Of a feather

Do you know what I saw today? A hummingbird. It was the first time I’ve ever seen one so close to home. We have a neighborhood listserv, God help us; and although some people post stupid complaints about illegally parked vehicles or unsanctioned sheds or fences, others post nice things about events that are happening (back when events actually happened) and things to give away, and neighborhood wildlife, including hummingbirds. Apparently, hummingbirds began to appear in people’s backyards during this corona spring, and I finally got to see one myself. 

The hummingbird wasn’t in my backyard; it was in the side yard between my house and non-crazy neighbor’s house. As I mentioned, they have one particularly large bird feeder that attracts all manner of avian visitors, most of which I cannot identify. Of course, as I have also mentioned before, I can’t identify most birds, but I’m pretty sure that the ones I’ve been seeing in recent months are out of the ordinary for our corner of Maryland. I keep trying to get a picture here and there, but birds are notoriously camera shy. 

*****

So that was yesterday. Other than orioles, who are very common bird visitors, I haven’t seen any birds today. I’m always happy to see the orioles, though, so that’s good enough from a wildlife perspective. The orioles are not so much visitors as neighbors. They probably read the listserv. 

*****

I need to be nicer. I am still shopping for my eccentric old lady and I grow more impatient with her as the weeks go by. I’m sure, of course, that I don’t betray that impatience with her on the phone; at least, I try not to. But it might be audible. 

I’m not annoyed with the old lady so much as I’m annoyed at everything in general. 

Well, a few things are particular to the old lady. For example, I always call her on the same day at the same time. Could she possibly have her list ready, rather than making me wait for her to get it ready and then call me back? Could she not make me stop at the deli counter for fried chicken every week? And could she not use a hillbilly southern accent on the words “fried chicken”? Could she not remind me EVERY DAMN TIME that she wants NATURAL peanut butter? And could she stop asking me to buy ALL of the natural peanut butter they have? I’m not going to be a party to peanut butter hoarding. Times are hard, and other people need their peanut butter, too. 

And speaking of hoarding, what is with the bleach? Why am I buying huge jugs of bleach every damn week? Is she drinking it? Is she injecting it to ward off the ‘rona? Is she running a Magdalene laundry? WHY DOES SHE NEED SO MUCH FUCKING BLEACH?

But no, it’s not her. It’s me. It’s my desperately poor attitude toward what I have come to think of as house arrest, undeserved, unwarranted house arrest. 

*****

Don’t read this as a complaint about reasonable public health measures. I’ll wear a mask all day long, and I yield to no one in my commitment to social distancing. I hardly ever leave the house except to swim or buy fried chicken and bleach. But the powers that be need to get it together, agree on a plan, and make sure that the plan comes together so that we can get off this terrible treadmill. My always-tenuous grip on reason is becoming less secure by the day. Shit’s getting real. 

*****

The birds, however, are as happy as they always are; no more and no less. I suppose that’s why I like having my desk where it is. I can watch them as I work, marveling at their freedom. Of course, I wouldn’t want to live like a bird. Their freedom is predicated on ignorance. They are conscious only of their immediate surroundings and needs and although animals experience fear, they don’t suffer anxiety about the future; not in the way that we do, anyway. Some time in the not-too-distant future, I hope, normal life will resume and we’ll get to go out into the the world, which will be an interesting place again. And these birds that I’m watching now (at least five different kinds, no kidding) will die, and others just like them will take their places. Humans will die in that time, too, sadly, but no one will take their places because no one can. No two are alike. Even birds can’t claim that. 

Consumer affairs

Not long ago, I made a list of things to write about. In typical fashion, I later consulted the list and found that I couldn't read my own handwriting. I figured most of them out, but there are still two ideas that I can't read and can't remember. They might be great ideas. I might never know. 

One item on my list was very clear and easy to read: "(Well-known tech company) sons of bitches." For me, this topic is a perennial, an evergreen classic. But in this case, I was thinking about a particular incident and not just the general son-of-a-bitchiness that this company is known for. 

Well of course. I'll be happy to tell you all about it. Pull up a chair. 

We had a 12 GB data plan, shared among myself, my two teenage sons (15 and 19) and my mother-in-law, who wouldn’t know mobile data if it introduced itself to her in Korean. So the 12 GB was really split three ways. I usually used less than 2 GB per month, and my younger son usually used between two and three. My older son is the mobile data hog. We would occasionally receive end-of-the-month you’re-almost-out-of-data warnings, and the little report that accompanied the message always revealed him as the culprit. But we never got those messages any sooner than three days before the end of the billing cycle; and we never actually exceeded the data allowance after receiving the warning. 

