CORONAVIRUS, WE'LL MISS YOU

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-13-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic 

 

     If a few people can get just a little smarter than they seem to be at the moment, pretty soon this pandemic is going be a wistful memory, and we are going to be nostalgic about it, maybe even a little misty-eyed. Surely I jest, but jest a minute, now. There is no way to minimize the personal horrors of this plague, especially to those who have left behind loved ones, those who have lost loved ones and those who have caught the disease themselves. People who have lost their homes and livelihoods will be holding the door open for the coronavirus when it finally leaves.

 

     But there is no denying that there have been good things that have come out of a world in lock-down for well over a year. For instance, one estimate from a climate-monitoring group is that global emissions of greenhouse gases fell by 5.5 percent during the pandemic. The figure is much greater than it seems, caused by fewer people driving to workplaces that were shuttered, and of course fewer people going to greenhouses. Species of animals that haven't been seen for years are coming out of the woodwork during this unusual time. Hoping to reverse that trend in our own home, I'm thinking of installing more woodwork.

 

     I am one of six Melén children, and we have never in our history interacted all together as siblings as we have in the past year. Every two weeks we get together for a zoom meeting, where we recount the trials and tribulations of growing up in an underprivileged neighborhood in Chappaqua. We retell all the old stories, like the one about how I stole a Briggs and Stratton engine from the cement mixer of a local builder to put on my mini-bike. In all honesty, it's possible that the cement mixer went faster. Or the one about my sister's good fortune in breaking her leg on a makeshift ski slope at the high school, only to have the star quarterback whisk her off the slopes in his arms. During the call my sister Anne's cat crawls onto her shoulder and starts eating one of her ears. It's cute, but she only heard the left side of the mini-bike story.

 

     If you wanted to sell your Westchester home last year, you were in for a nice surprise, as real estate prices in the area skyrocketed. If you then went to buy a house in Florida, you were in for a rude awakening, as real estate prices in the area skyrocketed. A weird cocktail of covid calamities have been a godsend in some industries and made a ghost town of others. 

     What are the long-term effects of not being able to be yelled at in person by the boss? It loses its bite over Zoom with a bad internet connection. "Sorry Mr. Chidewell but I only heard every other word. Did you say my work was woefully horrendous or notably stupendous? And while I have you I need to submit a bill for my ink-jet cartridges. No, sir, I did not say 'pink pet partridges.'" Those days may be coming to an end.

     What are the long-term effects of cats on corporate Zoom meetings? "I got so used to having my cat around during our weekly Zooms that I'll be bringing him to our live meetings now. He's an emotional support cat," I share with the group. "Wow, so he helps you get through the day?" And I reply, "No, actually it's the other way around. If I don't emotionally support him, he wets my morning paper and puts a damper on the news. He's getting better- as you can see he has knocked everyone's pens off the table, and I think you'll all agree that when I use the laser pointer he will make our sluggish sales this quarter seem much more fun."

 

     The air is heavy with drama, fear and expectation, like a reality show with Kardashians in it, only with realer reality. Will people remember how to work a water cooler? The bar we used to go to around the corner after work is under new ownership- will they finally fix the toilet? Gone will be the days when you can go to the refrigerator during work hours, and the half a candy bar you put in there yesterday will still be there today because your wife won't eat anything bad for you. Which reminds me, I left some Chinese food in the fridge at work on March 12th 2020, I hope it's still good. We're embarking on a new "new normal" now, which means that I am going to have to embark on a new abnormal.

FOOD CHAIN MIGRAINE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (05-06-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     My wife forwarded me an email from the Westchester Department of Health that says that they are offering FREE minnows to put in your ornamental pond. Apparently the minnows eat the mosquito larvae that spawn in the water and grow into man-eating, six-legged monsters that prey upon innocent women and children, although I have never known any innocent children. I don't have an ornamental pond, but how is the Department of Health going to know that? I just can't resist anything that's free. I have a whole drawer full of key chains that were given away FREE at every event I've ever been to. And I just have to order anything on TV when the commercial says, "AND, if you order NOW, you can get a second one TOTALLY FREE!" I do a somersault in glee: WOW! TOTALLY FREE! After I injure myself with the somersault the guy says, "Just pay a separate fee." Wait, what? I'm thinking of releasing the minnows into my drawer and seeing if they'll eat some of those key chains.

