Susan's Scribblings the Blog

I wouldn’t say I was a conscientious cleaner, but we have all discovered how much cleaning we need to do now that we are spending so much time at home. Within a week, I’ve run out of wipes, and I’m sure the stores are out of them, too. Fortunately the wipes for the furniture can still be handled with the original cleaner I have in the cans which I forsook when I discovered the wipes.

We are fickle enough to go for the next big thing, but the old standbys are always there when we need them.

Yesterday I decluttered part of my bedroom, but my efforts have caused a new problem, because it involved shredding and our trash crew won’t take shredded paper. I used to be able to take it to the office and combine it with what I shredded there, but it looks like I may not see my actual office until maybe after Memorial Day.

The waste management crew are fickle, too, so the shredding will remain in a designated spot, unwanted by all. I also discovered that the waste collectors favor some homes over others, as I watched them bowl recycle buckets into the gutters for all houses except one, for which they returned them to the curb. Yup, they’re fickle.

This past week I tried some new foods in the kitchen: lo mein and quinoa. They both went over well, but since I only got one of each, we won’t see them again until there is more room in the pantry.

The african violet I brought home from the office became too top heavy and keeled over, and I discovered I don’t have any potting soil, so sometime this coming week I’ll discover the joys of curbside pickup at the local hardware store for one bag of potting soil.

At least the plant will be happy.

My hair is growing out like everybody else’s. Stylists are advising against home jobs because nobody will be around to fix mistakes. However, Bob Ross, the late painter of happy landscapes and teacher for the beginning artist, always talked about happy accidents, so maybe a color error will become the new trend once we’re out and about again. One thing I won’t do is cut or color my hair. I’m fickle, and am embracing the hair for my age the way it is.

I don’t know about some parts of the country, but our local networks have been giving regular reports on hospital admissions, deaths and other statistics, and networks like ABC have a daily program about the pandemic. While I’m working from home and trying to iron out the fine lines between my work space and home space, figures coming from the television don’t penetrate the brain like the figures I report on during work. Concentrating on the immediate environment has become necessary, and it’s keeping me more grounded than any special reporting can.

It’s not being fickle: it’s about being pragmatic about where we are and what needs to be done, one item at a time.

We don’t need Earth Day this year to see what an effect our worldwide quarantine has been having on our planet. The web is crammed full of footage in which animals have ventured into our realm, visiting our empty suburban streets without fear. Waterways in Venice have cleared as never before in modern memory, because tourists aren’t polluting them. Nitrogen dioxide pollution has significantly decreased, as proven by satellite images. In New York City, CO2 emissions fell ten percent because of decreased vehicle traffic. Greenhouse gasses in general decrease when there are recessions.

Last year movie fans went to see Avengers: Endgame, which in hindsight appears to be spot on in predicting what is happening to us now. The movie picked up five years after half the world (and galactic) population was wiped out by a misguided megalomaniac with an agenda to “correct” the balance of the universe. A piece of good news shared among two of the remaining Avengers was that whales were returning to oceans they had abandoned decades ago, and overall the water was more pure.

The decrease in the active population has reduced the waste we discard voluntarily and involuntarily. By involuntary, we are talking about our hair and skin shedding into the open air, and voluntary speaks of the contemptuous way in which we handle our casual waste such as trash.

One afternoon a few years ago, I caught sight of a young woman who had just left a Wawa and purchased a large beverage in a disposable cup. She took a big swig and then dropped the cup and remaining drink on the pavement. The contempt was enough to make my eyes burn at the sight of it, not to mention the waste of money and the lawn having to absorb foreign matter and the trash crew who need to pick up after her.

During our lengthy stay at home, we will witness all our bad habits where we can’t hide it from anybody. Once freed, though, how likely are we to resume old habits?

It is our ignorance of the true world around us that led us to this catastrophe. Casual disregard for how we create, use and dispose of our containers; how we purchase, prepare and discard food; what we do with our overabundance of stuff which we feel is a testament to material wealth; all will lead us to a brighter or bleaker future. It depends upon us to think about what we’ve done before, and what we can change now.

I always wondered why we could not take our common-use plastics such as our Tide bottles back to the grocer and have the distributor pick them up and have them shipped back to the parent company–in this case, Proctor & Gamble–for cleansing and recycling.

