BrendanComments Off on The Waiting Place, 2020 edition
You can get so concerned that your mind starts to race As you doomscroll your feed at a break-necking pace And grind on for hours with your phone in your face Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place: The Waiting Place.
…for people just waiting. Waiting for the plague to go Or the curve to bend, or the deaths to grow Or the votes to count, or the rain to flow Or a town to burn, if the bad winds blow Or some other new, dreadful tale of woe A twist in the hellish status quo Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the next shoe to drop The next shock or riot or racist cop Or for the pandemic’s march to stop Or waiting for the next surge to bite Or for a vaccine to cure our plight Or waiting around for election night
And voting, perhaps, for Uncle Joe But waiting for Trump’s next tweeted blow Or the next court victory for freedom’s foe, Tossing votes aside, ruling counts must slow (cuz we’re a republic, now, don’t ya know)
Waiting for the next grand mistake Or the nightmare to end as we finally awake Waiting for joy, or for heartbreak Or for hope to yield to a panicky ache Waiting for calm, but alert and awake Waiting to see, will our country break?
Just counting the days till ’21 Waiting and worrying we’ll come undone Everyone is just waiting
We live in a trick-or-treating mecca. Perhaps the trick-or-treating mecca. Our Denver neighborhood, Central Park, is absolute insanity every October 31. Each year, we estimate (based on our candy count) how many trick-or-treaters we got — and from 2011 through 2016, that number was consistently between 1,000 and 1,250+ trick-or-treaters. You can see the madness for yourself in my time-lapse videos from 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. For example:
I used to call it #StapletonHalloweenMadness.* That’s because Central Park was, until this year, named “Stapleton,” after the decomissioned airport on whose land we sit. Stapleton International Airport, in turn, was named after Benjamin Stapleton, an ex-mayor of Denver who, alas, was a Ku Klux Klansman. So over the summer, amid the George Floyd protests, the neighborhood officially changed its name to Central Park. Which means our annual Halloween insanity is now #CentralParkHalloweenMadness.
Name change aside, the madness has been slightly less “mad” in recent years. In 2017 and 2018, we “only” got roughly 800–850 trick-or-treaters. That’s obviously still a lot of trick-or-treaters by any normal human standard, but it was a distinct drop-off. I suspect it happened due to some combination of: (a) chilly weather, colder than 2015-16; (b) the holiday being on a Tuesday & Wednesday; (c) the fact that families with young kids are increasingly choosing Central Park’s newer sub-neighborhoods on the north side of I-70; and, relatedly, (d) the fact that more & more kiddos in our southern half of Central Park are “aging out” of trick-or-treating. (Though a lot of our trick-or-treat traffic comes from elsewhere in Denver and Aurora.)
Anyway, last year was our record-low Halloween, in more ways than one. The weather wasn’t just chilly, but freezing, dropping into the 20s after 7pm — roughly ten degrees colder than our previous coldest Halloween. Unsurprisingly, our trick-or-treater count was also far lower than prior years, at 450–500.
This year’s Halloween weather looks like it’ll be similar to 2017, and to 2013-14: chilly, but not frigid. And Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, like it did the last time we hit 1,200 trick-or-treaters (in 2015). So, in normal times, I would expect a return to at least the 800+ range, if not back to the good old days of 1,000+.
But, of course, there’s nothing normal about these times. We’re in the early stages of the worsening pandemic‘s long-feared fall wave, and winter is coming. Amid a steep upslope toward suffering and death, public-health authorities are urging caution on Halloween.** And we live in a deep-blue neighborhood, in a solid-blue city, in a purplish-blue state… so, most people here take COVID seriously, thank goodness.
Long story short, I assume the coronavirus situation will significantly decrease our trick-or-treater tally. How significantly? I really have no idea. We “only” bought 450 pieces of candy at Costco this year (i.e., three 150-piece bags), down from our usual 1,050 or 1,200. But I honestly have no clue if 450 will prove to be way too many, or way too few, or about right.
