The Price of Freedom

So I recently got a call from an old friend who happens to be a lifelong New York Mets fan.  I like the Mets too, but I’m one or those unicorns that also like the Yankees.  Generally speaking you’re either one of the other and the vast majority of Mets fans have contempt for the Yankees and vice-a-versa.  Personally, I could never understand why you wouldn’t want to double your chances of winning.   My friend thinks he can get tickets for the game that night.  He wants to know if I’m in.  It’s a beautiful day and like most, I whine internally that I’ve been caged for months like a wild covid animal, (poor me, right?) I “need” this.  To further justify my decision, I rationalize that both of us have just received our 2nd vaccination, we have no problem wearing masks, we’ll social distance and act responsibly.   I respond in the affirmative and begin dreaming of my escape from captivity.  I’ll be driving as my friend is on the way to Shea Stadium (I refuse to call it Citi Field).  We have dueling GPS systems and wind up driving through the Lincoln Tunnel crossing Manhattan at rush hour.  There’s a bit of angst, but it could have been a lot worse, we’re staying positive.  We arrive at the stadium and they have invoked a 25% max seating capacity at the stadium due to covid.  Basically we can park anywhere we want.  (Final attendance at the game was about 27 people) I was so giddy over our good fortune, I contemplated doing figure 8s in the parking lot.  We park the car, and during the short walk to the stadium entrance, we’re on a natural high as we soak up the beautiful weather and take in the exciting vibe of being at a stadium.  We’re thankful for the simple FREEDOM of just being able to get out, and do something non-virtual. 

Dark Clouds Approach – We get on a very short line that leads to people taking your temperature and checking your covid vaccination card.  As it turns out my friend and I are a couple of days away from the 14 day time span they require from your second vaccination.  They won’t let us in.  (Sadly I died, But I Lived! ~ Ice Age 3) We were instructed, if we still want to get into the stadium, we could walk over to a group of tents, pay $29.95 and get a rapid test, which is what we did.  Nice people in the tents, but it did seem like this was their first rodeo.  We needed to fill out an extensive form on our iPhones, without the use of reading glasses.  (I’m not sure, but it could be I signed away my liver – joke’s on them.)  We both finish our forms click submit and both are rejected.  It seems we missed the “scheduled” time slot for our test by 2 minutes, being that we spent 20 minutes getting help on the forms.  So we fill the forms out AGAIN.  Very nice girl tells us that this time it should go a lot quicker being that we all learned something.  I’m less than thrilled.

We now get our tests.  As I see the 18 inch Q-tip coming at me I close my eyes over concern that I’ll actually witness the depth of insertion and lose the use of my legs.  At one point I was pretty sure I felt the Q-tip scratching the top of my skull.

Test is done, now we wait 30 minutes for the results.  They cut us a break; it only took 29 minutes to get our negative results.  We emerge from the depths of the unwashed, walk back to the two knobs that rejected us and show them our clean bill of health.  We’re admitted to the front gate and anticipate our grand entry into the stadium.  I can almost hear the trumpets announcing us.  My friend shows the security gate people two pieces of printer paper that have a bar code on them.  The security people tell us, “We can’t accept these any more, go away.”  At this point I figured I’m being punked.  I’m expecting the crew from Candid Camera to coming walking out and we’ll all have a great laugh.  That didn’t happen.  After a commensurate amount of jawing, where we drove home the point that they wouldn’t be treating us this way if the Yankees were playing in the Bronx tonight, we were told to go to Window Three and see if someone can help.  

Big surprise, Window Three is closed.  Now I’m feeling like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where he’s left in the middle of a massive remote rental parking lot and there’s no car to be had.   In desperation we hijack another window that was closed but the guy behind the window forgot to turn off his light.  I caught his eye and wouldn’t let him go.  We ask the guy if these tickets come with free beer, which was a negative, but we did get our tickets to enter the stadium.

Long story short, after being summarily thrown out of the Metro Grill two seconds after we entered, the Game was fun.  It felt great to be in a stadium and pay $30 for a pair of beers.  We sat wherever we wanted, I could have eaten peanuts off the top of Lindor’s head.  And bonus - it wasn’t until the next day that I paid for my horrendously bad eating exhibition.