Why can’t we go back to wearing dress or casual gloves?

Why can’t we design an edible container for our fast food?

Why is spitting in public spaces tolerated in America?

Why do people think they can leave a public space littered with their trash?

Why does everybody say “NIMBY*” but never stops to think that trash must be taken somewhere?

Why do we have products we can’t destroy or recycle?

We made such a simple transition from glass and aluminum to plastics and foam. Why can’t we just go back to what worked before?

We can return to our lives, and the whales may still come back. If we do it right.

Workplaces are shuttered, so over the past couple of weeks workers have been sent home to either work from there or count the days until we can return to the daily grind. I am one of the former.

Our building was supporting some people who were trying to stay in the office until restrictions forced them out. Not everybody could get decent Internet at home, especially when they are out in the far reaches of signal strength.  They’re struggling to catch up, hoping that modern equipment will enable them to connect.

I will find out on Monday if I can get a better hookup. My broadband is serving, but a permanent solution may come by then. It will involve a heftier monthly bill and a couple of hours of installment time, but it may be worth it in the end to be able to just take my work computer home and relax once in awhile.

I prefer during blizzards, though, not a life-threatening virus.

Many people are having to adjust to working from home. They have family and pets who may not fully understand how to give some personal space. Also, being home brings distractions like the laundry you’re used to doing on evenings and weekends but now beckons from the full basket and demands you spend your break time pre-treating spots.

There has been an increase in shift and top orders online due to working from home. It would be interesting to have a video conference call in which everybody is asked to stand up: they’re probably all in their underwear. It worked for Tom Cruise once, but most of us should still wear pants.

I don’t have casual bum-at-home clothes, including jeans or leggings, and don’t plan to look at any or stock up right now. That may sound strange, but I was never in the habit of coming home and assuming a new outfit. There will be late spring to go to an actual store and get to see and touch and try on things, and be around people without protective gear. Besides, ordering clothes online is tricky, and when they don’t fit, you can’t just return them at a store.

Meanwhile, I have gained back some time in my life not spent driving to work anymore. What I did do today was get my car’s maintenance work done. The place was quiet without an open sales floor, but once the building was open for the secretary I was able to sit in the showroom with her while waiting for guys in gloves to work on my car in the back. I guess staying at home will enable some things to get done that won’t involve getting time off from the office, but that bothers me a bit. I think I’ll wait until we’re back to work and use vacation time to summon the repairmen for spring cleaning.

I want to devote my work time to being on the clock. Just like the one in the office, which I may not see for a few more weeks.

Human isolation doesn’t sit well with most people. Even though social connections have often meant the fall of entire civilizations, we want to be close to somebody else. Now that we are in the new age of pandemic contagion with the COVID-19 virus, this is the first widespread disease in which we can exercise isolation as the primary preventative measure. In the days of Spanish flu and plague, sanitary practices were unheard of, and it was the man considered the Father of Hand-washing, Ignaz Semmelweis, who introduced us to hygiene as we know it. He found that midwives and doctors who washed their hands before assisting in delivery lessened deaths from puerperal (childbed) fever to about one percent of cases.

Of course, since his ideas were well ahead of their time, he was vilified and died in an institution in 1865 at the age of 47, after suffering a nervous breakdown and a hand infection possibly brought on by a beating by guards at the facility. Imagine: people thought it was not necessary to wash their hands after using the restroom back then, they witnessed a person dying from infection, and still didn’t get it. We still see ignorant people leave the bathroom without washing today, but our overall health keeps most infections at bay.

But back to social distancing. Many people are upset by the idea of not being with others. Sometimes one’s own family is a burden enough when having to spend extended time with each other. Topics are flooding social media about how to alleviate boredom, and I get to laugh at them.

You see, I have been subject to social distancing for years. I’m part of a population which is subjected to unexplained or ignorant rejection, because it’s always easier to walk away from a problem than it is to tackle and solve it. Meanwhile, the problem grows and doesn’t go away. That may be why solitary confinement doesn’t work well in the prison population; if your only contact with people is with those who want to shut you away, how does that teach anything but how to be alone?

In this case, being used to hours alone is helpful. As a child the teachers would sometimes sit me out in the hall, where my acute hearing kept me able to listen, but all the annoyance around me from the inside was left there. Sometimes it was a blessing to be separated from the bullies and ignorami.