I wouldn’t be shocked if, because of the pandemic, we have 250+ candies left at the end of the night. Conversely, I wouldn’t be shocked if, because it’s a Saturday Halloween with decent weather, we run out of candy by 7:15 PM and end up wishing we’d bought twice as much. It could go either way.
Anyway, I’ll be live-streaming, so you can see for yourself how mad the “madness” gets (or not):
But nobody listens to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So although we’ll be doing Halloween basically as normal (and mind you, we’re quite COVID-cautious, and are not doing most things as normal), I expect that many/most people won’t.
BUSH: Trump— TRUMP: Sir? BUSH: Is there anyone left who likes you? Your approval ratings… TRUMP: You know what? BUSH: What? TRUMP: They’re still higher than you.
🎵 If you had to choose, if you had to choose… 🎵
BIDEN: Texas is tied!
🎵 If you had to choose, if you had to choose… 🎵
BIDEN ADVISERS: It’s up to the suburbs.
🎵 If you had to choose, if you had to choose… 🎵
BIDEN & ADVISERS: It’s up to Dubya?!
🎵 Choose, choose, choose… 🎵
BUSH: Yo! 🎵 Conservatives are asking to hear my voice (Oh!) Texas voters are facing a difficult choice (Oh!) And if you were to ask me who I’d promote… (Oh!)
🎵 …Joe Biden has my vote (Ohhh!)
🎵 I have never liked liberals, and they hate me too (Oh!)
🎵 Never thought I would hope to see Texas turn blue (Oh!)
🎵 But when all is said and all is done, Democrats have beliefs; Trump has none (Oooooohhh!)
BIDEN ADVISERS: 🎵 Well, I’ll be damned Well, I’ll be damned
HARRIS: 🎵 Dubya’s on your side
BIDEN: 🎵 Well, folks, that’s a Big F***in’ Deal!
BIDEN & HARRIS: 🎵 We’ll win in a landslide
TRUMP: 🎵 Congrats on your phony polls This is fraud, and I’ll fight 🎵
BIDEN: Uh-huh. 🙄
TRUMP: I look forward to seeing you in court. BIDEN: In court? TRUMP: As we win with SCOTUS. BIDEN: Ha ha, yeah, right!
BIDEN: You hear this guy? Man openly defies the rule of law, talking about ‘I’ll see you in court.’ TRUMP: It is crazy how I got to fill three Supreme Court seats, and you’ll have no vacancies. BIDEN: Oh, you know what? We can change that! You know why? TRUMP: Why? BIDEN: Cuz I’m gonna be President.
BrendanComments Off on Only YOU can prevent four more years
Ballots go out today in Colorado. So, here’s a friendly Public Service Announcement, in the all-caps parlance of the ‘roid-raging superspreader-in-chief:
ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOUR MORE YEARS! VOTE! (FOR JOE!)
Some of you see Biden as the “lesser evil.” I disagree, but I get it; I’ve felt that way in past elections. However, relying on other people to vote for an imperfect candidate who we all know, whatever his flaws, has to win (or the Republic is doomed) isn’t principled. It’s selfish. It’s wrong.
If you know, in your heart of hearts, that even a bad Biden presidency would (obviously) be preferable to the disaster of a second Trump term… and yet, you feel that your “conscience” won’t “allow you” to vote for Biden and Harris… respectfully, you’re wrong.
I don’t just mean your planned vote is wrong. I mean you’re wrong about your own conscience. Because, if you agree that Biden is (by a mile) the “lesser evil,” and yet your conscience is saying don’t vote for him over Trump, that’s because you’re asking your conscience the wrong question.
