SOL13: Coronavirus Update, Part 3

It may be Friday the 13th, but I got lucky today.

            I got a call this afternoon from a former student, who lives just a couple of blocks away. She asked how I was doing, and then offered to shop for me if I wanted to maintain my “social distancing.”

            At first, I thought, that’s really sweet, but I don’t really need that. I went out to the farmers’ market yesterday, no problem, and shopping in my local grocery the day before. But then, I began to reconsider.

            Not only am I over 70, but I also have a condition that does put me at slightly higher risk, my pulmonologist told me. I feel okay, though I have a chronic sinus drip and sometimes have trouble sleeping so, yes, I do feel tired. Maybe I should forgo shopping and take up this friendly offer.

            I inventoried my freezer and found 15 meals there, plus in the pantry some cans of tuna and a lot of grains and dried beans. But I was about to run out of Ak-Makcrackers, which if you haven’t tried them, I strongly recommend. So I asked my student if she could get me a box. And she did, along with a box of vinyl gloves, which I had been hunting for and hadn’t found in local drugstores.

            Now I do feel equipped to sit out this pandemic, which I hope will be done sooner rather than later.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 13 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL12: Helping a Local Business During Coronavirus

Yesterday I listened to a program on public radio. It was 1A, and the host was interviewing businesspeople about how the pandemic is affecting their business and their employees.

            One of the interviews was with Emanuele Nigro, owner of a restaurant in Greenwich Village, called Osteria 57. Nigro made the obvious point that restaurant workers cannot work from home; he said the restaurant had started serving lunch and had created a special takeout menu.

            My pharmacy is very close to that restaurant, so since I had something to pick up at the pharmacy, I decided to try dinner at Osteria 57. I wondered whether it might be crowded, if others had heard that program and had the same idea I did. Fortunately for me, there was plenty of room.

            The food was delicious, a crusted branzino fillet with a pesto-coated salad, as well as delicious brussels sprouts. And I could not resist trying the “vegan souffle”: denser and more solid than the traditional mousse with eggs and cream, but chocolatey enough to fully satisfy.

            Plus—I tried to read in the low light, and the woman at the next table noted that was difficult, she’d tried it herself in the past. Then she asked what I was reading. I showed her the cover: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. (Look it up, it’s fascinating.) She was excited: “I’m a librarian,” she said.

            “My daughter’s a librarian,” I exclaimed. “Where are you a librarian?”

            “At an elementary school,” she said. “And where’s your daughter?”

            “At the Queens Public Library, Jackson Heights branch,” I said.

            We bonded over that. And she made a note of the book.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at TwoWriting Teachers. This is day 12 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL 11: At the Post Office

I went to the post office today to buy stamps (yes, I still use the postal service). I was trying to use my credit card in the machine without touching anything with my fingers. It wasn’t easy, and I said, “Nobody wants to touch anything.”

            The postal agent, a small, older African-American woman, said quietly, “Ever again?”

            “Well,” I said, “not until things get back to normal.”

            “When will that be?” she asked.

            “Maybe after the election?” I suggested.

            She laughed out loud.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 11 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL 10: Newspaper Comics

I haven’t seen newspaper comics in decades. But in my trip to San Diego last month, my hotel provided a free Sunday copy of the San Diego Times-Union, which included a four-page insert of many, many comics. There were old favorites (Peanuts, Hagar the Horrible, the Family Circus, Doonesbury, and who knew Mary Worth still existed), as well as strips I’ve never heard of (Foxtrot, Pearls Before Swine, the Other Coast). It was fun to be reacquainted and acquainted. And they reminded me of online comics I’ve come to enjoy, xkcd first and foremost.

 

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 10 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL9: Workshop Updated

If you saw my post yesterday, you know I am a co-moderator of a workshop on women’s activism and gender rights in Eastern Europe. Our next speaker was scheduled for this coming Friday the 13th. I’m not (really) superstitious, but that should have given me pause.