     Anyway, mosquitoes are more than just annoying, they can carry the West Nile virus, which causes fever or in rare cases, meningitis. They must have released minnows into the East Nile, because you never hear a word from them. You've probably already tried a bunch of things to get rid of mosquitoes at your party, and all they did was get rid of the party. But you can get up to 250 pounds of minnows, and maybe that will work. I don't know if you can pick the ones you want, but I would choose just one 250-pounder that looks like he never missed a meal.

     If it goes wrong though, don't come crying to me. We have some mice in the winter, and you'd think that cats would be the perfect solution to the problem. But not only are the cats completely uninterested in anything that might make us happy, like chasing away mice, but they have plenty of unflattering habits themselves. I would argue that the mice are better behaved, better trained and more civilized than the cats, but I'd have no one to argue it with. So we got a dog to keep the cats from a life of crime, but the dog has its own agenda and the cats aren't on it. So we got a dog trainer to help, and now we have to pay the dog trainer to keep the dog in check. It's not like we can unleash a lion to keep the dog trainer from sending us bills, but the thought has crossed my mind.

     What I'm saying is that if you go down the path of altering the balance of nature, you may live to regret it, and if you don't live you'll regret it even more. I remember when we visited some friends  in Vermont, and the town had introduced ladybugs into the ecosystem to help control the aphid population. "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home! Your house is on fire, your children are gone!" I sing. (Hardly any reason to go back home, I guess.) And before anyone knew it there were ladybugs all over the place and they had an infestation on their hands.

     If Charles Darwin were alive today what would he say about it? To be honest with you, Darwin's theory of evolution never impressed me that much. It's a slight improvement on the Adam and Eve story which I never could make heads or tails of, with the spare ribs and snakes and apples I guess. But if humans evolved from one-celled organisms, why are there still one-celled organisms? It's embarrassing for all concerned that there are still more one-celled organisms on Earth than there are humans. And if everything on Earth eats everything else, why hasn't the world been taken over by Brussels sprouts, which have no natural enemies that we know of?

     I sure hope there isn't any truth to the evolution idea, because what if something evolves that is smarter, bigger and stronger than humans, and it happens to notice that we're destroying our own habitat by burning fossil fuels so that we can pay for a few Nintendo games for the children of oil executives who will be forgotten in the blink of an eye? And what if it releases something into the environment to get rid of us, like a bunch of hungry 250-pound minnows? Well, I almost started to make sense there, but it was a false alarm. Nobody is invincible, so we'd better start to get humble. As I was telling a couple bobcats the other day, you may be the nastiest critters in the forest now and then, but in the broader food chain, you're just lynx.
 

A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-29-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Baseball is only one sport of many that will be navigating the tricky waters of a post-covid reality as more and more people get vaccinated, but not all. Since I love the game, let's examine the ramifications of the virus on this sport, and we can extrapolate them to the larger socioeconomic patterns that we will be confronting in the coming months. All this is a nice way of saying that the Yankees suck right now. Going into 2021 Major League Baseball has adopted some guidelines to make the game as safe as possible, and they reflect the attitudes Americans have toward health policies, the re-opening and sports in general.

     Before the start of the season, each Major League ballclub had to designate an "Infection Control Prevention Coordinator." This should be someone in the organization whom everyone already hates. "Hey boss, I think you're going to like what we've done so far. Not only did we PREVENT infection control, but we COORDINATED it! I think even you would agree that this new job title has elevated me to my best self!"