Over decades I’ve been in offices where I had no window (14 years in a sub-level office, then a few in a cubicle in which I had to leave it to view the outside), and today I have a space where co-workers are on the other side of a high wall, but I have several windows and sun, and some privacy. Patience in this case pays.

Ever notice that cubicle setups often have people facing into a corner? All those time-outs as children must’ve prepared us for this scenario.

I can work independently for long stretches, and in the car or at home I can relax with no sound at all, almost as if I am in a living version of the movie A Quiet Place, but without the overly sensitive-eared killer aliens.

This period of isolation will pass, in weeks or so. I’m sure people will bust out with joy when it’s over, the bars will overflow and the malls may even see some shoppers again.

I’ll sit in my chair and be grateful to take my time getting back out there. After all, I have been prepared for this all my life.

On Friday the Thirteenth of March, of all days, the president announced that the United States was in a state of national emergency. A virus originating in China had spread by international travel contact throughout the world, causing multiplying cases and many deaths. At its origin point, China built makeshift hospitals to handle the influx of infected individuals. Right now their cases have plummeted to the point at which the “tempspitals” have been dismantled now.

Italy has been hardest hit, but their people are resilient and grateful for the medical staff and cleaning crews working around the clock to contain the spread. In Australia, actor Tom Hanks and his wife contracted the virus and are recuperating in place.

My office work involves 24 hour phone centers, so unless the contagion reaches our space, I and my co-workers will either come into work, go to another branch or work remotely from home. Such options were not available before. But then, a national shutdown of this kind was not considered before.

Our grocery stores are out of toilet paper, because when there is a disease going around, everybody overuses toilet paper beyond normal expectations. I also read about supply hoarders who have stocked up on hand sanitizers or bleach infused single use wipes, hoping to buy their next Cadillac with their overinflated profits. Never heard about anybody enjoying the fruits of that adventure, though.

Oh, and the meat counters are all out of fresh beef and poultry, because when people have to stay home, they want to grill. That was fine for me, because I bought the pre-cooked chicken and popped them in the freezer. Those were not out of stock. The demand for water went up also, because whenever a threat comes along, the first thing people think about, after toilet paper, is water. Since we’re polluting the oceans and rivers, bottled is a must.

So it looks like a couple of weeks of restrictions and closures of a kind we normally see only during major snowstorms or other extreme weather events. But we will get over this as with anything else.

And then the shelves can be restocked with toilet paper.

Capital punishment is an eternally debatable topic and polarizing for most people. Either one feels that a person who takes life should forfeit his own, or that such “eye for an eye” justice is wrong.

The most recent case was that of Nathaniel Woods, an Alabama man executed on March 5 for being an accomplice to the shooting deaths of police officers. He and his roommate, Kerry Spencer, encountered three officers who came to break up a cocaine dealing ring fronted by Woods, Spencer and a third man who claimed to have avoided the location after it become difficult to keep police from conducting searches to bust the operation (he claims he paid protection money but the price had increased out of his range).

In testimony, Spencer admitted to being the sole shooter, but he remains on death row. Alabama law allows for accomplices to be executed, but it is unclear if any order of atonement is in place. So Woods went to his death first, having done nothing to cause the deaths of the officers (in that he performed no harmful act such as shooting them as Spencer did), and Spencer is still serving time.

My initial comments on this issue started quite a lengthy thread on Facebook, most because people began standing on soapboxes about the law rather than addressing the question I posed, which was why the accomplice was executed first.

We can’t seem to agree on what to do about people with no regard for human life, but we also seem to get many aspects of human reformation wrong. So what to do about accomplices versus those who actually commit acts against humanity?

In the past year, two Lutheran churches have shut down in my area, and both of them were within miles of each other on the same street. That may hint that there are fewer Lutherans in the world, or fewer church-goers (except at Easter and Christmas). When faith is tested, some people just bail.

What really got to me was a small business which was torn down recently, because I used to work there. That was over 30 years ago.

On a lot next to a boxy brick apartment building, two businesses were once thriving. One was a computer repair facility, and the other was a house which belonged to a doctor and his wife, who did clerical services. I worked for her briefly before finding my dream job.