            Our speaker was planning to come from Turkey, where she is doing field research. Last

night she e-mailed me to ask whether NYU was still accepting international visitors, because she had noticed that some U.S. institutions were canceling events with international people. Today I checked with the NYU center, where our workshop is hosted, and at first the communications the Center had received were inconclusive; it was “recommended” that such events be postponed or canceled, but the school was still open. But my contact at the center was not confident that this was the final call, especially since Columbia University and Barnard College (in the neighborhood where I live) had announced they were closing their campuses for Monday and Tuesday and would re-evaluate after that. So perhaps NYU would also close, especially since its spring break is next week.

            I decided to let our speaker decide whether it was worth it for her to come all the way to the States on the off-chance that perhaps NYU would be closed when she arrived.

            Later this afternoon, however, NYU sent out a new announcement. Now all non-essential events are requested to postpone or cancel, and all classes are to be held remotely from Wednesday on. (NYU also has its spring break next week.)

            So I had to inform our speaker that her presentation was canceled. Perhaps she can be rescheduled in the future, but we’re full up this spring, and who knows whether we’ll be able to hold our April and May workshops. Stay tuned...

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 9 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL8: Web Housekeeping

I’m a cofounder of a workshop on women’s activism and gender rights in Eastern Europe. We started this workshop more than 25 years ago, meeting monthly during the academic year, and started a blob/website almost 10 years ago. The moderators are supposed to keep the list of speakers up-to-date, but we all have a lot of responsibilities, and recently I noticed that we were almost five years behind.

            So today, I took on the task of updating. As you know on your own blogs, if you want to do anything more than plain text, it can get very complicated. Like, how do you not have what looks like double-spacing between lines in a list? (Use a manual line break, not the Enter key at the end of the line. It took me a while to learn that, and then to remember.) Or, in a Wordpress blog, how do you make the type not look tiny on a browser or on your phone? (It’s counterintuitive. Use Heading 5, while looks bold on your screen, but at least is a reasonable size for reading.)

            I had most of the information, but it was in different formats for different years. It took over an hour to properly format so names, affiliations, and talk topic were all consistent, but I got it done. It’s not perfect, there’s still missing information from the early years, but it’s mostly presentable. And if you’re interested, here is the link: https://gendertransformationeurope.wordpress.com/previous-speakers/

 

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SOL7: Open Mic

Tonight I went to an open mic. There were three featured readers, and maybe half a dozen “open mic” readers, of whom I was one. It was in a new place for this group, called Open Expression in Harlem, a small bar with space in a corner for music (which was going to start after we were done at 9 p.m.), booths, and a few tables. When we started, there were people at the bar who were not part of our group, and they continued talking to each other as though we were background music. But as time went on, some of the talkers left and others quieted down—and we had a real mike, which we hadn’t had in our last venue.

            Here’s what I read:

What’s in a Name?

            I must have called her by the wrong name. She looked just like Linda at my old school, but in the new school she was Joyce. I almost never call people by their name because their faces shoot poison arrows when I get it wrong. There were always at least two Lindas and Nancys and Joyces in every school I went to. If I didn’t have a name, no one could forget it or remember it. They often spell my name wrong, with a “y” or a “j” instead of an “i.” I never met anyone with my name until I was 30 years old. That was exciting, like proof that I existed. A friend’s daughter was always one of two or three Sarahs in her class. When she went to college, she decided to change it. She polled everyone she knew on nicknames and settled on Sadie, a name common among my grandparents. How does it feel to have a common name? When I first went to eastern Europe, there were three other Sonias at the conference, with the “i” and with the “j,” even a Sanya. I had slipped into a slot that fit exactly. My name had become a tribe. My daughter’s name, Christie, can be spelled at least six different ways, and it’s not short for anything. She hates to see it spelled wrong, as though she is someone else. A name has power, but to be nameless is freeing. A name ties you to one meaning, an anchor to safety, but also a weight to drag you down.