Last month, we got the running-out-of-data warning much earlier in the billing cycle than normal. According to the wireless company (sons of bitches), we were almost out of data, with ten days remaining in the billing cycle. I didn’t see how this was possible. It really wasn't possible, in fact. Nobody goes anywhere. My son works a few shifts a week, and I work completely from home. I go grocery shopping once a week. We have WiFi at home. No one is out in the world often enough or for long enough to use up more mobile data than we ever did in what I now think of as the before time. 

Do you know what I neglected to mention? I neglected to mention that my husband had talked me into automated billing, because it saves about $30 a month. Even for $30 a month, which is $360 a year, I resisted the idea of allowing this company access to my checking account. I don't trust automated billing from any company but I especially don't trust these particular sons of bitches. But I gave in because $30 is $30 and whatever. 

Of course, we went over the limit for the month; and of course, they charged me $15 for the privilege of using an extra GB. And then we used up the extra GB in one day, and they charged me another $15.

Let's review, shall we? Pre-corona, when everyone was leaving the house and going to work and school and sports practices and anywhere else you can think of, 12 GB per month was enough. And then I caved in and agreed to automated billing. And then 1 GB per day was suddenly not quite enough for people who now spend 80 percent of their time at home. 

Coincidence? Sure. That seems reasonable. 

In the old days, I would have relished a fight with them. In 2009, for example, unhappy with their response to my complaints about frequent mysterious overcharges, I wrote a detailed letter to the Maryland Attorney General, and for weeks after, I received phone calls and letters from their executives, all falling all over themselves asking what they could do to address my concerns. As it turns out, the company was under investigation for a pattern of over-billing very similar to what I had been experiencing, and they were trying to stay on their very best behavior. It was rather satisfying. 

But now? I just don’t have the old stick-it-to-the-man fire that used to drive my dealings with large corporations. Other than a little bit of spirited back and forth with an agent, I didn’t put up much resistance at all. I upgraded to an unlimited data plan, and claimed a small victory when they graciously agreed to credit back the two days’ worth of $15 overage charges, and that was the end of that. 

As always, I will very carefully monitor my wireless bill; and as always, I will rant and rave at the next crypto-fascist big business abuse. But it’ll all be for show. There’s too much else to worry about; too much going on in the world. I just can’t muster the appropriate level of outrage anymore. 

But really--$15 a day? Sons of bitches. SONS of BITCHES. 

Not for the faint of heart

My head is rather heavy today, bowed as it is under the weight of dual crowns. It's Saturday morning and I'm running a swim meet, serving as both referee and starter. These are normally two different and distinct jobs, but we have to keep the number of people within the pool gates at 50 or fewer, so this efficiency eliminates one unnecessary body. And I am just that good. 

We're taking a break between sessions one and two, so I have time to write. It's shady where I'm sitting, and even though the forecast calls for another blazing hot day, it's quite cool and pleasant right now, with pearl grayish blue overcast skies and no sun glare. It's like a morning at the beach. 

(Question: Why does my text prediction insist on capitalizing "shady?" Perhaps someone is a fan of Mr. Mathers.) 

*****

A three-session swim meet with breaks for warm-ups is a long morning. My sons both swam in the first session and my nephew swims in the third session, so I don't have a dog in this next hunt, but I will be watching with diligent interest, ensuring that the thing runs according to the rules of Potomac Valley Swimming and the Prince Mont Swim League. I'm going to read for a bit before session 2 begins in earnest, and I become once again the thin blue and white line between civilization and swimming anarchy. It is not a job for the faint of heart, I tell you what. 

Dog days

It's Saturday morning, and I'm sitting through a short break during our second swim meet of the very short summer swim season.  One more meet, then Divisionals, and then the season is over.

We don't normally have breaks during the meet but the three session formal made necessary by the damn' rona makes it also necessary to allow short breaks for the swimmers, because the sessions are organized by age group, and the events go so quickly that they need recovery time before their next race. So I am killing the usual two birds with the usual one stone by writing while I wait for the freestyle event to begin. I'm a stroke and turn judge, and there's not much for me to do during freestyle, but I will put the phone down and stand up with my clipboard so these kids will know that I know what's up.

*****
OK, that was fast. Freestyle is over and now we're waiting for the breaststroke events, which is where we stroke and turn judges make our money. It's what they call a technical stroke. There's a lot to watch. A lot of things can go wrong.