The computer repair place had been vacant for years, but when I saw the signage for a well-known demolition firm covering the shingle for the doctor/typist building, I felt a pang. With the small repurposed house reduced to salvage fodder under a wrecking ball, a piece of my past was broken down as well.

Nobody seems to like old buildings, unless they can serve as tourist attractions or historical bastions. Many don’t fall easily to implosion, which says a lot when so many new construction buildings seem to crumble at the slightest gust of wind.

The plot of ground is level now, and ready for something new. I just hope whatever they build can withstand time, however it passes.

Drinking can be hazardous, and I’m not talking about alcohol. The vessels we use to keep liquid nourishment handy can sometimes pose problems. BPA (bisphenol A) is the most feared chemical common in plastic bottles, so I tried going with stainless steel.

That was a mistake. Within 48 hours of putting tea into a stainless container, I was experiencing a constant metallic taste in my mouth, and awoke with what I am assuming is bleeding gums. Never a good thing.

Being a scientific minded person, I went a day with my plastic bottles instead, and had no metal taste or bleeding. That seems to cinch it. My new stainless bottle is to blame.

There can’t be a group to monitor everything that is made for sale today, but one would expect some oversight to catch these types of things. I have contacted the company from which I bought the item and am waiting for a response.

Now, about that handbag I ordered from China, in light of the coronavirus outbreak, I checked with the CDC and learned that my risk of contracting anything from a product is nearly non-existent because the virus would only live for hours in transit.

That’s reassuring, but it makes you wonder why we should have to worry about products making us sick, in addition to what happens to them once they are condemned to the trash. We seem to be swimming in uncertain pools of unknown glop which may kill us all or, at least, affect our future offspring.

We should probably just go for really big paper cups and burlap handbags.

I have a betta fish at the office who hates me. He certainly is not the first hater in society whom I’ve encountered, and in terms of a significant threat he is none. However, what causes any being to like or dislike is mysterious. This fish has been in three different aquariums, gotten tons of fresh water, a suitable environment and lots of attention, yet he swims away from me whenever I approach, or hides inside his underwater log and stares at me as if I scare the scales off of him. He has even taken to playing dead.

The other fish in our department has a Napoleon the Piranha complex and engages anything holding food between their fingers. He interacts with anybody, including me.

It is pretty disheartening to the ego when a fish dislikes you for no reason. It didn’t start out that way. In fact, he was all for me in the pet store, never taking his eyes off me. That’s why I brought him back to the office and set him up in style. He has what is touted as the most quiet filter for a betta tank, fresh plastic plants, nice lighting and a full view of office life, with two squares a day. Granted, my corner is not the busiest, but he has plenty of visitors, and a co-worker takes her Sundays during lulls in the day and cleans both tanks.

Of course, she is more attractive than me, so maybe my betta is looks-shaming me.

I feed him recommended food, and throw in occasional blood worm treats. He doesn’t care. The minute he sees me, he zooms into a corner and hides.

He needn’t worry: I will continue to provide for him for life. Afterward, however, I think I will go into terrariums.

I’m addicted to Temponaut time lapse videos. Initially I intended to look at relaxation videos as part of my resolution to be mindful and find relaxing outlets for myself. Watching flowers grow seemed like a good idea, so I tuned in to the collection of footage offered by Temponaut.

The first video I saw was of passion flowers blooming, with bursts of floral birth and waving tendrils in mid-air (and finally saved from fruitless gesturing by the appearance of a plant stake onto which it gratefully attached).

From there my viewing has gone on to scenic night skies and of decomposition. It can be just as exciting to watch stars go by than to view a group of bananas going bad over the course of 108 days. You can actually see the green bananas ripen and yellow to perfection just before they start to deflate, blacken and grow mold.

Then there were the water beads which grew and expanded, and the burger war pitting an organic sandwich against a fast food version. Let’s put it this way: if you want to be embalmed, keep eating those drive-through burgers, because the ones in the video hardly broke down, while the “better for you” one became black and fuzzy.

Nothing like a time lapse video to remind you of what is bad for you.

The whole idea of relaxation is fine if you can find the time, which is why time lapse videos are so convenient, in that they provide days of mindful watching into a few minutes. These videos, combined with an increase in exercise, should help me adjust my life into something a bit more comfortable and healthy.

That, and knowing how long food lasts when left out.