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SOL6: Subway Civility and Incivility

I’m 77, and probably beginning to look it. This evening the number 1 train was delayed—some problem I know nothing about. The sign for the next train said 12 minutes, and the second train was simply “Delay.” Fortunately, I had a bench seat and could wait comfortably.

            After several minutes, a train pulled into the station beeping loudly (this means it is not going to stop, but not everyone knows that) and continued through, without of course stopping. After several more minutes, another train came in. This one stopped, but so many people were already on the train and so many were waiting, and pushing to get on, that I decided to wait for the next one. Others appeared to agree with me.

            More minutes passed. Another train, this one totally empty, came through without stopping.

            Finally, a train came and stopped. About 10 people exited the door I was planning to enter, and as I got on, I saw two young women taking the closest seats. In fact, a largish group of young women were getting on at this door. Since it was clear I wasn’t going to get a seat, I tried to keep my back against the door as it closed, then opened as more people pushed on, closed, opened again, closed, opened, closed. (I was also trying not to touch the pole or any other surface, coronavirus, you know.)

            At this point, one of the young women noticed me trying to lean against the door, and motioned to her friend, one of the women who had taken a seat, to offer me hers. Did I want to sit? Damned right I did.

            Now this seat was one in from the end of the row. Sitting at the end of the row was a man reading his iPad. The car was very crowded. It was hard for me to get past the standees as well as past the legs of this man, who seemed oblivious to what was going on around in. I said, “Excuse me,” once or twice as I tried to get past him without stepping on his feet to get to the now vacated seat. Finally, I made it.

            I know that end of row seats are coveted. But if he had chosen to move over to the vacated seat, I wouldn’t have had to drag my bag over his iPad or push past so many people. If he had been a woman, would she have moved over to make it easier for me to sit? I will try to be more aware of these situations when I am near an empty seat on the subway myself, and be a more civil rider. And huge thank you to the young women who noticed me and gave up her seat. 

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 6 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL5: Catch-up! Another Movie Review

Beanpole is a contemporary Russian movie set in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the months after World War II. The main characters are two women, one with a small child, who work as nurses in a hospital caring mostly for wounded soldiers. But while most war movies focus on fighting and men, this film focuses on women, some of whom were also among the fighting, but even in this city were a symbolic resistance to the enemy. (Leningrad, if you don’t know, was besieged by the German army for 900 days, from September 1941 until January 1944.)

            The child dies, and Masha, the child’s mother holds her friend, Iya aka Beanpole (because she is so tall and so thin), responsible, and thus responsible for helping her get another child. The lengths Masha is willing to go through, and to force her friend, are extreme, but the experiences she and everyone else have gone through during the war were also extreme and

may have damaged them all psychologically as well as physically.

            The film was especially interesting to me as the week before, the speaker at the workshop on women and Eastern Europe that I co-moderate presented a talk about Russian women’s attitudes toward sex, particularly Russian immigrants in Germany. The characters of Beanpole were from what our speaker characterized as “the silent generation,” who held traditional views about gender roles, believed in equality in public but accepted inequality in their private lives, were generally pro-natal with abortion being their only contraceptive, and didn’t discuss sex openly so women particularly were kept ignorant of sex. This did help me understand the film.

            Despite the grim story and setting, the cinematography is beautiful and the performances magnificent, especially since the two leads are first-time actors.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 5 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL4: Skip, or Catch-up?

Yesterday was too busy a day, even though I had some time in the morning, but because I feel tied to the idea that a “slice of life” has to be a slice of TODAY’S life, I didn't post then. So here’s what happened yesterday.

            There was a movie I wanted to see, “Beanpole,” a Russian film that was the topic for a movie discussion group I missed while on vacation. So that was my first activity of the day. More about movie later. Next, I had to eat lunch. Third, the gym. By the time I was done there, it was almost time to meet my women’s group, but fourth, a stop at the bank.