Listen to your conscience, yes. But only after you frame the issue correctly. To wit:
Voting is NOT some lonely, abstract, purely individual choice about who would be the ideal president in a perfect world. Nor is it a process-of-elimination quest, in which you are somehow morally required to cross out every candidate who disagrees with your personal beliefs about any fundamental issue, and are only permitted to choose among whoever’s left. That’s not what a vote is. That’s not what voting is for. At least not in an election this important, when the stakes are so fucking high, for the future of America and of the entire world.
So yes, your vote is individual and personal, to be sure. But it’s not just about you, as an atomistic individual. Your right to vote is an opportunity to participate in a collective societal choice. And this year, that choice, whether you like it or not, is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. No one else.
And listen, I didn’t vote for Biden in the primaries either, okay? He wasn’t even in my top three. But the primaries are over. There are two candidates remaining who can win. Don’t overcomplicate this. From 2021 through early 2025, for essentially the remainder of my eldest daughter’s childhood, the President of the United States will be one of those two men (barring death or disability). It’s Biden or Trump.
Do I wish we had other choices meaningfully available? Sure. I wish we had a system, like Ranked Choice Voting, that would allow for more choice. But we don’t. Not yet. And in the present, crappy system, voting for someone who can’t win is NOT a meaningful “protest.” A third-party vote will do nothing to bring about a better system. If you want a better system, then work toward a better system. Donate your time and/or money to support RCV for Colorado and similar efforts. But in mean time, be honest with yourself — practice some Radical Acceptance, as they say in DBT therapy — and acknowledge that under this system, this year, in this election, it is a binary choice. You can hate that. I hate it, too. But it’s the truth.
So, please, I beg you: ask your conscience whether it has a preference between the two candidates who we, as a society, are collectively deciding between. That’s the right question. And if your first impulse is to answer “no,” please think deeply about that, and again, please be honest with yourself. Do you really have no preference? Will you truly wake up on November 4 (or 5 or 10 or Dec. 14 or Jan. 6 or whenever we learn the winner), literally not caring who won, genuinely believing things would be equally bad either way? Not just “bad either way,” but equally bad?
If you recognize that they wouldn’t — and they clearly wouldn’t; no matter how much you dislike Biden, things would obviously be far, far worse with a terrifyingly unleashed, no-adults-left-in-the-room, second-term Trump — then please, don’t leave this choice to others. Don’t abdicate your role in this collective decision. Do your part. Save America. Vote for Joe.
BrendanComments Off on When did President Trump really get COVID-19?
My initial thread on this topic, from Monday evening:
I’ve tried to resist the more speculative theories… but the “information” and stonewalling from the WH has become so manifestly sketchy, I just can’t anymore.
I keep circling back to my tweets from last Monday. Two days after the crowded Rose Garden announcement for Amy Coney Barrett, the White House was suddenly using separate speaking spots for the President and other speakers. https://t.co/wbDa1TKrTb
Look, I have no idea. But *IF*, hypothetically, Trump actually started feeling bad right around the time of the ACB event, but refused to get tested till after Hicks got it, that’d explain a lot of different things.
• Won’t say when last negative test was • Won’t allow contact tracing (fear Trump is Patient Zero) • Timing of decline (~day 7, typical) & why doctors hope maybe he’s past the worst of it (if he’s ~day 10) • Why docs OK’d van ride & WH return (if he’s past isolation period)
Also – it sorta seems like his whole debate prep team got it & are all sick, doesn’t it? High viral load & very infection at that stage of infection, maybe.
I really think this is the Occam's razor explanation at this stage. I started thinking of it as a conspiracy theory earlier but it fits the evidence best: Trump just hasn't been testing that often.
So … I haven’t posted anything here in like four months … I let my lockdown diaries blog project wither & die … I have plenty of nuanced, longer-form thoughts about a variety of important topics that I would theoretically like to blog about, but I never simultaneously have both the time and the motivation … etc., etc. …
But hey, how about a blog post that’s just jokes & memes about voter fraud by koalas?
good point. koalas are a known voter fraud threat. we'd better have a total and complete shutdown of the election until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
🎵 We begged & we pleaded, "Please get help, Kanye" We managed to keep him at home for a day But #koalas barged in, and they took him away Now their K propaganda's Caused him to command us To meet their demands for petitions each day
I dreamed last night that I turned on the TV and saw, to my surprise, that the men’s basketball national championship game was happening — between a major-conference team (I think Villanova?) and, shockingly, the Lafayette Leopards, out of the Patriot League.
