GOT THE TIME?

GOT THE TIME?

“Time flies when you’re having fun.” Recently, I have discovered that time flies when you’re not having that much fun.  However, I guess fun is something like, “One man’s junk, is another mans treasure.” It’s what you make of it. No matter how much time we have on our hands, or how much soap we use, or how hard we scrub, it’s impossible to wash time off.

So, what does my day look like in these wear-a-mask-stay-at-home- COVID-19-keep- away-from-people days? I wake up with the birds, pull up the shade and check on the 5:30 a.m. construction crew across the street. Yep, they’re there alright.

Then, I grab a quick cup of coffee, put on my hiking boots, and meet a friend for our 6 a.m. morning walk on the paths around our community. If we are lucky, we will run into some of the wildlife such as deer, javelina, or an occasional rabbit.  If not, we will surely meet some sleepy neighbors being dragged around by their cute little pups.  My joy is that I can pet them (the dogs not the neighbors) and send them on their way without scooping poop.

When the walk is concluded at 7:30 a.m. I ring the bell at the main entrance. The concierge buzzes me in, and hits me on the head with a thermometer. She assures me that I have passed the test, and then I pump some Purell from the disinfecting machine before punching the elevator button with my elbow. I wipe my elbow, enter the apartment and remove my hiking shoes. Now what?  I look for my slippers, which I have misplaced. Misplacing is my new hobby.

By this time, my computer is calling me, but friends phoning from the East Coast take precedence. Sometimes, that 3-hour time difference is a blessing, and  Yes!  Some of my friends still know how to use a telephone. After chatting and checking my e-mails, it’s already 10 a.m. Time for the exercise lady on my television set.  So, I jump around a bit with her. She is waving her arms and kicking her legs in her living room, and she is always cheerful. My favorite part is when her shaggy dog wanders into the room and puts his nose on the camera.

Exercise is over, and I have worked up an appetite for lunch, as well as my morning newspaper. Today, I discover that 1/2 of a hummingbird’s weight is in sugar. That explains a lot, with all of the cookies I have been eating. There must be a hummingbird in my ancestry. I have learned one new thing today. That is enough!

Lunch is over. I look outside to see how much the construction crew has accomplished. The mail has arrived. I put on my mask and ride the elevator back down to the mailroom, take my mail out of my assigned box, take it upstairs and throw it away.  Now it’s time to turn on the Television News. Now it’s time to turn off Television news! Time for soft music instead. However, now my TV remote isn’t working, because I tried to change channels with my  telephone.

Okay, now I have soft music and a website story to write, but first I have to start the laundry, empty the dishwasher, and trim my bangs. Now, it’s time to start writing the story. Hooray!  My son and daughter-in-law are calling me from Fairfax, Virginia. Time for Face Time!  We chat and laugh. After I hang up, the doorbell rings. Dinner has been dropped at my front door.
Dr. Zhivago is on my TV. He is the one from Russia not the CDC. Well, that’s 3 hours of fun for me. However, poor Dr. Zhivago had no fun at all.

I guess my website story will have to wait. After all, as Scarlett, O’Hara would say, “Tomorrow is another day.”

Esther Blumenfeld

LIGHTS OUT

Black-out shades have been installed in my bedrooms, and I am thrilled that the fancy lights hanging in the trees, shining up into my apartment, will no longer keep me awake at night.

My son and daughter-in-law have a beautiful forest, that acts like a backyard, at their home in Virginia. As far as I know, none of these majestic trees are growing lights. Even Architectural Digest Magazine has denounced the practice of lit-up trees. They go so far as to say that lighting your trees won’t boost the sale of your house, and I might add that nocturnal animals don’t like their sleep disturbed anymore than I do.

Darkening my room solved the problem, but there are many people who have trouble sleeping.
An article by Erica Pearson in the Minneapolis Star Tribune deals with, “Ways To Help You Sleep.” Since I was a little girl, I have always been aware of “The Power Nap.” My Father often had evening meetings, so he would take a lie-down everyday for about 20 minutes.Then he’d come out for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, and resume his busy schedule. For a  long time, I enjoyed the coffee and cake part, but only recently, I, too, sometimes take a little snooze in the afternoon, so I can stay up until 10 p.m. like the big kids do.