*****
I never did finish writing about the meet, which is over now, because it’s Sunday. After I wrote disqualification slips for a few breaststrokers, I was comparatively idle for the rest of the morning. Of course, I took my officiating duties very seriously, but the rest of the events proceeded without incident. The breaststroke swimmers probably alerted their peers that a sharp-eyed official had her eye on them, and they minded their P’s and Q’s. There were a few borderline backstroke turns, but I let them slide. I’m stern, but fair. It was the hottest day of the summer so far (although it might get hotter today); and after four hours in the sun, I came home and slept in my cool, dark family room.

I myself will be swimming later this evening, but as it’s too hot even for me right now, I’m staying inside until it’s time to go to the pool. I’m almost finished with Elizabeth I, and then I will be skipping ahead a century and a half to read Ron Chernow’s famous biography of Alexander Hamilton. I can read about people doing things and accomplishing things, but I’m not actually going to do anything or accomplish anything myself until the temperature drops a few degrees. 

Predator

I’ve been sounding this warning for years, and no one pays attention, but here we go again. The deer are going to turn predator, and then we’re all screwed. Even more so than we already are, I mean. 

Today, I was working at my desk in front of the window, when a deer sauntered into the side yard, and began helping itself to the leaves on one of my neighbor’s trees. It’s a little tree; and there’s a bird feeder hanging from one of the branches. The bird feeder must be filled with some gourmet birdseed because that tree is quite the social hub for our avian friends. The deer didn’t molest the bird feeder. It reared up on its hind legs to eat some of the foliage. I’d never seen a deer do that before, so I very quietly and slowly grabbed my phone and very carefully, inch by inch, pulled up the blinds so I could get a good shot. 

Help yourself, asshole. Don't mind me. 

Despite my ninja-like stealth, the thing sensed my presence and movement; but  instead of running away like sensible deer used to do not so long ago, it turned and stared at me. For several seconds, in fact, this nervy deer stood its ground and regarded me with a mixture of disdain and indignation that was a little unsettling. I thought for a moment that it might be wise to move away from the window in case the deer decided to try and charge at me, but I didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of watching me back down, so I stood my ground too. After a short standoff, the deer lost interest in me, and went about its business of sampling from my neighbor’s garden. I hope it ate some poison ivy. 

That's right. I said what I said. 

New skills

I’m turning a corner, I tell you what. Last week, when the dreaded password change prompt popped up on my screen, I stopped what I was doing, changed my password, and cached the new password so that my password and smart card logins would sync. I do this every two months or so, but I usually wait until the last possible minute, when the old password is either about to expire or (God forbid) when it has already expired. I told myself that I was a no-drama, no-nonsense person who just takes care of minor shit when it needs taking care of, rather than panicking and procrastinating and avoiding until doom is inevitable; and I believed myself for a minute. 

I don’t know if this post looks different or not from the reader’s end, but the text editor and back end are different because I also switched to the new Blogger while I still had a choice, rather than waiting for Google to force my hand. This is an unprecedented level of reason and good sense. Who knows what I will do next? Call a doctor when I’m sick? Clean in response to the presence of dirt rather than as a compulsion? The sky is the limit. Anything is possible. 

*****

You know what I can’t do? I can’t stop trying to tell my son what to do. At 19, he should be starting to manage his own life but he is struggling with this; struggling with how to manage school and work and getting out of bed at a reasonable time of day. I can’t stop hovering over him, asking him about his plans for the day, reminding him about what I think he needs to do, encouraging him, exhorting him, pushing him. It’s too much and I know it’s too much but I can’t seem to shut myself up. We’re driving each other crazy. 

My sons and I are very close. We always have been. The lockdown has been hard on both of them, but in different ways. Last fall, my older son was taking classes, working part-time, and managing everything well. And he was happy. And then all of a sudden, the pools closed, so he didn’t have work; and all of his classes moved online, and that was a disaster for him. He’s retaking a class now. He’s starting to learn how to deal with the lack of hands-on instruction, but if he has to take a full semester of online classes again in the fall, it’s not going to go well. 

And I feel helpless; helpless to help him. 

*****

So it’s the next day now, and my son straightened some things out, and figured some other things out. He drove his brother to a swimming quarry near Baltimore, and so they’re both out of the house today. And that’s been a big part of the problem all along. He’s the same boy he’s always been and I’m the same obsessive-compulsive insane neurotic that I have always been, but we’ve been in each other’s faces for four months and it's too much. One or the other of us had to get out of the house for a bit. We need to be out from under one another’s feet. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to try something altogether new. I’m going to let him do what he’s going to do, figure it out on his own, without any interference or “helpful” advice from me. This approach runs counter to my instincts; this is how I know that I”m probably on to something. I’ll report back at another time. 