Lafayette’s stunning participation aside, I was surprised to see a title game happening at all, because, even in the dream’s version of history, March Madness had been cancelled due to coronavirus — though not beforehand, but midway through the second round. However, now it seemed the NCAA had decided to just pick two random teams from either side of the bracket, and have them play for the championship.
And, mysteriously, one of those teams was a #14 seed, mighty Lafayette College*, which had upset Duke in the first round. Because of course they had. Even my subconscious wants Duke to lose in the first round. 🤣
(*Or, possibly, it might’ve been UL-Lafayette, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. I’m not 100% sure. But I think it was Patriot League Lafayette, not Sun Belt Lafayette.)
Incidentally, I have no idea why my subconscious chose Lafayette for this role. While I would obviously cheer like hell for the Leopards in a hypothetical national title game against a major-conference team, I have no specific rooting interest in Lafayette. Nor were they on my mind in 2019-20: they went 19-12 overall, 10-8 in conference, earned a #5 seed in the Pat League tourney, and got ousted in the semis by Colgate. None of which I knew; I had to look it up. (Colgate, in turn, lost the conference title game to Boston University, making BU the very last team to earn an auto bid before all the cancellations started. That, I did know.)
If I was going to dream about a (non-Gonzaga) mid-major playing for the championship, you might think my brain would’ve picked a team that I specifically follow or root for, like Denver or UNC, or even a more tangential rooting interest like Utah State or Belmont or VCU. Or, hell, I could dream Butler back into the Horizon League, then re-run the Hayward shot yet again. 😂 Alternatively, you might think I would dream about a mid-major that was especially good in 2019-20, like ETSU or Hofstra or SDSU or, above all, Dayton. Poor, poor Dayton. 🙁
But no, my brain picked Lafayette, for whatever reason. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who knows why. Brains are weird. (TripleDent Gum will make you smile.)
What’s more, Lafayette wasn’t just playing, they were winning in the final minutes of my dream’s bizarro championship game. Seeing that, I suddenly realized that I’d better update the #GiantBracket. Apparently, when the dream-tournament got cancelled in the middle of the second round, I had put the bracket away without writing in the last few pre-cancellation winners. But now I wanted it to be complete and accurate, in preparation for a potential ALL CAPS bracket entry about a mid-major triumph.
I felt a bit torn, though, about how big I would make a possible celebratory “LAFAYETTE!!!!!” on the bracket. I’ve long assumed that a mid-major championship would be the only thing that could ever rival UMBC for all-time, gonna-need-a-bigger-bracket hugeness on the #GiantBracket. But now, even in a dream, it felt a little cheap that the Mid-Majority’s ultimate victory would finally happen in this bizarre situation where a fairly random Cinderella had, for reasons I couldn’t quite place, somehow been plucked out of an incomplete bracket and advanced into the title game without having fully earned it.
Alas, in the very process of pondering that dilemma, the dream started to collapse. (BWAAAAA.) As I tried to backfill the bracket during the under-4 timeout, adding in those second-round results that I’d missed, my dream’s premise — that the tournament had been cancelled mid-second round — started to mentally collide with a vague notion that “wait…I feel like that’s not quite right.”
As I tried to remember whether Lafayette had even played its second-round game, or whether their first-round win over Duke was the only game they’d finished (prior to being airlifted into the championship game weeks later), I started doubting the dream’s reality.
