not a major effort, tbh.

She was very pleased when I gave it to her—had to fend off the hug because of my cough. But it made me happy that the idea was a good one.

So I was flummoxed to come in the office two days later and found this on my desk. The sweetest thank you note ever. For a swag tee.

Honestly, it cheered me up no end that millennials are writing thank you notes and that my silly tee shirt was deemed worthy of one.

And that’s my gratitude for today.

Market report

I made a run to Wegman’s yesterday. Realized earlier in the week that I was down to less than five pounds of flour, and interestingly, Amazon is out of stock for anything that’s common or garden all-purpose flour. You want cauliflour or gluten-free ground cardboard at $8.99/lb, you’re fine. Pillsbury or General Mills, not so much.

(I actually hesitated in front of a 50-lb sack of flour the last time I was in Costco many weeks ago. I dismissed it as ludicrous. This week it seems less so.)

Also, while I had plenty of white wine, I only had a bottle or two of red, and there’s a freezer bag of lamb chops from that trip to Costco, so I decided I should just go. Wegman’s is my wine shop.

The store was not crowded. I got the limit of two 5-lb sacks of flour (the shelves were massively depleted; I guess everyone’s making pancakes with the kids) and two boxes of cake flour. Baking is my therapy; I’ll make this supply last. No red cabbage, and the carrot shelves were nearly bare. Laid in a few onions; you can always use onions. Looked like meat was in plenty, but I didn’t need any. Picked up feta, ricotta and mozzarella, so I’m good there for a while.

I also got eight bottles of wine, which is more than my typical haul. This will last me for a while, though. I started to take a quart of heavy cream, then thought that was stupid. I’m unlikely to be making pavlovas in quantity for a while; a pint will do, which also goes into pasta dishes. And a large-ish bottle of California EVOO. I do go through that stuff at a good clip.

Got red cabbage and frozen passionfruit pulp at Giant on my way home. So I’m set for isolation. I hope you’re as comfortable as I am.

Saintly protection

Unless you’re Italian or trying to sell a house, you may not be aware that today is Saint Joseph’s Day.

You remember Joseph? Husband of Mary? Taught Jesus everything he knew about carpentry and joinery?

Yeah, that’s the sad tale. Poor guy is always losing out: in the Nativity, it’s all the Madonna and the kid; in cursing it’s always Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph; in March it’s always Saint Patrick.

Joseph is the patron of, among others, the Church Universal, workers, families, engineers, the dying, Canada, confectioners, travelers, those in doubt, cabinetmakers, Korea and Vatican II. Also of house sellers and hunters, which should make him a pretty busy fellow these days.

Today is his official feast day—celebrated widely in Italian communities around the world with altars decorated with flowers, limes, candles, wine, breads, cookies, pastries and other symbols of the good life. This is of particular importance when you consider that Saint Joseph’s Day usually falls in Lent, when consumption is constricted.

(There’s another day, 1 May, dedicated to Saint Joseph the Worker; but that was invented in 1955 by Pope Pius XII to counter the godless communist/union/laborer May Day holiday, so you can fuggedaboutit.)

What I remember about Saint Joseph’s Day is that it’s when the swallows come back to Capistrano—that’s the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, in the eponymous town in Orange County, California. Turns out that the swallows usually show up a couple of days on one side or another of 19 March, but everyone turns a blind eye to those little discrepancies and enjoys the hell out of the miracle of the swallows.

There are decades of stories about how Saint Joe helps the desperate sell their homes: you bury a (plastic/stone/wooden) statue of the saint (head up/head/down/horizontal) in your (front/back/side) yard and Bob’s your uncle—the house is sold.

You can buy purpose-made statues for precisely this use from a variety of sources both on and off line, including from some realtors.

No clue as to how the saint may help home buyers, unless there’s some karmic connection that his statue in your yard attracts exactly the right buyers for this house.

At any rate—Saint Patrick gets all the good press for saints in March. You might want to expand your hagiology with the holy father in these parlous times.