            Then, women’s group at a restaurant, where we discussed politics, travel plans, and then our topic of the month, which was continuing through a series of life assessment questions that one of our members uses with her undergraduate class on Biography. This evening’s questions included “What is your biggest regret?” “What would your friends say is your best trait?” and “What would you say is your worst trait?”

            The three women who were divorced all said their biggest regret was marrying the man they later divorced. My biggest regret: leaving my second Antioch College co-op job in L.A. (if you don’t know, this school alternated three months of school on campus with three months of a job anywhere in the country; the college was resurrected nine years ago after being killed off five years before that); it was fall 1961, I was barely 19, there were only two other Antioch students in jobs in the Los Angeles area, and I knew no one else. If only I had recognized my fear and loneliness as severe homesickness instead of an incipient nervous breakdown. Fortunately, I made it back to Antioch that winter, and two more jobs in the spring and summer of 1962.

            Once home from the women’s group, I had another project to work on for a workshop on women in Eastern Europe I’ve been co-moderating for almost 30 years. It wasn’t until almost 11:30 that I realized I hadn’t sliced yet. And there was so much I could have offered.

            And about the movie? I’m going to slice twice today, and hope that is not cheating.

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 5 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL3: Coronavirus Update

I live in a co-op building with about 100 apartments in New York City. Today we all received two pages of “suggestions” for avoiding or transmitting the coronavirus. These include wiping elevator buttons after pressing them, but also to use hand sanitizer when you’ve been in locations with other people (like walking down the street in this city? getting on a bus or the subway? going into any store?), preferably before you come back into the building. And there are already containers with disinfectant wipes by each of the elevators.

            The suggestions also include stocking up on disposable surgical masks. Now, I have heard multiple health officials on the radio say NOT to do this because they should be reserved for medical and health personnel who will be in contact with sick people. If “civilians” buy up these masks, they won’t be available to those who really need them.

            The New England Journal of Medicine says that the death rate from this coronavirus is somewhere between 1.4% and 1%, while for the flu it’s about a tenth of that. It is pretty low, but more dangerous for older people and those with other health problems, like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Somehow, this list of 11 “suggestions” in bold-face type feels less helpful to me. Am I being too sanguine?

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL2: Movie Review

This evening I saw “Once Were Brothers,” a documentary about Robbie Robertson and the Band, with the emphasis on “Robbie Robertson.” You might have to be of a certain age to remember the Band, known partly as Bob Dylan’s band in the late 1960s, but they were a great folk or country rock band of that decade and into the 1970s. The original group of Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manual, and Garth Hudson last performed in 1976, celebrated in the film “The Last Waltz.”

            This movie is about two-thirds Robertson narrating his version of the Band’s formation, and almost nothing about what the rest of the Band members did after the group broke up. There’s quite a lot about how everyone but Robertson got involved with drugs, but nothing about how the Band continued to perform without Robertson in the ’80s and ’90s, or how Helm fostered a music scene in Woodstock, New York, where all the Band members had gotten houses in the ’60s, until he developed throat cancer in 1998. (Woodstock was the location for the big pink house that gave the group’s first album, “Music from the Big Pink,” its name. An old friend of mine bought Helm’s house in the late 1970s; throughout that house were huge numbers of electrical outlets in the basement and the second floor, where the Band rehearsed, but very few in the living spaces on the first floor.)

            As a documentary about the Band, the film is profoundly unbalanced. But the music, the music, the music almost redeems all. If you are a fan of the Band, wait until it hits Netflix, and for good measure, watch or rewatch “The Last Waltz.”

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL 1: Time to Get a 21st Century TV

Last night I turned on my television, and while there was audio, there was no video. This photo doesn’t really show what I see, which is gray and white stripes across the screen. (Why is it so hard to photograph a TV screen?) I’ve had this TV for more than 20 years, and it is the old-style, picture-tube type.

            Now I’ve been thinking for years about getting a flat-screen TV, but even a relatively small 32-inch would require a new table, which means I need to find someplace to put the cable box and DVD player, as well as the device that also plays VHS tapes, which I still have quite a few of. Not to mention all those vinyl records. So I’ve put it off and put it off and put it off.