The last thing I remember thinking was, “Hang on…what even is this bracket…did the NCAA even release a bracket?! I thought…”
Day 4 of my Pandemic Lockdown was also, in a sense, Day 1 of the New Normal: the first weekday with the kids home from school, and me officially working from home for the foreseeable future — thanks to Sunday’s e-mails from my employer, which had flipped normal work-attendance practices on their head by indicating that I essentially needed permission to come to work, vs. needing permission to work from home.
I still had one co-worker watching me closely, though:
As I captioned that photo on Twitter:
(BTW, don’t worry, there’s nothing confidential in the photo. I double-checked.)
Meanwhile, the kids’ New Normal included expanding their daily allotment of “screen time” to functionally unlimited…
…while still requiring them to fulfill certain responsibilities, as a condition of keeping that privilege.
Apropos of which, here they are watching a Dude Perfect video at the dinner table. Family bonding FTW? 🙂 We also finally gave in to our 12-year-old’s longstanding desire to get an iPhone, replacing her not quite 2-year-old Samsung J3V with a used iPhone 7 (paid for mostly with her own money).
Not all of the kids’ activities Monday were screen-related, though. For instance, the 8-year-old helped Mommy plant some vegetables.
As I explained on social media:
While it felt too alarmist, sensationistic, and frankly a wee bit crazy to go into more detail than that, weeks later I would elaborate a bit on the object of that “caution”:
Speaking of which, here are some clips of our discussions of, and reactions to, various bits of news on Monday:
The overall gist of Monday’s news was perhaps best-conveyed by the lede of a New York Times front-page article titled “Crisis Shutting Down Commerce, Likely for Months,” which stated matter-of-factly:
In some places, public officials and private business owners moved with stunning speed. In others, paralyzing hesitancy, defiant bravado or blithe disregard dominated. But by Monday, it was clear everywhere that most of the American economy was grinding to an unparalleled halt and would remain that way for months.
, The New York Times, March 17, 2020
Here is the front page of Tuesday morning’s Times (discussing Monday’s news):
The day’s news, which included the first word of Imperial College death-toll estimates that caused both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson to suddenly change course in their approach to the crisis) was enough to spike your blood pressure — but at least I knew my blood-oxygen level was in the normal range, thanks to the PulseOx that I had bought off Amazon on Friday:
In the afternoon, Becky headed to work for a 3pm-3am shift, and got an N95 mask for the first time:
Less dramatically, I went out in the afternoon, too — to buy Acetaminophen. I hadn’t been able to find any online, but the local Walgreens app reported that our local store had some in stock, so I went there to buy some. Afterward, I tweeted:
(NOTE: I learned of the Ibuprofen evidence mentioned above from a John Campbell video. Campbell later clarified the issue further, and the science remains very unsettled on this point.)
I actually called my dad (in Connecticut) while en route to Walgreens, to make sure he and my mom — who are far more likely than us to need it — had adequate supply of Acetaminophen at home. If not, I would have bought two, and sent one to them, given the apparent shortage. But my dad reported that they had plenty, so I just bought one for us.
I also, IIRC, bought a couple of things from the rather depleted-looking snack aisle:
I made a second quick stop at the nearby supermarket, hoping to buy Monday’s New York Times. They were all out, though I was able to get a Denver Post.
Also there was a USA Today college basketball special, taunting me with the prospect of an NCAA Tournament that would never be. 🙁
In the evening, during the 8-year-old’s bedtime rituals, we had some fun with panorama mode on my phone:
That’s about it, in terms of photos from Day 4. But it was a big news day, so I’ll finish this post with a bunch of screenshots and embeds.
WHAT WE’RE ASKING: Will there be a recession?
WHAT WE SHOULD BE ASKING: Will the recession be worse than 2007-09?