     There are more rules: 1.) You should lather up with hand sanitizer before you punch out the water cooler after a strikeout. 2.) If you're ordered to quarantine at home, at least move to the side so the batter can hit. 3.) Players may not visit bars, indoor gatherings of more than 10 people or attend other potentially dangerous social situations such as giving an ocelot a bath. 4.) Stadiums must be limited to 20 percent capacity. If you are a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays, this will not affect you very much, as that number is about a 10 percent increase from their usual attendance.

     In extra innings, each team starts play with a guy on second base. How did he get there? No one seems to know. Having a guy at second is the worst thing that could happen to the Yankees, who never hit with runners in scoring position. The Yankees would have a better chance of scoring if they started the inning with a runner stuck in traffic on the Triborough Bridge. If a double-header is scheduled, both games will be shortened to seven innings, because everyone knows most covid infections occur in the 8th and 9th innings. 

     No one really knows what to do during a pandemic, and the sports world is no different. In New York State you don't have to wear a mask if you are eating at a table in a restaurant, or if you're playing professional baseball, or if you're playing professional baseball at a table in a restaurant. The manager has his on in the dugout to set a good example. He pulls his mask down to yell at the player who just ran through the third base coach's stop sign, but don't worry, he pulls it up again when no one is around to talk to. Some players are concerned about variants. What if my coronavirus mutates into a chronic hamstring injury while I'm not looking? There are often cardboard cutouts of celebrities, fans and pets that are set up to fill the seats in the stands. Can the coronavirus live on cardboard? If so, it would be an embarrassing way to catch the disease.

     One of the Yankees was recently scratched from play and penciled onto the "Cannot Play Because of Covid" list. Turns out he didn't even have covid, he just had side effects from getting his vaccination. I had side effects after I got my shot, some achy chills and fatigue, nothing worse than if I just played three sets of tennis, sat through an entire poetry reading, had a coffee urn drop on my head and fell in love. It's nothing that would keep you out of a game in any other sport but baseball, or possibly chess.

     But that's what we're dealing with at the moment. Major League baseball says that they will revisit and possibly change any of these rules, either if circumstances warrant or if everyone finds out that they are dumb. They say that hitting is contagious. If so, I urge all the Yankees to remove their masks and wash their hands while singing "Happy Birthday" only ONCE.

PUPPY-DOG DIALOGUE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-22-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Every day for a little over a year, my dog Gidget and I take a walk around the block. It's a pandemic thing. We've been doing it so long that it seems a little like the movie "Rear Window," only in the front. I know everything that goes on in the neighborhood now, there's a rhythm to it.

     Gidget used to be afraid of other dogs, and I long for those days, because now she is into every dog's business in the neighborhood. "Hey," Gidget says, "did you hear that barking at the end of the street? I definitely heard the words 'Gidget,' 'emergency' and 'bacon.' Look, we better get down there and see what's going on." All of a sudden my dog is one of the "Real House-Dogs of New York," and she knows all the gossip going around. I'm not so sure any of this a good thing, because I watch a lot of Judge Judy, and half the cases she decides are dogs biting other dogs, cats and mail carriers. I don't want to be another victim, especially one that doesn't get mail anymore. I suggest you keep your dog busy by giving it a bone, preferably not one that came out of my body.

     Gidget gets a half-mile walk twice a day up and down our street. When we get down to the end of the road, a poodle named Peanut comes bounding out of her house at a million miles an hour. She gets about 20 feet away and stops, because Gidget looks much smaller from the kitchen window. She waits for reinforcements to come, a bigger and much older dog who lives there too. That dog is barking so hard I'm afraid she's going to spit out her dentures. She's barking out orders like, hey, you kids keep off the damn lawn, and get away from that mailbox, and go find your own house, and if I see you around here again I'm calling the cops, etc. Gidget seems unfazed by it and loses interest, although she does want to see what's so special about the mailbox. But we ease on down the road.

     There's a big black dog that lives at the other end of the street, he has big teeth and looks like he works out and seems like he could be a problem if he goes off his medications. He's part Labrador and part alligator, a Labragator if you will, and I recommend that you don't. If he's out on a walk Gidget likes to trash-talk him because she can see that he's on short, heavy chain, the kind that hold cruise ships to their moorings. If he's ever out on a longer leash we'll see if my dog can actually break the sound barrier.