According to the article, in some businesses  power napping  has become an amenity on the job in order to”boost productivity.” I’m not sure I’d enjoy going to an  office and having to wake everybody up. However, I have been doing this in department stores for years. Lots of those clerks resent my being there in the first place. As a matter of fact, I have often gone into a store, looked around, and shouted, “Is anyone here?” only to listen to the echo of my own voice. No one ever told me they were napping to “boost productivity.”

Dr. Michael Howard, a sleep medicine doctor says, “Humans are natural nappers.” He adds, “Napping takes practice.” I guess it’s like playing the piano. I tried to play the piano, and my Mother used to say, “Esther, haven’t you practiced enough?” Only after three teachers did they find out it was me. So how does someone practice napping?  Closing your eyes is a good start.

Meditation is also recommended. A person should practice breathing. In the article it says that, “Breathing is very important if you want to get to the next step.”  I would add that  breathing is also very important if you ever want to wake up. This is also called, “mindfulness.”

The next step is to take inventory of your body parts. I really don’t understand this, but I do know that if they are all there I would sleep better.

The next suggestion is that you focus on something such as a spider crawling up your window. This leads to the final step, “Show compassion, and loving kindness.” Killing the spider does not accomplish that step.

Sarah Moe, a sleep healing specialist suggests, “ Say, three things aloud that you want to accomplish tomorrow as well as three things that you are grateful for.” This should help you sleep. For instance:

I want to remember where I parked the car.
I want to go to my accountant and have him tell me that I don’t owe the government any money.
I want my umbrella to open when it rains tomorrow.



Gratitude:

I am grateful that I am in bed and not outside in the rain, since my umbrella won’t open.
I am grateful that my accountant isn’t in jail anymore.
I am grateful that my son parked my car for me—even though he forgot to tell me where it is parked.

So now, some of your worries should be relieved, and the gratitude should have relaxed you. At the end of the article  it says that if you still can’t fall asleep,“It’s okay to whisper.” I guess that means..Do not disturb anyone else.

Shh!

Esther Blumenfeld

WHO'S THAT MASKED MAN?

In his play, “Six Degrees of Separation,” John Guare tells us that everyone in the world, is, in some way, touched by everyone else, and all people are six social connections from each
other—- friend of a friend. Also, T.S. Elliott reminded us years ago, to, “Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”

However, in these COVID-19 days, since everyone is masked, we only have to prepare the upper half, and since my bangs are hanging over my eyebrows, a drop of artificial tears in each eye is the extent of my preparation.

Six degrees of separation has become literal rather that literary, and reading facial expressions is impossible. Pity the poor bank tellers, when a masked man, wearing rubber gloves, approaches them and mumbles something about money.

Granted, that in the good old days, sometimes it was really hard to communicate with some people, especially if what they were saying made no sense at all, but at least you could see if their lips were moving. Now, when the mask goes on, you have no idea if the other person is smiling, and half the time what they are saying is muffled, since they are whispering from six feet away. In that case it’s good to assume that you have missed nothing at all.

If this pandemic had happened in 1503, Leonardo da Vinci would have gone nuts! It took him 16 years, nearly until his death, to finally capture Mona Lisa’s smile. When you look at that smile, you ask yourself,”What is she thinking?” His model, Lisa del Giocondo was  probably thinking, “Hey, Leo, Why is it taking you so long?” But, that’s another story.

In 2020, we have to accept that “Losing Face” has taken on a whole new meaning. I guess for awhile now the eyes have it—-a friendly wink will have to suffice.  However, if you see someone’s eyes crossed, the mask might just be a modicum too tight. In that case, I advise, LOOSEN UP!  This too will pass.

Esther Blumenfeld

STAY AWAY

When you come right down to it, all of this social distancing isn’t really such a bad thing.  As a matter of fact, with a few folks, six feet away from me isn’t nearly far enough. For instance, a former neighbor, who, after downing several martinis, would always say to me, “You never let me hug you,” and I would always reply to him, “You are absolutely right.”
Usually, I like being with people, but New Yorking my way through a crowd is not my idea of fun, although recently, my elbow has become my new best friend.