Overcome

Who says that you can't have a swim meet during a pandemic? Not the Strathmore Bel Pre Dolphins, I tell you what. Yesterday, our team pulled off a socially distant, mask-wearing, sanitize-everything-in-sight, swim-in-shifts honest-to-God swim meet, and it was amazing. 

Dolphins' backstroke flags through
the business end of a clipboard. 

Late in May, when it looked like pools might remain closed all summer, I tried to remember my older son's last race of 2019. It might have been his last swim race ever, and I couldn't remember it. If I'd known at the time that it could have been his last race, I'd have remembered every detail. But I couldn't even remember the event. 50 backstroke? 100 IM? No idea. His swim career was likely over and I couldn't remember his last swim.  

*****

But we had a plan. Our team decided that if the pool opened, we would have a swim season, one way or another, hell or high water. Even if we had to compete against ourselves, even if we had only one meet, even if the league canceled the season, we were going to do something. Most of the local summer leagues actually did cancel their seasons. Ours did not. Half of the teams wanted to hold a season, so the league quickly rearranged divisions, and we came up with a plan for virtual meets. Each team would swim at its own pool, and the coaches would then exchange times to determine a score. 

But our county is also enforcing a 50-person limit for gatherings, and a swim meet is nothing if not a gathering. Even with half of the normal number of people on deck, we would still have been well over that limit. So we broke it down even further, with three separate sessions by age group. If you know anything about scoring and order of events in the Prince Mont Swim League, then you know that this took some doing. And we figured it out. By "we," of course, I mean people who are smarter and better organized than I. 

*****

It was nice to be up and out first thing on a Saturday morning in July, My kids left the house at 6:50 and I followed about 15 minutes later. Music was playing when I arrived at the pool, and parents were singing along with Van Morrison. I didn't start to cry until I tried to sing "Saw you just the other day / My, how you have grown." It's been so long. I hadn't seen some of these beautiful kids in months, and my how they have grown. I'm overcome just thinking about it. 

******

I forgot how much I love watching my sons swim until I saw my oldest step up for the first race of the morning. He wasn't as fast as usual. None of them are. Practices are shorter and less frequent, and they are all a little out of shape. But they still swam a great race and the cheers were almost as loud as ever, even with so few people on deck, and even with masks muffling the sound. 

This really is my son's last year of swimming. He ages out this summer, and that's it. We have three more meets, and I'll be watching every race. I won't miss anything, and I won't forget. 

Like we're running out of time

I always used to feel that holiday weekends pass by too quickly. And when July 4 rolled around, I always lamented the speed of summer’s passage. Halfway over, I would think--where has the summer gone?

But It’s day 3 of the Independence Day holiday weekend and it seems that this weekend started weeks ago, and it feels like this summer will never end. We’ve come to a sad pass when I of all people am ready for summer to end.

*****
I watched Hamilton last night and it lived up to the hype times ten. I’m no fan of musical theater, but Hamilton is magnificent. And Elizabeth has survived smallpox and is still managing to withstand pressure to marry. It is strangely reassuring to read about the 16th century and the periodic summer outbreaks of disease that would suspend festivals and gatherings and postpone the Queen’s summer progress. We’re not the only ones, right? But of course in the intervening 500 years, we should have learned enough to know better. Still, it’s reassuring to know that life eventually returned to normal or whatever passed for normal in Tudor England. Like we’re so much more advanced now. Ha.

*****
Why do I write like I’m running out of time? Day and night like I’m running out of time. Hamilton is in my head now. It’s Monday morning and I might work today or I might not. I don’t have to work day and night like I’m running out of time. We’re all running out of time. I’m not sorry that the holiday weekend is over but I’m sorry that I have to return to the year 2020. But it’s halfway over now, and maybe 2021 will be better. I don’t want to say that it can only go up from here because that would be tempting fate. But I’m optimistic, or at least hopeful. Those are two very different things. I’m going to work for a little while. I have things to accomplish and I’m running out of time. We’re all running out of time.

Old news

It’s Friday, July 3, already blazing hot at 11 AM, with the kind of dense, still, tropical humidity that makes it a real summer day. I’m trying to make the best of a summer that isn’t like any other summer. Last year, on this very day, I spent the day preparing for my son’s graduation party, which we held on July 4th because why not? For the past dozen years or so, I’ve spent part of every Saturday in June and part of July at a graduation party, but  I haven’t been to a single graduation party this summer.