Medical messaging

Amidst all the “concern from the CEO” emails I’ve been receiving around the novel coronavirus, I got one from the surgical practice that performed an operation on me a couple of years ago. This one pissed me off.

Because they made me log in to their portal to get the message that they (like airlines, retail operations, insurance companies and everyone else) are doing everything possible to avoid infecting their customers:

By “logging in” I mean I had to reset my password because it’s been so long. So they made me do all that work to receive a message that involves no HIPAA considerations.

But wait--my current orthopaedic practice goes a bridge too far. They make me log in to their portal (which is singularly craptastic as far as user expedience is concerned)...to link me to their public website for their covid19 statement.

What is wrong with these people? First rule of communications, GW Medical Faculty Associates and OrthoVirginia: don’t make your audience work to get the message.

Where the falcons fly

Well, the novel coronavirus has put a crimp in the annual faux-Irish bacchanal that is Saint Patrick’s Day. Parades all around the world have been cancelled, and bars have been ordered to close in both the US and Ireland.

A lot of green beer is going to end up in the sewers without having passed through human urinary tracts.

That notwithstanding, I’ll share a little Irish with you: The Dubliners singing “Song for Ireland”.

Slaínte.

Gratitude Monday: so much

Well, well, well. Gratitude Monday as we enter into the coronavirus state of national emergency. You know—the one necessitated by this clusterfuck administration’s SNAFU in responding to the global pandemic.

I’m grateful that my employer has responded decisively and humanely in ordering all employees but those whose functions dictate otherwise to work from home until further notice. And that they provide the corporate support for that.

I’m grateful that—while it’s a challenge to work on spreadsheets and presentation decks without my two external monitors—I have a comfortable environment at home. And if I have to, I can go into the office and bring one of the monitors home.

I’m grateful that I have the corporate VPN (needed to access any work files), and that it works. (My former employer allegedly had one, but it was a horror to set up on Comcast and a crapshoot thereafter.) We also have collaboration tools; Microsoft, but still. I can carry on my daily syncs with my colleague in Amsterdam, which not only keep our project humming, but they brighten my day.

I’m grateful that they’ve committed to revisiting the need for remote work every week, and they’ll update us. They’re good at that.

I’m grateful that I did not need to shop for toilet paper this weekend; I still have a bunch from my last Costco purchase more than a year ago.

I’m grateful that—between Whole Foods, Giant and Trader Joe’s—I was able to get vegetables, salad makings, soup, limes, milk and rolls. And that I already have plenty of chicken breasts, lamb chops and salmon filets, a 20-lb bag of basmati rice and molto pasta. (Let me also say—I have never seen supermarket conveyor belts as clean as this past weekend.)

I’m grateful for all the people whose work ensures that food and consumables are still making it to the stores, and for all the people stocking the shelves and staffing the checkouts. And wiping down those belts and counters.

I’m grateful that people are consciously practicing spatial distancing. As anxious as they may be, they’re not crowding the checkout lines like they typically do (as though by standing 14” away from me they’ll get to the till faster).

I’m grateful that I have plenty of birdseed for my feathered friends; they need the extra help for fledgling season. And that I also have a stock of maintenance meds for me.

I’m grateful, too, that my cough is slowly dissipating. Even though I’ve got muscle cramp under my right anterior ribs that somehow extends up under the scapula. Clearly I need to work on my core muscles. I’m grateful that now I have time to do that.

I’m grateful that I was cleared by Sonia from health and safety on Friday. I still don’t know who ratted me out, but the combination of my cough plus having attended RSAC was what put the bullseye on my back. (At least two attendees have been diagnosed with covid19.) Fair enough. I’m also grateful that the incubation period for the virus post-RSAC expired on Friday, so I should be okay. Assuming I’ve not been close to someone since who was carrying.

I’m grateful that I’m getting the first of three injections for my knees today. Hoping that parking at the hospital will not be too problematic. (But, seriously, if that’s the worst of my problems at a hospital, it’s small beer.)

Dang—there’s a lot of gratitude here for being essentially a time of plague. What are you grateful for?