I live in a senior residence and my neighbors and I have been asked to “shelter in place.” That means no leaving the premises other than for doctor appointments. Groceries are delivered, meals are ordered by phone and are left at apartment doors, and all activities have been transferred to our television screens. As a matter of fact, I just finished doing Yoga in my living room. This afternoon, I will watch a movie and tonight a Broadway musical. So what’s with the elbow?

Every morning I take the elevator to the main floor, so I can leave for my daily walk around the property. Three times around is about 2 miles. In order to push the elevator button, I use my elbow, and then I elbow swipe the door exit button. Then I  get some foam from the Purell machine, and wipe off my elbow. Exit means you can get out any door, but you can’t get back in since all codes have been disabled. There is only one main entrance where I yell into a microphone, “I am here.” Then I am let into the front  entrance, and someone from the concierge desk meets me, and hits me on the forehead with a thermometer. So far, I have not used my elbow in retaliation.

Outdoor walks are my salvation because the weather is nice, the property is beautiful, and I assume that my neighbors who shout at me from their balconies are shouting nice things. Occasionally, I meet another walking neighbor, and we kind of chat from a distance. At least I can get close enough to pet their dogs.

These days, my television set is my second best friend. Yesterday, I watched a cooking competition from England, and a documentary called “Bathtubs Over Broadway.” It’s about Industrial Musicals made for sales meetings in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. By the time I turned off the set, I could have flown to Washington, DC with a stop-over in Dallas.

It has been five weeks and three bottles of wine so far.  I am doing great! I am remaining positive and hopeful that soon brilliant minds out there (not in Washington, DC) will find a solution for this terrible pandemic. I have called everyone in my rolodex and most of them knew who I am. I pray that soon I will be able to stand a little closer to my friends, and that the airlines will be required to remove their middle seats.

Esther Blumenfeld

WHERE'S THE PONY?

A man saw a young boy shoveling manure. He said, “Boy! Why are you doing that?” The boy cheerfully answered, “There’s got to be a pony in there somewhere!”

Because of the Coronavirus, my son, Josh, and daughter-in-law, Barbara are working from home. They also had to cancel their plans for Barbara’s birthday celebration at The Inn in Little Washington. So, creatively, they took a “weekend vacation” in their own home. They moved across the house into the guest room, and their cat, Radar moved in with them. It was like a Bed and Breakfast except Radar was the only one with room service.

Notwithstanding the seriousness of COVID-19, there are still some positive outcomes, such as the reduction of pollution in major cities due to self isolation. According to CNN News, “environmental scientists are estimating that the improvement in air quality could save as many as 75,000 people from dying prematurely.” —-especially if they don’t drive anywhere.

Pollution is not a major problem in Tucson, Arizona where I live, but I am sure that fewer pedestrians are being run over since there are fewer cars on the sidewalks. Oh, Yes, the drivers in my town are very creative, and tourists are fair game, but obviously  auto fatalities are also way down.

Being in this situation together should lead to acts of kindness unless you are out of toilet paper. There was a photo of three women in Phoenix, Arizona smacking each other around, in a store, over a package of toilet paper. This was most inappropriate, because they weren’t following the CDC guidelines to stay 10-feet apart.

Even though gun stores have run out of merchandise all over the Country, people seem to be waiting to shoot each other until the emergency is over, but maybe that’s because gun shop owners are warning them that there will be no more ammunition available for at least six months. Unfortunately, manufacturers can’t meet the demand fast enough. Oh,Shoot!

In Italy, people are singing songs and playing music together from their balconies. As long as the wine holds out, they should be fine. After all, didn’t Nero fiddle while Rome burned. That’s the Italian way.

According to Johns Hopkins University, as of March 24, 2020, more than 100,000 people have already recovered from COVID-19, which is remarkable since few test kits are available, but who am I to question these positive statistics.

I am convinced that the American people will come out of this pandemic smarter, kinder and really, really ready to shop which will certainly improve our economy. In the meantime, I also suspect that 9 months from now the birthrate will go up, and if the Mamas and Papas are mindful people, they will have washed their hands before and after, even though they didn’t stay 10-feet apart.

Keep laughing, and stay well!

Esther Blumenfeld