The Trip Home – We leave the parking lot as if we were the only people in the stadium, which wasn’t far from the truth.  We go over a bridge or two and our plan is to go over the George Washington Bridge to get back to Jersey.  We’re on the Cross Bronx Expressway when it comes to a complete stop.  Not crawling (that’ll come later), a complete stop.  Not what I need at 11PM on a school night.  After about 25 minutes, traffic begins to crawl and as we eventually approach the GW, I notice no cars are coming in the opposite direction.  (I’m wondering if I drove into a time warp and Chris Christie is still in office.)  By the time we got to the Jersey border, the police were letting the traffic go in the NYC bound direction.  It was like the mad rush when the whistle blows during the Polar Bear Plunge.

It’s now approaching midnight and I drop my friend off and head for home.  I’m on Route 24 going about 65 mph when I see a large deer (maybe a jersey moose) in the middle of the highway.  She’s to the left of me.  I slow down as much as I can and as the saying goes, the deer freezes in the headlights.  I take this to mean she’ll stand still and let me pass.  I’m very close and still cruising at a good clip when at the last second the deer decides that running into the side of my car is the best course of action.  I look in the rear view mirror and see her trotting off safely into woods.   On the other hand, I will be looking to enhance the revenue stream of our local auto body shop.

Never forget, Freedom has a Price!

BOGO, a Cautionary Tale

In my new covitine-fixed income situation I’m doing a yeoman’s job of working the weekly food sales circulars. I’ve become addicted to them (could be worse I suppose). Last week they had a brand of ice cream sandwich called “Fat Boy” on sale - BOGO! And nine to a box. They were very good and I went back twice.  No sense in taking a chance that the next shortage would be ice cream sandwiches.  And again, being that it’s BOGO, it’s almost like they’re paying me to take these exceptional ice cream sandwiches off their hands.  Bad as this sugar frenzy was, I doubled down.  After getting a tearless covid vaccine shot, I rewarded myself by purchasing a number of Ghirardelli chocolate bars.  In my defense they were BOGO too, and they were strategically placed right where I was waiting in line.  I interpreted it as sign from above.  Much like Moses’ response to Ramses question about why he’s trying to free the Hebrews in the movie, The Ten Commandments – “I Felt Compelled” to purchase an appropriate amount of chocolate products.  Or it could be that I’m weak, brow beaten by a sweet tooth and couldn’t help myself.  

Unfortunately, in my zeal to save a buck and find a reason to reward myself for doing the responsible thing, I miscalculated how my now atomic digestive track would respond to my gluttony.  After day three of this sugar fest, I can almost hear the conversations going on between my stomach and my brain.  My brain is saying, “You know you want it.”  And my stomach responds, “You’re kidding right?  You know what I’m going to do to this poor slob.”  Brain answers back, “You wouldn’t dare.”  Stomach, “Try me, you have 24 hours before I unleash a power so great, you’ll surely let my person go.”  (Again a shout out to Chuck Heston)  My brain and stomach have had this conversation a hundred times.  Mr. brain never learns his lesson and I suffer miserably.  Bad New / Good News:

In a sugar coma, I contacted my high school wrestling coach and alerted him not to count on me making 141 for this year’s Christmas tournament.

As for my vaccine, I have not grown a horn yet, but my new tail feathers are coming in nicely.  Stay Safe!

Livin in a covid world

Tis the Season to be Leery

ALERT - You may have been compromised. Anyone starting to get an influx of txt messages and e-mails from major vendors & credit card companies where they send you a message that's a borderline fraud alert stating, “there’s a possibility that you've been compromised.”  So you spring into action and after fighting through 50 minutes of online chat angst, they finally come clean and say, "this may have been part of a promotion." Is it not bad enough that multiple vendors each inundate us four or five times a day with the same sensational “one-time offer” emails?  I haven’t personally crunched the numbers yet, but I have to think after the 3rd offer with the same details being ignored, they have to know it’s time to stop and move on.  

I believe that in desperation, their marketing technique has devolved into nothing short of a series of scare tactics to grab and hold your attention.  They know the one last thing that everyone is leery of, and will pay attention to is: “The Hack” alert.  When you see that message a knot immediately forms in your stomach, and an all-consuming anxiety builds.  Of course if you don't respond in a timely manner and formally deny that you're supporting the Prince of Nigeria's efforts to regain the throne, then you are responsible for those charges.