*****
Still, it’s a three-day weekend. I can watch “Hamilton” on Disney Plus. I can reserve a lane and swim for an hour. I can read about Elizabeth I. I don’t have to meet with anyone via WebEx, Teams, or Zoom. And of course, I can do this.

When I started with this idea that I would write every day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year no matter what, it almost immediately became the proverbial millstone around my neck. My whole schedule, my whole to-do list, and now I have to do this, too? And of course, being me, I allowed daily writing  to become a compulsion-driven source of stress and anxiety. But three or so years in (I don’t know, actually--maybe it’s been longer), and this is almost always the easiest part of my day. I almost never struggle to find something to write about because I can write about anything or nothing.

*****
Independence Day, July 4.  It's 9:30 AM and I am the only one awake in the house. I'm reading all about a scandal involving people at the very highest levels of power. There are a lot of steps to retrace and a lot of witnesses to question and a lot of correspondence to scrutinize and a lot of people who need to answer for what they knew and when they knew it.

Lady Amy Dudley probably died of natural causes or suicide but we can't rule out murder for hire commissioned by her husband Robert. Queen Elizabeth I will probably have to lay low for a bit and cool things off with Lord Robert, unless she wants to end up back in the Tower, watching someone else take the throne.

*****
My son and I have a swim lane at noon today. Later on, we'll eat hamburgers and fresh watermelon and strawberries, and I'll immerse myself in more tales of power struggles turned deadly. And when Aaron Burr finally shoots Alexander Hamilton, I'll return to Elizabethan England, there to remain until at least Monday. It's Independence Day 2020 but I don't plan to follow events beyond the 18th century until next week at the earliest.

I told you that I could write about anything or nothing. If you kept reading after that, then you can’t say that you weren’t warned. Caveat emptor, and Happy Independence Day.

Soap and water

I don’t sleep well in June. The sky lightens very early, and I find myself awake at 3 or so and up for the day. This usually goes on for three or four days until I get tired enough that I sleep almost through the night, and then the cycle resumes.

I had a dream on one of my sleeping nights. In my dream, some kind of disaster was underway. I don’t recall if it was manmade, like a war or a terrorist attack;  or a natural disaster of some sort. If the latter, it was a dry natural disaster. Maybe an earthquake. I don’t remember any water.

******
Although come to think of it, there was water, but the water came in the form of a shower; or rather, the lack of water came from the lack of a shower. In this dream, I was surrounded by a desperate crush of escaping humanity; escaping from what, I don’t remember. And I was the only person trying not to escape, because I wanted to take a shower, and that was all I could think of. Even as the situation grew ever more serious and urgent, I dithered around, gathering my soap and my shampoo and looking for a shower.

I had to look for a shower, because I wasn’t at home. I was near or in a hotel of some sort. I don’t know why I wasn’t home, but I know that I wasn’t staying in the dream hotel. It’s now been over a week since I had this dream, and the details have mostly faded, but I remember that my dream self knew that I had no right to be in that hotel or to use its shower.

As I schemed and plotted and planned my illegal shower, the wild animals began to stampede, two by two as if Noah’s Ark had just come into port. Was there a zoo nearby? I don’t know; I just know that animals joined the humans until the street was teeming with creatures desperate to be elsewhere. I remember that I was also planning to join the exodus; I was just determined to take a shower first.

I saw people I worked with in the hotel; two of them are remote teammates whom I have never met, but whom I recognized immediately. I wondered what they were doing and why they weren’t running; and I’m sure they wondered what I was doing and why I wasn’t running, but no one asked any questions. Maybe we all just wanted a shower. It’s not unreasonable to want to be clean, even when you’re running away from a mass extinction event.

*****
I never did find out what the disaster was, nor why a shower took precedence over escape. I woke up and that was that. But the odd disoriented emergence-from-a-weird-dream feeling persisted throughout the morning. I should have written it all down right away; maybe I’d have remembered more.

*****
There should be a point to this, shouldn’t there? And I suppose there is. Every day of 2020 feels like looming disaster. I wake up every morning expecting the hammer to fall, assuming I slept in the first place. But every morning, I thank God that it’s another day, and that my family and I are alive, healthy, and as safe as we can be. I thank God that there’s a roof over my head and a bathroom with a shower that dispenses clean hot water every time I turn the faucet. It’s an uncertain and scary time, and it’s good to be clean.