     The family across the street from him is always milling around in their driveway on their phones. Either the reception is better out there or they're calling whoever who has the key to their house. There's another lady who's always sitting in her car at the end of the road. I assume she's waiting for her kids to get off the bus, but I'm not even sure she has kids. Maybe you just need to get out of the house once in a while during a pandemic.

     Two doors down from her there's a guy who's always pulling these tiny flowers out of his lawn. Oops, that's me. These damn little white flowers pop up all over my lawn and they make me nuts. I could spray the whole area with herbicide, but I'm afraid I would infect the water table because we get our water from a well. If the well is unwell, and I die of neurotoxins from the herbicide, I can imagine those stupid flowers having the last laugh. So I pull them out one by one and water-board them for information about where they came from, and I got two ticks on me the other day from spending so much time out there. Which reminds me, why don't they invent a tick collar for humans? It would look dumb, you say? Listen, Flavor Flav wore that stupid clock around his neck every day and nobody said a word about it. I bet he had ticks AND he probably still said he lost track of the time when he was late to a meeting.

     I have to go, it's almost time for our walk. They say that when America goes back to work, millions of dogs are going to go through exercise withdrawal. When I ever go back to work my dog will have to go back to doing whatever it was doing when I wasn't there, clipping supermarket coupons, making candles to sell on Etsy, hacking into Twitter accounts, that sort of thing.

I'M ON FACEBOOK

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-15-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     I've been putting off putting myself out there on the net for a long time, since social media often seems so antisocial. There is a lot of political carping, and people saying a lot of dumb stuff just to get a reaction. I know a couple of people who get themselves banned on a regular basis by posting incendiary comments that get flagged by the Facebook police. "Excuse me, officer, what seems to be the trouble?" "Well," Facebook Cop says, "you said a whole bunch of stuff about Trump that, even though it was true, no one would BELIEVE it was true, so I'm going to have to cuff you up." "Okay," I say, "but if you use the pink furry ones again please don't post a picture of it on my timeline." It isn't me posting all the politics, that's not my thing. I don't need a bunch of people gerrymandering me while I'm trying to figure out how to post a video of my dog. By the way, how DO you post a video of my dog? And how did you even get a video of my dog?

     Also I've been afraid of being targeted by advertising bots. These things follow every mouse click and know everything you purchase, and tailor ads that appeal to everything you hate about yourself. I just got a pop-up from Russia: "THAT'S what you bought for your wife's birthday? You should be ashamed of yourself." I know I should be ashamed of myself, I just can't decide which thing to be ashamed for at the moment. And the fact that nefarious geeks are sitting in their basement tracking my every move just so they can make fun of me scares the crap out of me. Hold on, I just got an alert on Facebook Messenger from a North Korean hacker: "Dude, you're going to SEARS?" "Excuse me," I reply, "I have a Kenmore dishwasher from 1993 that is still under warranty." South Korea says, "Hey, I heard Roebuck is back in the picture and they're thinking of renewing their vows." "Ha, ha, ha, emoji, emoji, etc., etc.," I reply. Now that I know other countries are following me I pass right by the erotic bakery, even though there is an exhibitionist doughnut in the window that looks REALLY good, I don't care WHAT it's shaped like. I would have to eat certain parts of it so fast that it's a stomach ache AND a misdemeanor waiting to happen.

     Speaking of emojis, I will admit that I don't know which ones to use, and my reactions on Facebook are usually as inappropriate as they are in real life. The pictures appear so small that I can't really make out what they mean. Is this one laughing at the wrong time or crying on somebody's parade? They have so many different icons it's hard to even decide which one to send. Somebody posted that their Mom was in the hospital and I sent what I thought was a heart, but it turned out to be a half a salami. If you asked the Mom, I bet she would say she would rather have the half a salami than a bunch of hearts any day. There are a couple of emojis that they still haven't added yet, like my boss's boss, who makes a face like he is thinking SO hard that the phone in his office might spontaneously burst into flames. Or the face my cat used to make when he would sniff something really bad, and his face would stay like that for five minutes until he smelled something a little better or a little worse.