The best is that at the end of this massive waste of time, your customer service representative asks you over your chat session, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”  I’m incredulous.  They didn’t help me in the first place, if anything; they were the antithesis of help.

My belief is that they can’t be typing that message every time; it has to be a simple pre-programed button they hit that sends that final message.  I also believe that if they don’t hit that button, they lose their jobs.  One for the suggestion box - would it really be too much trouble for them to program a second button?  A button that once pressed says, “I know we’ve wasted half your morning and I apologize for that.  Unfortunately we live in an imperfect world. I’ll raise your issue with my management team and find the responsible party - there will be retribution, I promise you that! But putting all of that aside, is there anything else I can help you with today?”  I don’t think that’s asking too much.  It would also go a long way from stopping me from throwing my phone through a wall when they have the guts to send me a customer satisfaction survey. 

One lesson learned from this is: Shop Locally.  Generally speaking, my experience has been that local customer service reps have more of a…human touch.

The Devil's Vegetable

So as we’ve all read one of the major tenets of quarantine is to take the opportunity to get healthy.  I had heard about the wonders of Celery juice, did some quick research and decided it would be an easy way to “cleanse” the body, improve my clarity, and do wonders for my complexion.  Celery juice is also a natural anti-inflammatory which if you read the current medical journals, chronic inflammation is the cause of 99% of our aliments.  I’m convinced I’ve found a miracle cure.

 

A little history - growing up I wrestled in high school.  Celery was a main staple as we were told that it had negative calories.  Also, we were told that the chewing motion of eating celery would burn off additional calories AS we got filled up – a win win!  And if you fill a celery stalk with peanut butter, cream cheese or cake it with salt, it actually tastes pretty good.  As much as it’s been a scary number of years since I graduated high school, this was still the culinary delight I expected.  

 

This was not the case with celery juice. I completely misjudged.  Celery, also known as “The Devil’s Vegetable” – is exactly what it tastes like.  But before the gag-fest begins, you start your day with 24 oz. of lemon water (one lemon a day, cut up and squeeze it into glasses of water.)  Fifteen minutes after the pucker fest, the Celery juice.  I thought celery juice might be in the food store in a jar.  It is not.  Instead, I opted to go to the local Dean’s health food store and pay a ridiculous amount of money to have them make the poison for me.  It takes a whole set of stalks to make the required 24 oz. of Celery juice.  That’s a lot of celery to swallow.  I liken it to the prep pack for a colonoscopy, with the same results.  But yet another benefit of being quarantined in your home.

 

After gaging down the Celery juice you can’t have any animal or vegetable fats till about noon.  The idea is to give your liver a chance to do it’s cleaning magic uninterrupted.  So no bacon and eggs, no milk products…  Just fruit or granola with no milk..   Oh and no coffee in the morning either.  Not painting a pretty picture?…

 

Forgetting about the digestive mayhem this has caused, nobody told me that you’d feel like crap until after the fourth day.  I naturally gave up after the forth day and moved to a place where Celery juice can’t be had.   My wife on the other hand has kept up the regiment and rejoined me last week.  Outside of her new Incredible Hulk-like complexion, which is freaking me out, she seems great.

Bad Habits of Quarantine

So with the new world of quarantine and virtual connectivity, my normal face to face job has been dehumanized to connecting with people over the phone or the digitized image of myself shoulders up.  The latter has proven to be a bit of a slippery slope for me.

I’ve taken quarantine very seriously.  I haven’t shaved in over 2 months and I can’t remember where my comb is.  I won’t go into how many days I’ve worn the same clothes but someone just saw a picture of me and thought I was a hostage.  There are very few things I’m still good at, one is growing a beard.  When I was much younger…much much younger, I had blonde hair and a red beard.  That red beard is now white…like Santa Claus White.  My red suit is on order and I’m figuring that for my second act I’ll work one month a year and spread some cheer. 

This look can be a good thing and a bad thing.  I decided I needed something from our local Walgreens store.  I have my new uniform on…sweat pants and flannel shirt.  As I park in front of the Walgreens I look down at my chest and lap and notice that it looks as though my clothes have been hosting a cheese fondue party.  I do my best to pick the cheese off (no I did not eat the aged cheese, but the thought did cross my mind.) but ultimately decided with my new costume and mask, no one will recognize me and I head in.  Instead of getting a basket or a cart (for fear of contracting said virus) I opted to carry the few items I needed in my arms.  This was fine until my eyes were bigger than my arms.  At one point I kept dropping items on the floor to the point where a middle aged woman felt compelled to help me with my ever tumbling packages.  I fought her off for a while feeling somewhat insulted, then decided, hey would Santa accept help?  Sure he would.

