Life of Wry

I just cried at an Uber commercial. I mean, it was beautiful, it really was. But wow.. an Uber commercial?

That got my attention. It made me take a pause… and do an emotional check-in.

What’s got me down?

• I just listened to an epidemiologist from Harvard’s school of public health who suggests that social distancing and at least some form of self-isolation could extend into 2022, or at least until effective immunizations come along. We knew that.. right? If we truly think about this, we understand our risk doesn’t go away when some of these guidelines are lifted. We’re not miraculously immune. Jim and I are still 60-somethings, squarely a part of the at-risk population (we don’t believe this because we’re fit and in good health, of course). We know that when they lift guidelines, it won’t apply to us; we will be told to continue wearing masks in public and not to be a part of any crowd. It will suck big time. And nobody with a brain believes the president’s suggestion that “we are close, closer than anybody thinks,” and soon will have a beautiful rebound like nobody’s ever seen (no mention, of course, of the public health side of this equation because, for him, it’s all about the strength of the economy which, of course, is essential for his reelection). Anybody who listens to public health experts understands that we remain vulnerable until there is a vaccine, and that the overall impact on the public at large is lessened through some combo of testing (diagnostic and antibody) and effective treatments for those who get it, which could lessen the overall death rate. We understand there will need to be careful re-openings in targeted areas and that we may expand and relax the guidelines as the incidents go up and down, as measured by the capacity of the health care systems to handle it all. We all get that. He’s ignoring all that, of course, because he’s transactional and self-absorbed and can’t see beyond his self-interest and re-election. The ultimate me-president
• My back hurts from all the sitting

But.. what’s got me up?

• Our hand sanitizer finally arrived, ArtNaturals (62.5% alcohol) (soon to be followed by alcohol wipes and disposable plastic gloves.. preparing for the long haul)
• It was 80 degrees today
• I wore just a t-shirt (well, and leggings)
• At Jim’s suggestion, I turned off the heat and opened the doors and windows
• I sprawled out on the window bench (a first!) and (almost) read
• I smelled my first barbeque wafting through said open windows, complete with lighter fluid, a sure sign of spring 
• Peter got the tennis racquet we sent and is playing a lot of tennis with Ray.. AND we might get to talk with him tonight

So for tonight’s photo, I’m going to post a screen shot of something that really got my attention (and puts me in a good mood).. this was a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll share it now. It’s a screen shot of a University of Michigan webpage that officially lists Peter as a student (Jim came upon it while searching on the UM website to see if Peter had an official UM email address yet.. which he does:

Check out that title!