     Will you be my friend? I feel like Mr. Rogers asking you that, and it makes me want to take off my suit jacket and put on my sweater, and lace up my sneakers. I forgot to put on pants, I hope this doesn't affect our friendship. I know everybody loves Mr. Rogers, but even when I was a little kid I thought there was something weird about him, explaining everything so damn slowly as if I was a little kid. He seemed like exactly the kind of guy who would offer me candy to get into the car with him. My Mom said absolutely NO getting into the car with strangers. My Dad seemed to encourage it. My main focus was, exactly what kind of candy? I'm not getting into anybody's car for "Good n' Plenty" or "Starbursts" or any crap like that, so actually just toss a "Take 5" bar out the passenger window and be on your way.

     So, I've been on for about a week now, and it's going okay, but I feel like I need that guy on the television commercials who tells you when you're acting like somebody's dad. I raise my hand for a question during the seminar: "If I tag somebody, they are technically 'it,' correct?" Major eye-roll from the instructor. "Also, if somebody likes what I just said I liked, should I like that, too?" Don't worry, I'll get the hang of this.

A LITTLE OFF THE TOP

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-08-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     When my hair gets so long that it starts getting caught in the car door, especially if it's not even my car, it's time to go visit my man JD at the unisex hair salon. I know probably no one has used the word "unisex" since the last World's Fair, but using this subterfuge I won't need to adjust any of my pronouns.

     The wash-and-rinse gal asks me how the water temperature is, and I don't want to sound like a sissy so I say it's fine, but it's scalding and my head is starting to feel like a hard-boiled egg. She is assiduously washing every individual hair twice, and then conditioning them. I don't use conditioner myself, but if I did I would want it to smell like mint, so that people would think that my hair is in mint condition. To pass the time they have a television on the wall with a bunch of slinky-looking model babes strutting down the runway as if they have something in their shoe. One is carrying a purse that looks like an adult Pomeranian with a handle on it (I'm not making that up), and it makes me want to go to Pomerania and find out what the hell is going on over there. The girl is still washing, and I don't have the heart to tell her that 95 percent of her good work is going to be on the floor in 15 minutes. I'm definitely not going to bother to ask if I can put the Yankee game on the TV.

     Finally JD got his scissors out and asked me if I want the same thing as usual. Yes of course I do. I'm not one for change, I don't even like having change in my pockets. Who knows, maybe one day I'll try something different, maybe a man-bun or even man-pigtails if it would grow back after that one day. I think I might look good with a shag, just like the carpet we had in our den in the 1970s.

     Women spend much more time worrying about their hair than men. I've often said that 90% of women look best with shoulder-length hair, assuming that she has normal-length shoulders. There are a few women that look good with a "pixie" haircut, but even a pixie looks better when you see her two months later after her hair grows out. I've been to parties where the wife walks in with a new, short style, and all the women in the room coo, "OMIGOD it looks SO amazing!" And all the guys in the room are thinking, "OMIGOD, what did you do to your HAIR?" And the wife says, "OMIGOD, I LOVE it, it's SO low maintenance!" Well, so is changing the oil in your car once  every two years but that doesn't mean it looks good. Sometimes a girl goes better with long hair, the types that have an acoustic guitar and sing folk songs to folks.

     When I was a little kid my Dad used to cut my hair, and if you don't believe what I'm about to tell you I have pictures. He sheared the back with an electric poodle clipper, and cut the bangs in the front on a diagonal bias of about 30 degrees. This made it difficult to see out of one eye, and for years I thought there was only one Bobbsey twin, and I kept colliding into objects on my left. Incidentally my Dad cut our poodle's hair the same way.