When you normally have to dress professionally for work and go to see customers, the gift of not having to get dressed can become problematic.  My company has standardized on the video conferencing product that runs on your laptop called, Zoom.  To protect my new way of life, I have made it a point to not turn on the live video camera during customer Zoom sessions.  The new me is not pleasing to the eye and definitely not customer friendly.  Unfortunately one of my younger teammates had arranged a Zoom meeting with one of our customers from Puurs, Belgium.  Since they’re seven hours ahead of us the meeting was earlier in the morning.  As we kicked off the call, my associate says, “Steve, I’m not sure if you’ve been formally introduced to Vilma, why don’t you introduce yourself.”  That would have been fine but both my associate and Vilma have their cameras on and without thinking too much, I patted the top of my hair and turned my camera on…forgetting I was still in my Incredible Hulk pajamas.  It gets better, when I turn the camera on, not only can other people see me, but I can see myself on the screen.  I’m now staring at the disheveled; Cheerios stuck in the beard chaos that is my new look.  After that, all I can remember is blabbering about what an idiot I am and how I bring no value to any meeting unless it involves cheese.

The moral of the story is, Stay Vigilant, this will be over soon and people might recognize you.

Work From Home - The Practice Session

So in February I had a business trip in San Diego.  I stayed at a nice hotel for three days, had great weather, and my employer footed the bill - all good stuff.  The first morning my internal clock went off at 4AM, and after staring at the ceiling for 15 minutes I decided to get out of bed.  It was still pitch black out and I wasn’t ready for an all-on light show in my room, so I groped around and found the clothes I had on the day before and recycled them.  Since the hotel restaurant didn’t open for breakfast until 6AM, I decided to get some work done.  With only the small desk lap on, I stumbled around the hotel room looking for my black computer bag.  Laptop was found and without uttering too many four-letter words I was able to log onto the hotel’s wifi system.  Then my next task was to negotiate my way through the myriad of security warnings and trick questions to ensure I was who I said I was.  But yet another example of the new normal.  I’m now into my company’s online work environment and I quickly get into my typical mind numbing, heads down work zone.   I come up for air and notice it’s 6:15AM – time for breakfast.  I grab my wallet and room key and head out the door.  As I’m leaving I check to make sure I have a shirt and pants on.  That would be embarrassing if I missed that, right?  I go to the counter where they seat you and in a happy to be in warm SoCal tone I say, “One Please.”  As I’m having my coffee, I notice I’m getting strange looks from the other patrons coming in.  I can’t imagine anyone is remembering yesterday’s clothes and just let it go.   I finish breakfast and head back to my hotel room.  I walk into the room and stroll past the full-length mirror on the sliding door of the closet.  I get a quick view of my head, actually my hair that almost caused me to trip over the bed.  You see over the years the once proud legion of hair on my head has deserted me.  The mob that’s left is a bunch of renegades that have minds of their own.  So during breakfast, at the public restaurant, I was sporting a hair do that any punk rock band would have been proud of.

Moving forward, I now work from home “WFH” like many.  My laptop is now my everything.  I do admin work on it.  I do calls from it.  I watch seminars on it.  I have internal and customer meetings on it using video tools like ZOOM and WebEx.  I currently have a piece of tape covering my laptop camera.  I’d like to say it’s a privacy thing, but the real situation is that like my San Diego trip, I now have trouble separating coffee time from hygiene time from work time from remember to put my clothes on time.  That and I have not shaved in about 20 days.  I once upon a time tried to hike the Appalachian Trail.  My new trail name will have to be, ”Kringle” as in Kris.  So the camera stays off for now…so as not to scare people.

What I’ve found helps make WFH less morose is to call friends and catch up.  So if you used to call folks once a month, call them once a week.  That and I’m instituting a new weekly ritual.  It’s called the Friday Night Oil Can…in honor of Fosters Lager.  It’s a large con call to get caught up, but no discussions about work.  Stay Healthy.