            When I couldn’t get any video, I of course called my cable provider right away. (We’ve always had cable because our apartment building is in a poor reception area.) After rebooting the cable box, the agent I spoke with said I needed a tech to come look at my system—and I was able to get an appointment this afternoon.

            The tech actually arrived at the beginning of my appointment window (amazing!) and unplugged the cable from the TV. The screen remained the same—which told the tech that the problem is in my TV, which means it must be replaced. I can no longer put this action off. I have to get a new TV. Stay tuned...

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I’m participating in the 13th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOLTuesday: Another Busy Day, Back Home

            So much has happened today, since I came home last night at 1 a.m. It hasn't even been 24 hours, but here are my accomplishments:

• unpacked,

• sorted through worn clothes from the suitcase,

• had breakfast,

• started the laundry in my building’s basement,

• forgot that I’d intended to go to the gym first,

• forgot to pay for the clothes in the dryer,

• learned some gossip about the vacant apartment next door to me,

• had a long conversation with my brother about some of his family dysfunction,

• had a conversation with my daughter about her fall a couple of days ago (she’s okay),

• gone shopping for lunch and ingredients for dinner tonight,

• called a friend visiting from California about getting together,

• went to the gym,

• came home,

• made soup with leftover chicken carcass from the freezer and spelt,

• now watching the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate.

            I still have to sort through two weeks’ worth of mail (I’ve already tossed a large flyer for cosmetic dentistry) and go through the travel receipts to see how big my next credit card bill will be. That’s a good job for the debate to go on in the background.

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SOLTuesday: A Busy, Busy Day in San Diego

            In my first full day here, after four days in Los Angeles and a train ride yesterday down the coast, I had a lot to do.

            First, laundry. I am staying at a Shell Vacations Club location, which means each guest room is a tiny apartment, with full kitchen, and a laundry room in the basement. So I could do my laundry just as if I were at home and not wait for the usual “next-day service” of a hotel.

            Next, I had to get a senior public transit card. This trip I haven’t rented a car, hoping to do a lot of walking, and buses when necessary. When I was in L.A., I thought I had purchased a reduced-fare card at a machine, but it still charged me the full adult fare on subsequent rides, so I decided I had to buy my reduced-fare card from a human being, showing whatever ID was needed. But how to get to that person?

            One of the desk clerks gave me directions, by bus and trolley, to the Transit Center, which didn’t take too long. Once there, I went back and forth with the clerk about what would be the best method, since reduced-fare cards were available only as a one-day pass or a monthly pass. Since I’m here for a week, it made more sense to get the monthly pass ($25) rather than a one-day pass ($23), because each day I would have had to tell the bus driver that I was paying for a one-day pass and pay $3 in cash. With the monthly pass, I just hold the card against a special reader on the bus.

striped bass lunch

            Okay, now I had the card. Where next? I had to get to an Apple Store because the battery on my iPhone has been acting erratically for the past few days. But I also needed lunch, since it was after 2 p.m. So I took the trolley and bus back to the neighborhood where I’m staying and where I’d had dinner with an old friend the night before. This was at Cocina de Barrio, an upscale modern Mexican restaurant with Oaxacan specialities. Last night, I’d had the braised short ribs with traditional mole; today for lunch, I had the striped bass fillet with a mole amarillo. Both were delicious.

            Finally, on to Fashion Valley Mall and the Apple Store. I only waited a few minutes to see a techie, and indeed, I did need a new battery. Replacement only took 40 minutes, time enough for me to visit a nearby Banana Republic and buy two long-sleeved sweaters, since the weather has been cooler that I had packed for.

            Back at my hotel, I’ve missed the wine and cheese on the rooftop lounge, but next Sunday, my last full day, there will be nachos and margaritas up there. I won’t miss that.

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It’s Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and enthusiastic writing community and their slices of life every Tuesday. And add one of your own.