     My Dad had some type of goo that he stuck in his hair to affix it into a shape somewhere between a pompadour and a small sand dune. He could find himself in the confluence of a typhoon and a monsoon in a hot air balloon and his hair will not have moved a millimeter. There was a product called "hair tonic," which if you try to mix with gin does not produce memorable results, trust me, and my Dad found some that looked like it came from the bottom of somebody's crankcase. 

     In the meantime JD is manscaping the inside of my ear as if I had a topiary bush in there. Then he starts with the electric razor on the back of my neck, and I'm horribly ticklish, and he starts talking about his cat who is acting strange and he thinks she might be sick, she's very old, and I start laughing hysterically from the tickling. JD ends the conversation and the haircut abruptly, and I think I know how our poodle must have felt.

DOWNHILL FROM HERE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (04-01-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 

     There's nothing nicer than taking a bicycle ride on a warm March day, because with the leaves off the trees the sun hits you from everywhere, and you can invade peoples' privacy by looking in their windows from miles away. First, you should make sure you are well prepared for the trip. We took along a couple bottles of water, because the electric blender, limes, package of salt and margarita glasses did not fit into my knapsack. I like to bring my own camera instead of just using my phone, in case I need to snap a mug shot and call my lawyer at the same time. Make sure you pump up your bike's tires before you get started. You may be thinking that I'm someone who never runs out of air, but you never know.

      The bike rack is a source of possible injury before you even mount the bike. Mine has six straps that are supposed to attach to different sides of the car's liftgate. Once you've lifted the liftgate and it's now parallel to the ground, you reach up and lay the bike rack on it, attaching the straps to the top. When you close the gate to attach the sides, the top is no longer still attached and the whole thing falls on your foot. If you try to clip it to the bottom first, the laws of gravity will teach you what you failed to learn in physics class, and it falls on your other foot. It's at least a two man operation, and unlike my last meeting at work, it might finally help to have six people pulling in opposite directions.

 

     We were headed down the North County Trailway towards Yorktown, and I couldn't wait to get out of the parking lot with the bicycles. It turns out that I either gained ten pounds during covid quarantine, or my pants lost ten pounds, because they were a little tight and the key fob in my pocket kept sounding the car alarm every time I bent over. Can someone explain why there is a car alarm on my key fob in the first place? Some automobile executive somewhere thought it would be a great idea for people to be able to alert the authorities if a crime were to be committed near my car. "Help! Someone is trying to steal my Dodge Dart!" I shout, and several alert citizens who live in the area respond, helping the thieves make off with my car so they don't have to listen to that damn beeping anymore. "And do yourself a favor and hit the gym, because those pants are cutting off your circulation."

 

     The bike ride would be a great time to stop and smell the roses, but everything is still kind of dead. Nature is starting to work its Spring magic though, and frogs are croaking in a small puddle of water, relentless in the inexorable march of the cycle of life. Their ceaseless song seems to say to their mate, "We've got to get the hell out of here, this place is going to evaporate in two days, max." Further down the trail a snapping turtle sunned itself on a log, casually snapping its gum. In the trees a pileated woodpecker tapped out a Morse code to say, "Watch out world, I haven't even begun to pileate yet."

 

     Every couple of miles on the trail is an "Emergency Call Box" for your safety, which made me extremely hungry. Why would that make me hungry? Because what if I forgot my cell phone and didn't pack a lunch, would ordering a pizza be considered an emergency? If there were a bigger emergency maybe, like a possible snapping turtle attack, maybe I could just slip the pizza order in as a palliative measure. Who is on the other side of the call box anyway? They would have to come and rescue me on a bicycle, and exactly where are they going to put me? One-Adam-12, one-Adam-12, please bring a bike with a huge basket.

 

     Meanwhile the scenery is flying by me, and it dawns on me that I've been going downhill for the last half hour. It couldn't be more pleasant until I think how horrible it's going to be riding up the hill on the way back. My mood brightens again when I realize that at least I will have lost the ten covid pounds by the time I get back to the car and I won't set off the alarm.