WHAT WE SHOULD MAYBE, PERHAPS, BE WHISPERING: Um, what’s the definition of “depression,” exactly? https://t.co/h5Z2ttR55E
BrendanComments Off on Pandemic Lockdown, Day 29-30
Friday, April 10
With Easter two days away, and Becky at home for the second straight day (after four E.R. shifts in five days from Saturday-Wednesday), she and the younger girls did some egg-decorating Friday morning, using the Cool Whip & food coloring method:
Whipped cream was featured again at dinner time, atop the 8-year-old dessert chef’s jello creation:
In the news Friday, the extension of Colorado’s order to April 26 became official, and was broadcast as an Emergency Alert on everyone’s phones (though it had been reported days earlier). Also, reports emerged of new COVID-19 modeling that was troubling — but also, for me, a relief of sorts. Not for what it says, but just the fact that it’s being discussed, as I was already quite worried about a disastrous rush to premature “re-open the economy” before necessary measures are in place to prevent a huge re-acceleration of the curve. Anyway:
Back on the home front, I ventured to the Greenway again Thursday for the 8pm howl, this time with the 8yo. Here’s a livestreamed video. Afterward, she had fun running back and forth on the blocks of old airport concrete under Central Park Boulevard:
Saturday, April 11
The anticipation for Easter had been palpable for days (particularly for the 8-year-old), and that was certainly the case on Saturday, “Easter Eve”:
Although the more immediate issue Saturday morning wasn’t pre-Easter eagerness, but the great Roblox Crisis of 2020:
The highlight of my day, meanwhile, was a beautiful long dog walk with my beautiful wife. Becky had been scheduled for an extra E.R. shift Saturday, from 7a-7p, but she got called off after ~3 hours. (The hospital has lots of COVID patients, but farfewer non-COVID patients than usual — and, thanks to Colorado’s successful curve-bending, the COVID patient load hasn’t become overwhelming.) So anyway, Becky had most of the day unexpectedly off, and shortly after she got home, we headed out and walked together. It was a gorgeous day — the last one for a while, we knew, with snow imminent for Easter — so we wanted to make the most of it. Here are some pictures:
If you can’t tell, chalk art is quite the trend right now. 🙂 Speaking of which, although I only saw it on social media (not in person), this one is awesome:
Later in the day, the 8yo & I walked to our mailbox around the corner, to check for mail…
…and ran into our back-yard neighbors, whose kids were making a chalk-art masterpiece.
After a few minutes, Sam headed back ’round the corner and home, but I stood around and chatted with the artists’ mom and dad for — I’m not sure how long, but over an hour for sure — staying 6+ feet away at all times, of course. It was nice to have a bit of human contact (outside of our immediate household)! 🙂
Also on Saturday, the kittens had to go in for vaccines. But here are some adorable kitten pics from earlier in the day:
We concluded Saturday with another 8pm howl, this time from our front porch:
Here’s the full thing as a Facebook Live broadcast:
Finally, with the arrival of a certain Essential Bunny mere hours away, the girls decided to have a sister sleepover in the 12-year-old’s room:
The coolest thing on Thursday was the 8pm howl, which our seventh-grader & I experienced (and participated in) from Greenway Park in Stapleton, where we could hear the howling more loudly than from our front porch. Here’s a video:
Earlier Thursday, it was Day 3 of DPS’s official online school, and I snapped some pictures of the younger girls “going to class” in their pajamas:
Gotta love the third-grader’s crazy hair. 😂
As per usual, I spent most of the day in my basement office — where Snorlax kept a close eye on me, to make sure I was staying on task:
In the afternoon, there was this major development:
In other news, the Pokémon GO Spring Event started Thursday, which meant there were adorable crown-wearing Pokémon to be caught:
As for actual news news, here’s some of what was happening Thursday, as seen via tweets:
Thursday was also a day when I became increasingly annoyed at coronavirus truthers, skeptics, and assorted online idiots, who were remarkably still somehow not fully convinced of the pandemic’s seriousness, even with more than 16,000 U.S. deaths.
On a totally unrelated and much happier note, here’s our 8-year-old Sodastream enthusiast at work:
