Category House and Home

The TV Dinner and the Hot Dog

Michael 4 Comments
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Places everybody. I’d say let’s get this down in one take but that ship sailed 14 takes ago. Hot Dog, wipe that mustard off your face. Again! And somebody mop the sweat off TV Dinner or it’s back in the freezer. Ok, we’re ready. Roll sound! Roll camera!
 
DIRECTOR: Action!
 
HOT DOG: Happy National Hot Day Day! That’s September 10 to you commoners.
 
TV DINNER: But it’s supposed to be my day, TV Dinner Day. You already had Hot Dog Day on the third Wednesday of July, July 22 this year actually. Today is…
 
HOT DOG: Yes, yes, today is National Hot Dog Day! The hot dog is the greatest food in the world, in the entire universe, and deserves two days. In fact we deserve 2 days every month, every week even! You can never have too many hot dogs! Who wants a nutritionally wimpy salt and fat explosion of bad taste that makes airplane food seem gourmet? You can’t even decide how to dress. You started out all shiny in those aluminum trays with bright aluminum foil covers and look at you now, boxed up in black plastic with that chintzy see through top. Now a hot dog hasn’t changed in four billion years because we were born perfect! 
 
TV DINNER: That’s not true! To begin with you weren’t invented until the 1870’s and didn’t become popular until 50 years after that. Based on a flash freezing process developed in the 1920s TV dinners hit the streets running in 1954 and never lost momentum. And we can be very healthy. It depends on what you pick. A frozen meatloaf with mash potatoes and gravy might have a little more salt and fat than recommended but a baked chicken with broccoli or vegetable lasagna are solid, healthy dinner choices. TV Dinners satisfy whatever mood you’re in. We are what you make of us.
 
HOT DOG: I’ll tell you what I can make of you. Garbage! Look at all that packaging. Waste, waste, waste. A hot dog is all food. And were portable. You won’t find a vendor at the ball yard hawking frozen dinners. You’re called TV Dinners because after somebody gorges on a box of you all they’re good for the rest of the night is watching TV. Hot Dogs on the other hand are the food of the fit. That’s why were at every sporting event around the world! Now go crawl back into the freezer and let me celebrate like the winner that I am!
 
TV DINNER: I think what you’re saying is wrong. Just because you are sold at ball games doesn’t make hot dogs nutritious. Nachos are big at sporting events and you really don’t believe melted cheese on salty chips is good for you.
 
HOT DOG: Oh baby do I love melted cheese! I look fabulous with that gooey yellow goodness oozing out of the ends of my bun. It gives me shivers just to think how much healthier I am with a layer of cheese and maybe even chili too.
 
TV DINNER: Healthier? Are you cra…… No, no, I mustn’t be like that. It might not be fair but if you really believe you need two days I’ll share mine with you. I’d rather give a little and live long and in peace than to spend what little time we have arguing about who is better when we know deep down it takes all of us to make a kitchen full and happy.
 
TVDinnerDogVOICE OVER: Be like the TV Dinner and make the best out of the situations over which you have no control. Don’t fall into the trap of believing the world can’t live without you and you deserve everything you can get. Don’t be a hot dog. Be a winner, winner, frozenchicken dinner.
 
DIRECTOR: Cut! Good work everybody. Thank you
 
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR:  Thank you all. Leave your costumes in the dressing area and check the board for up coming food spots. If you’re interested, have your agents call now.
 
DIRECTOR: We’re doing good stuff here. Let’s eat. I have a taste for one of those little frozen apple desserts. How about you?
 
 
 

Welcome Mat to my World

Michael 2 Comments
In a world where brevity is so important that people abbreviate three letter words (for example, “1 C bread flour or all purpose flour,” come on, if you’re going to go through the whole “bread or all purpose flour” bit in your recipe you can spell out CUP (sheesh)) it is no wonder some people distill their entire life philosophies onto license plates. So much so that I managed to expand those abbreviated thoughts into several thousand words over five posts, Walls O’ Wisdom, UDNTSAY, Mobile Philosophy, Writing on the Walls, and T(-Shirt) is for Thinking. (All good stuff by the way. You should call them up and read or read again if you’re so inclined and I should say you should be.) Maybe it’s been going on for ages but I only recently discovered another outlet for the “let me tell you about my life” crowd, the welcome mat.
 
I’ve had welcome mats all my life and most of them have said something, not surprisingly usually “WELCOME.” Around the holidays I often replace that with others that sport fallen leaves, Christmas scenes or Easter Bunnies, but by and large the message outside my door is “Hi, come on it” even if not in so many words. Apparently there are people  who will make a mat that says just that in just that many words and much else. 
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Living in a townhouse community where most front doors are right there off the main sidewalk, my morning walks through the neighborhood expose me to what people put on and about their front doors. Mostly I admire the wreaths and door adornments but today I focused on the foot of the doors (foots of the doors? feet of the doors? bottoms of the doors!) What I saw there was a wide array of sentiment from “Dogs Welcomed/People Tolerated” to “Wipe Your Feet!” to “Please Hide Packages From Husband.” Out of 50 or 60 door mats I passed, only a handful, mine being one of those, bore the single word “WELCOME” although a good number boasted simliar sentiment like “Hello,” “Come In,” and one “Home Sweet Home.”
 
The mats that conveyed more complex feelings than “Hey, How Ya Doing” were the ones that got me thinking. Where do these all come from? Some I’ve seen in stores. The moronic, ironic “Go Away!” must have been a recent clearance item somewhere because I noted about a half dozen of those and I can’t imagine anybody paying full price whatever the price might be for that. But many had to be custom made, the aforementioned hide the package from hubby and another that had me giggling (I hope I remember the wording right), “If you ever want to see these people again bring five pounds of hamburger in a plain brown wrapper. Signed, The Dog.” Who thinks these things and then who turns those thoughts into 18 x 30 inches of foot level text. I have to find out because I think (some of) these people are brilliant. 
 
Some of my favorites including what I dubbed the Hubby and Dog mats were “Run While You Still Can,” “Hi, I’m Mat,” “What are you looking at?” and “Get Your Feet Off Me!” I give special tribute to those with the most welcoming message of all, those who know some people are just as happy to leave, to wit:
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Shopping Math Revisited

Michael Leave a comment
In the past I bemoaned the lack of government oversight for toilet paper roll sizing and the resultant consternation from attempting to determine which is the better deal, the 9 mega-rolls of 438 sheets per roll or the 12 double-rolls of 306 sheets per roll if your coupon covers the mega-roll multipak but not the megapak of double rolls, super soft but not super strong. (If you don’t recall that discussion it may be beneficial to review it here.) You would think the turmoil of the TPS (toilet paper shortage) we experienced at the beginning of the CoViD crisis (heretofore referred to as the CVTPS) would have solidified the need for regulatory intervention. Instead the situation has worsened. Regardez vous:
 
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As they would say in France, sacred blue! Maybe not, what do I know, I haven’t used French since high school when things were neat, people keen, and we said “ah, gee,” a lot. The point is, those tubes are both from rolls of toilet paper, not from the same package, but of the same brand. Same iteration also, double-roll ultra soft, and purchashed from the same store. The difference? One, represented by the longer roll, was part of a 4 roll pack which is plenty for a single person with limited storage space. The other shorter roll is from an all that was available 24 roll pack more likely to go home with a family of 6, somebody looking to fill storage space in the unused corner of the garage, or a single person whose diet is chiefly canned chili and beer, probably home brew. 
 
I wish I could tell you more but I had already discarded the wrapping from the “long roll,” “double roll” is no longer an adequate modifier, and only had both emptied rolls show up side by side because my daughter has a dog and I have a poor memory. I can see some of you are puzzled. Well, you take some small dog treats or bits of kibble, pour them into the tube, crimp or fold the ends, then let the dog puzzle how to get to the treats on his or her own. Yes, it is awkward construction but “they” is plural no matter what which style book says otherwise. Oh, the roll? No that’s not at all awkward. It’s quite fun for the dog and can keep it (the dog) (quite appropriate for animals even if somewhat cold) occupied for from seconds to hours (okay, almost always seconds). However, because the makeshift treat holder is destroyed in the game a constant supply of emptied rolls is necessary once the dog becomes hooked on the fun. As daughter and I each have a diet consisting of all the major food groups, neither of us are buried under a mountain of emptied cardboard tubes. Often I forget to pass along those I have saved and end up with 2 or 3 of them hanging out with my full rolls. There they undoubtedly regale those rolls of unused sheets yet to be wrestled from their plastic encased world of tales of adventures yet to come on their journeys from closet to holder to spinner to… but I digress. 
 
Now armed with this new knowledge, shopping will be even more mentally laborious. No longer is simple arithmetic comparing sheets per roll to rolls per pack to price adequate to determine value in the paper products aisles of the mega marts of the world. Square footage (which I previously wondered why it was included on the package label) has to be considered if one expects to maximize our constantly weakening purchasing power. Now we must be armed with the ability to solve simultaneous equations, something I haven’t done since the advent of multifunction calculators. No longer is shopping math missing from the core curricula of American education. No, now we need … Shopping Calculus! 
 
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Not There Yet

Michael 1 Comment
“I may not be there yet but I’m closer than I was yesterday.” I don’t know who said that. I don’t know if anybody actually said it or if it has come to us like “Play it again, Sam,” a famous quote that was never said in the first place. But if nobody else ever said it I just did and I am closer, as we all are.
 
I’m closer to moving. Recent posts have alluded to the upheaval I’ve been going through. No offense to anybody out there whose lives have been interrupted at the hands of a pandemic virus, racial inequities, civil unrest, or a variety of other happening and pending disasters, but I haven’t personally been thus up heaved. My tribulations are from not quite having a home while my life and possessions are split between two residences. Yeah I know, first world problem. Sorry.
 
But … just because I’ve been a nervous and physical wreck doing a semi do it yourself move doesn’t mean I’ve been ignoring the pandemonia happening around me. Naturally I have a few words to say about it. First and foremost,  somebody better write to the dictionary people and suggest they pay more respect to pandemonium’s plurality. Most do not even bother to include it. In their defense it isn’t the norm for more than one pandemonium to occur concurrently but here we are. And if it seems I am making light of the crises (another plural we need to resurrect), it is because the world is treating them lightly.
 
For example, let’s consider the continuing saga of COVID, or As the Virus Turns. And turning it is – turning the world on its head. For anybody who thinks the worst is over, I’m talking to you Florida, record numbers of new cases are being reported, I’m talking to you Florida! And others. Around the world record numbers of new cases are breaking out, in fact, this weekend was the largest increase in cases worldwide. Really.
 
As if rampant disease and death isn’t enough we have protests (peaceful), riots (not so peaceful), weird apologies (Columbus Ohio wants to change its name to Flavortown?), and still no stable supply of soap on store shelves (what would Granny Clampett make of that? Lye soap naturally!).
 
Now, for my big problem, Moving. Monday (that’s today!) I am out of my current residence mostly because I’ve run out of places to put me. It has been overtaken with boxes! (Remember this 👇)
moving-boxes
But I’m not in my new residence with the requisite pieces to maintain this diversion, specifically internet access, until Wednesday. Therefore, you probably shouldn’t expect anything from me Thursday (like you haven’t been anyway) and if Comcast is as efficient with getting things set up and started on Wednesday like I know they will be, you might be best not expecting anything from me next Monday either. (Sigh) But I closer and closer is as closer does and eventually I’ll get to do it again.
 
Sorry if I was a little ranty today. First world problems get me bitchy.
 
 
 
 
 

Uncontrolled Chaos

Michael 2 Comments
Here’s a news flash. I’m moving. Talk about challenges during a pandemic. Somehow I managed to review, tour, select, and sign for a new apartment without leaving the confines of my confining current compartment. Trust me, if it was up to me I would stay here forever but it’s my roommates, Myself and I, who are jonesing for new Joneses to keep up with.
 
You might remember for older posts that I spent 30 years in a sprawling, way too big on many levels (metaphorically and literally) for one person suburban house with the requisite yard, gardens and outside spaces. Five years ago I “downsized” into my now soon to be abandoned first attempt at retirement living. Not retirement living community, just retirement living.
 
I did pretty well with the first wave of downsizing, paring away about 3/4 of my accumulated possessions. After 5 years I’ve found that I’ve re-accumulated and am on the verge of “upsizing.” But it’s not for the newfound additional space I am pulling the plug on the present penthouse. That’s a tale for another day.
 
Today’s tale starts four weeks before I hit the drop dead date on renewing the current lease. Oh, how was I supposed to know there would be a global pandemic so close to my renewal date? Because I had resolved to drop dead before I would renew I had 4 weeks to find new lodging. Unfortunately that coincided exactly with the eve of the world shutting down. Oy! Or is that Oi? Whichever, it was a challenge. But I met the challenge and 4 weeks later I was not committing to a renewal. 
 
That was 30 days ago and I have 30 days to go. I have discovered that the challenge of finding a place while the world is isolated ain’t nothing compared to packing in isolation. To call this controlled chaos would be generous. Out of control pandemonium is not quite there either but it is closer.
..
First, there’s just me here! Me and hundreds of flattened boxes that need reconstructed, rolls of tape in a holder/dispenser designed by a mechanical engineer who was last in his class, pieces of bubble wrap in a variety of shapes and sizes saved from the previous move and various package deliveries over the past 5 years, and felt tip marking pens that keep disappearing. No matter how carefully I wrap and place items into an expertly reconstructed cardboard box there’s always a corner too small for the last item my mind believes should fit there and too large for anything I do find to put there leaving still an empty corner just even smaller than that last item my mind still believes belongs there and nowhere else. In the process of filling that box I’ve reconstructed another box (expertly, of course) with just one item in it, the one my mind is still certain belonged in that empty corner of the first box. It was easier the last time I moved.
 
The last time I moved I was convalescing in a recliner while I wrapped a glass or two and directed the relatives doing the heavy lifting, err packing. The time before that was 30 years previous and there were professionals involved. Hmm, I just realized this might not be the cause of the virus and the Governor’s quarantine order. I might just not be good at packing. Oh my.
 
I’ll try to keep you up to date on my progress. As long as I can keep a computer or tablet out of a reconstructed cardboard box (expertly).
 
moving-boxes
 
 
 
 

Wyizit?

Michael 8 Comments
Last week I was hit with a bad case of the wyizits. It started with a song that got trapped in my head and couldn’t find it’s way out. And all day long I was asking myself, “Why is it that only the annoying songs get stuck in your head?” Seriously, do you ever walk around all day with the comforting sounds of the opening movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata? No, it’s always “Na, Na, Hey, Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye” or if you’re in that classical mood, the 1812 Overture but ending with a hearty “Hi ho Silver!” So I started wondering, quite unconsciously and seemingly unstoppingly, about other wyizits, howcomes, and hoosedsos with an occasional wydont and one random watzitcalled.
 
Why is it that people are now walking down the middle of the street eschewing the safety of the sidewalk for the chaos of life among motorized vehicles? Not only are they walking down the middle of the street they are doing it with eyes firmly focused on their hand held cell phones, doubly taking their chances among the cars being driven by likewise distracted phone gawkers. And to make it more challenging, every so often, the street walker (apologies to the professional ranks) just stops in mid stride (if it can be called a stride – perhaps mid-shuffle) until just as unexpectedly begins moving again.
 
There were many others equally well thought, mentally mulled, and eventually determined to be forever unanswered questions of life as we know it. Here is a sampling.
 
QuestionHow come a vegan or vegetarian thinks nothing of announcing “I haven’t eaten a piece of meat for 35 years” but then spends 20 minutes explaining what I’m missing out on when I just happen to mention that I tried kale years ago and just don’t like it?
 
Who said a quarter pound is the right size for a hamburger?
 
 
Why don’t cat owners take their pets out for a walk?
 
What’s it called when you eat breakfast cereal for a midnight snack?
 
Why is it that birds always know when I wash my car? 
 
Why is it that celebrities thinks the ability to memorize the lines of learned person character give them the knowledge of a real learned person without the need for 12 years of education, training, and research?
 
How come none of the people in pictures of Panama are wearing wide brimmed hats? 
 
Why is it that athletes think I care at all about anything they have to say?”
 
How come the printer always run out of ink two-thirds of the way through the One Important Document I have to print this year?
 
Who said pajama bottoms aren’t acceptable business casual attire?
 
How come nobody else recognizes my infallibility?
 
Why is it that in surveys, applications, and other instruments that bother to ask does a third generation Asian, Latin, or Pacific Islander get a box to check but a first generation Italian is “No?”
 
How come a tian and a tangine aren’t the same? Similarly but different, how came a tian and a ratatouille aren’t the same?
..
Who said all good things must end?
 
Na na na na. Na na na na. Hey hey hey. Goodbye.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I’m Board

Michael 2 Comments
Long before the pandemic hit my corner of the world I was already spending more time indoors alone than probably healthy, exploring few opportunities that would take me to other places that a grocery store, or a pharmacy, lab, a doctors office or other medical facility, or outside for a solo walk. It’s like I was made for this crisis. But I will say that even I am getting a little bored. I’m sure I wouldn’t be so bored if I could only get a little board! You know I haven’t worked for quite a few years now. I had settled into the routine of, if not a refined retired gentleman at least one not quite as bad as a crotchety old fogie. That’s because I kept my brain young. Yes, I am using past tense. I believe I’m slipping.
 
Even though the forays to the outside world were not often and typically instigated by one if the aforementioned reasons, I almost always made some detour on the way home. Perhaps I would stop at one of the big time mega-marts and wander the aisles getting some exercise and often some deals from the clearance shelves. Maybe I would find a local diner and compare its grillmaster’s patty melt to the last visited diner’s offering. Maybe I’d browse a thrift shop because they are just fun to walk around in and I’ve found a remarkable selection of candy dishes in them over the years. Even if I was feeling adventurous today, and lucky enough to venture out where others may be, those places aren’t open anyway.
 
When extended outdoor time wasn’t desired or desirable like in times of freezing weather (which we seem to have 9 months out of the year) I would amuse myself baking oatmeal cookies or concocting a new marinade for something on the grill. Now though I’m limiting my flour to bead and pizza dough and experimentation time (not to mention counter space) has given way to knead, rise, knead, rise, rise again, bake, slice, eat repeat.
 
Then there is that portion of the day I called down time. That would be the time I’d spend watching an old movie, reading a book, or going through the whole of a newspaper following stories missed during the morning headline review, laughing at the funnies and doing the crossword puzzle. The papers have all stopped publishing hard copies, the library and bookstores are closed and I can read only so much electronic prose, and even I am getting tired of old movies (except for anything with Audrey Hepburn). (Nobody can ever tire of Audrey Hepburn.) (Nobody!)
 
Add to those losses the loss of Sundays with the Daughter. (Yes, yes, of course this should be at the top of the and indeed it is but I had to keep it for last one mentioned to build dramatic effect. If you don’t like it, go wrote your own post – sheesh!) (But don’t leave yet. We’re finally getting to the point of this post.) Sometimes after we cooked for a couple hours then ate for a couple hours we’d pull out a game board and play for a couple hours. But not just any old game. Our game was, and will be again, Backgammon.
 
If you’re a chess player there are apps and live sites and virtual games around very corner. I know first hand that there are indeed crossword puzzle apps that you can play all day long and not be interrupted by a single ad. For free! Word games abound, arcade games are electronic naturals, even “jigsaw” puzzles can be assembled without interruption on line or in apps. But backgammon…
 
Indeed there are some backgammon apps but every one I ever tried forces you into watching ads to earn tokens to build moves with. And there are a few backgammon live sites where you can play against AI or a distant opponent. These are few and the opponents are fewer. (And I think the AI cheats. Nobody can throw that many doubles.) Besides, backgammon needs to be experienced in more than two dimensions and with more than just sight. You have to hear the dice rolling in the cup before bouncing across the felt, you need to feel the smoothness of the tiles as you slide them along the points, you have to see you opponent slump when you bump her or him to the rail or bear off your last stone. The Mesopotamians weren’t thinking computer when they drew the first points and carved the first stones 3,000 years before Jesus walked the Earth. Backgammon is to be experienced, not pixelated.
 
But this isolation won’t last forever. Until then I’ll still take my set out each Sunday. Now I just polish it. Eventually I’ll get to play it. 
 
 
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Farm to Fable

Michael 3 Comments
Now things have gone too far! Oh, hi. Sorry. I seem to have started in the middle. Let me back up.
 
As I approach the Doddering Years I have three joys. A good long chat with a dear friend, Sunday dinner – cooking and eating – with my daughter, and a few hours spent each week fondling ripe produce. (Fondling ripe other stuff is pretty much now confined to unconscious sleep time activities and with much thanks to dreams that forever live in the pre-doddering years.) [Sigh] Now where was I? Right, doddering.
 
Phones calls, text messages, emails, and a video now and then contribute to maintaining contact with those not with you during this time of not allowing those to not be not with you. I don’t know what others think but I find the art of phone calling rebounding. For a while text messages and direct contact through the various social platforms seemed to have phone calls going the way of pay phones. I believe the desire to hear another voice is driving an increase in calling minutes. Regardless of how much we’ve retreated into a world of contact by social medium, social media isn’t all that social. But the tone of a familiar voice, the lilt of emotions not requiring emoticon augmentation, or the thoughtful pause of reflection contribute to the experience of communication that go so much beyond “on my way, there in 10.” Even isolated I continue to experience the joy of a good long chat with a dear friend.
 
For some time now every Sunday my daughter packed up her dog and his toys, occasionally added an onion or select chicken parts to her parcels, and made her way to me for a day of cooking, eating, and reporting of the previous week’s activities and upcoming week’s plan. Although we have both been careful with our contact with everyone just about to the point that there is almost no contact with anyone, we have suspended these food fests for the duration or until whenever we say “oh enough of this already!” But still she brings me groceries every 2 weeks and we still cook a big meal each Sunday in our own kitchens and share our results electronically. It’s not perfect but it works for us and keeps some version of Sunday dinner in the joy category.
 
Our Sunday cooking extravaganza always left me with enough meals and meal compontents that I could spend a good part of the following week just reheating. Several days each week though I still had to construct a full dinner on my own. These days were always such fun. I would rarely wake and say today “I want [insert specific food here]” but would often wake and say “I wonder what looks good at the store today” and then plan a trip to the market to critically examine meats, sniff fish, and squeeze produce. I am very fortunate that I have a small Italian market within walking distance of my kitchen (and uphill only in one direction!) where you are encouraged to use up to four senses before adding a purchase to your basket. (You could sometimes use the fifth after asking.) (Yes, you do know which one I mean!) In the absence of the little market, and it is now absent since the owner decided he would be happier staying alive than staying open, the nearest supermarket has an excellent produce section, a well stocked and maintained fish counter, and a butcher ready to butcher on request. One way or another I had sufficient opportunity to find something that looked good with which to build dinner.
 
But now I’m stuck at home and the only tomatoes I get to choose from are those my daughter had the pleasure of putting under her thumb – so to speak. No sniffing the blossom end of a cantaloupe, or peeking between the leaves of an artichoke. No examining the fat marbled through a New York strip or glistening in a filet of salmon. No losing oneself in the intoxicating aroma of cheeses and sausages ready to be sliced or portioned to my specifications. [Sigh] [Again] 
 
Bad as that is, its going to get worse, even as it appears it may be getting better. Last week the pronouncement came down from on high. No farmers’ markets this year. Farm markets to be sure. You can still go to them, but no weekly gathering of all the local farms at a convenient park or parking lot with their most recent hauls of fruits and vegetables, their just baked breads and pastries, their hand cut cuts of beef and pork, their eggs and chickens, or even their kitsch and tchotchkes. [Big sigh]
 
No, even if I get the chance to go out and shop on my own this summer it won’t be the same. The joys of fondling fresh fennel fronds straight from the farm are just not to be. [Sigh] [Still] But al least I can still dream.
 
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Hello, ‘stat You?

Michael 2 Comments
A dear friend of mine is in a speech contest. The winner would have been eligible to go to Paris for an international competition. Instead she is competing for the chance to speak in front of her computer and whomever joins the Zoom audience.
 
Let me digress here for a moment. How many people heard of Zoom four months ago? Okay, thanks. Just making sure.
 
As I was working with her, listening to thoughts turn into ideas turn into words turn into new thoughts I started thinking about how much of our communication isn’t just words. A good book notwithstanding, words alone have never been an effective means of communication. If they were, Scott Fahlman* would only be known for his work on early artificial intelligence. Communicating includes tone, movement, gestures, and pace to get the point across. I grew up thinking it was my heritage that made me gesture so much but when I got to high school I realized many non-Italains did the same. And it isn’t only the speaker who uses non-verbal skills. I find as a listener I use my eyes often as much as my ears to grasp the message.
 
We live in a time where we can use those non-words to communicate even when we aren’t in the same lecture hall. Facetime, Skype, Duo, and other communications apps moved video calls from the comic books to our living rooms. Zoom, Chime, GoToMeeting and conferencing software took the calls to virtual boardrooms. One hundred years ago during a different quarantine period you would have been lucky to have had a phone. That was only if you lived in the third of the country serviced by the telephone company and you had $3 a month to spend on it (about $40 equalivalent today). Otherwise you were left to pen and paper or very loud yelling to communicate with anybody outside your home. 
 
Next week I have a doctor’s appointment. I won’t be going anywhere beyond my dining room to keep that appointment. I figure that to be where I’ll set up for the video appointment using the hospital’s electronic chart’s telemedicine function. With the proper sensors it will even record my blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rate. I’ll have to weigh myself though and tomorrow I will go in person to the lab. Those results then will be automatically loaded to the charting software. It’s as close to hands-free medicine as you can get so far.
 
TelDoc
I’m okay with some of this. Personally I like a doctor to thump my chest and peer down throat. Hands-on. But in a pinch, this will do. However, I hope all this remote stuff doesn’t take hold too strongly and we can get back to those in person appointments. 
 
And speeches,  live speeches. Let’s not forget about them. (I was hoping for an invitation to Paris too!)
 
—–
* Scott Falhman is credited with originating the smiley and frowning emoticons in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University to distinguish serious posts from jokes.
 
 

Undressed for Success

Michael Leave a comment
Over the last few days I’ve been scrolling through various social media platforms because, well, because I’ve always had that kind of time, and I’m picking up on a disconcerting trend. Clothing options are getting scary.
 
I know you’ve seen the posts, “Its 9am. Time to change from my night PJs to my day PJs!” or similar and probably from people who used to be the closest things to fashions plates outside of Project Runway. Now they’re all giving new meaning to “not being a slave to fashion” and in serious jeopardy of being busted by the fashion police. 
 
Work fashions have always been a little out of the average dresser’s realm of understanding. How dressy is dressy? How casual is casual? What can and can’t I get away with? are more likely the questions rather than, oh let’s say, Are my seams straight?   
 
I’ve always worked in health care, almost always in some healthcare facility – hospital, rehab center, nursing home. Over forty years I’ve seen it all. When I started, nurses still wore whites. Not white. Whites. Some even with caps. All with their pins. Scrubs were worn in the OR and never over outside those automatic doors without an accompanying white coat. Down in the pharmacy where I was the uniform of the day for males was shirt and tie, the ladies had blouses and skirts or slacks with short white consultation jackets for staff pharmacists and long white lab coats for supervisors and department heads. Except for those working the IV rooms. There it was either lab coats over scrubs or gowns over street clothes. There was similar garb in the other ancillary departments, x-ray, respiratory, and the various therapies. Non-clinicians like admissions and administration wore suits. Period.
 
That was the routine six days a week. Friday was different. Ah, you are thinking, Casual Friday. Nope. Not then. Work was no place to be casual. Fridays were dress up days. Everybody came in if not dressed to the nines, to the 7-1/2s at least. As soon as the figurative whistle blew, administration, staff, and support proceeded en masse to the nearest adult watering hole. 
 
Somewhere along the way Dressup Friday yielded to Casual Friday but Saturday through Thursday work fashion remained as it was. I’m not sure when that happened. I don’t recall being part of the movement so I think it must have shifted during my years in the service when the army rather than the calendar dictated our dress. But I don’t think it was very much before I returned to civilian life and its itinerant dress because people were not yet debating how casual casual could get. At the time khaki pretty much defined casual. Men shed their ties and may have just opened a collar or taken an extra step to a structured “sport shirt.” Women adopted khaki lower halves either as skirts or slacks and typically pulled a sweater over an open blouse and called that casual. It would be years before anybody even considered denim acceptable and then it was only black, never blue. 
 
Somehow from that we made it to daytime versus night pajamas. Considering in today’s hospital world everybody including the guy patrolling the parking garage is in scrubs and scrubs are just a hop, skip, and tied waistband from pajamas, it was only a matter of time until people started showing up at work looking like Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. Only now the screen in front of the helmsman and navigator displays not a possible incursion of the Neutral Zone but instead the morning Zoom meeting.
 
Live long and prosper! Casually.
 
FashionPolice