May 29, 2020--Maine: From Away

This is from Jill Davenport, another good Maine friend. She is writing in response to what Mike Stevens said the other day about people "from away" returning to Maine for this virus-infected "season."


Hi Steven--

I just now read your blog and saw the picture of our Maine friend, Mike Stevens.  He lends the same sort of perspective about us summer residents as do some other friends of mine who live year-round near Pumpkin Cove.  They, too, have offered help during the two-week quarantine which we must all live through if coming from out-of-state.  

And they, as do Mike and Mary, have a friendly acceptance of us cottage dwellers and have given assurances that we are missed and welcome to return.  

Perhaps all of the caveats rolled out by the state apply to those who could be transient and careless, like the beach-goers on the southern NH beaches or the fools who crowd together in bars.  

Our Maine friends and acquaintances need us and the economic boost we bring.  Though no beaches for this girl.  

Think about Thrumcap Island in Johns Bay.  Think about Rona's honeysuckle and clematis and the pot holes in the road and then think about the sweetness of the simple life and the pleasure which this brings.  

We need Maine but Maine needs us too.  The effort to get there will be worth it.  Just ask the clematis.   

Love to you both.

Jill

May 27, 2020--Mike Stevens: Empty Calendar Depression

Take a look at the email exchange I had recently with a good Maine friend, Mike Stevens. It's about, what else, aging. It begins with my note to him--

To Mike

Word filtered all the way to the Epicenter, New York City, that you have or had something with which I am all too familiar-- diverticulitis  I hope that for you it's in the past tense as I know it can be wicked unpleasant. And I hope you have been otherwise well and are enjoying the reemergence of spring.

Spring with the virus. 

I could take a pass on that combination. We all could. But in truth living here in New York City in a version of quarantine the past 3-4 months isn't so different from the way we normally live our lives. So for us, we are blessed, it has been more inconvenient than perilous. Though we have lost a few friends and family members. 

Illness and death thus feel pervasive even though we continue to feel well. It takes someone much smarter than me to figure it out, to make sense of it. Assuming that is in fact possible.

As I mentioned, I hope you are OK  and that you and Mary have been doing as well as possible.

We do not as yet have firm Maine plans. We had been hearing, though not universally, that as "people from away" we will not be welcomed. As we do not want to affront anyone, we have to think about the right way to make plans to live a version of our traditional Maine lives.

But we hope to figure it out. One thing that would certainly be nice would be the chance to see you both.

From Mike to Steven--

Hi Steven

    

Thanks for checking in.  It took a long time, but I am now recovered from the diverticulitis.  It was not fun!  I still find my energy level is a little low, but I am basically fine.

     

Like you two, Mary an I are finding we do not spend our days in ways that are terribly different from the usual.  We feel very fortunate to have such a pleasant place to stay at home in.  I do, though, complain a little about “empty calendar depression.”  

Usually I ask Mary each evening, “What’s on the calendar for tomorrow?”  She checks and often mentions a meeting or an appointment or a get-together with friends.  Now it’s always, “Nothing.” Hardly a reason to get up the next morning. 

    

Still, unlike you, we have lost no family members or friends to the virus, so we count ourselves lucky.  You have our sympathy.  I find myself yearning for someone who would unify us all in a time of mourning, but we seem sadly lacking in national leadership these days.

    

Out of staters are beginning to make their way back to Maine.  If you are willing to observe the governor’s request that you observe a two-week quarantine when you get here, I think you would be welcome. Year-round residents appreciate that effort.  

We would be happy to help by delivering groceries and any other necessary supplies to your house once you arrive.  We’re good at social distancing.

    

Again, thanks for being in touch.             

Peace!

May 22, 2020--Books

Everyone knows Trump doesn't read.

Surely, not Foreign Affairs, not The Atlantic, not even Golf Digest where there are lots of pictures.

But now we know who in Washington and New York do read--every guest appearing on programs on CNN and MSNBC.

Because of the pandemic, guests phone in from home offices via Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime and invariably their home offices include their book cases, which serve as an attractive background.

Jon Meacham, an NBC Contributor who is also a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, not surprisingly has more books on display on his elegant shelves than anyone else.

Often more interesting to me than hearing what Eugene Robinson has to say about Trump and China, is what I can see he has been reading. I was especially tickled when I saw one day that he had on the shelves the same edition as I do of Ron Chernow's biography of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Sad to say when I snooped around to see what the Fox News hosts and guests have on their bookshelves, I've been discovering that few have bookcases as part of their home TV studios and there are no books in sight. On mantels, though, on display, most had a few airport-art tchotchkes.

What's this all about, I wondered. It didn't, though, take more than a moment to figure it out. America is divided I many ways.

May 20, 2020: Perchance to Dream

Rona said, "If you want to sleep through the night, don't talk about COVID-19 after 8:00."

I hadn't been sleeping well. That is not new.  It is not unusual for me to wake up with a jolt at 4:00 a.m. and though I try to get back to sleep frequently it is to no avail.

With ear buds, seeking distraction, on the radio, I listen to late night talk shows but for the most part they rant about the pandemic and how it was caused by a conspiracy that somehow involves Barack Obama and Bill Gates with one or the other of them also the Antichrist. 

Some distraction!

Rona said, "The other night one of your ear buds popped out and I could hear what you were listening to--a doctor of some sort who was talking about doing radiosurgery on someone's prostate."

I remembered that. Dr. Lederman. He's on the radio frequently during the middle of the night.

"With that blasting in your ears it's a wonder you can sleep at all."

I knew she was right, but I've been doing this for decades and am addicted to middle-of-the-night radio. Sometimes there's a baseball game to listen to, but not this year.

"I know that . . ."

"You need to try to stop this. With everything going on in the world, you don't need more aggravation. You're making yourself crazy and soon you'll be making yourself sick."

"I know . . ." 

"One thing you can do immediately is stop talking about COVID after 8:00. Maybe that would help. You're already taking Zoloft and I'm not comfortable adding a sleeping pill to the mix of your meds." I shrugged, beginning to feel hopeless. 

Rona said, "It's nearly eight o'clock now so why don't we start tonight? I won't let you draw me into a discussion about Trump and the pandemic. That also should help you sleep through the night."

I agreed and less than an hour later we went upstairs to watch some mindless TV before letting ourselves fall asleep. 

That night I woke up for good at 3 a.m., a little better than my usual, but still I knew it would lead to an agitated day.

The next night over dinner, we talked about Rona's city garden, not a word passed between us about the virus. And thus I expected to have some uninterrupted sleep. 

That was not to be.

Though I fell asleep a little past midnight, and that should have launched me into at least a decent night's sleep, by four I was wide awake, waiting for "Morning Joe" to go on the air. I was slipping backwards and losing my motivation to keep experimenting.

The next night, breaking all the rules that just a few days had me feeling optimistic, at about 9:30, as if out of the blue, I asked Rona to summarize for me the two types of tests they give people who they suspect might have COVID.

"The first one is the swab test," Rona said. "It can tell if you actively have the virus, the other one is a blood test and it . . ."

She broke off and punched the mattress. "I can't believe this. After talking about this an hour ago and agreeing we would not allow ourselves to talk about the virus after 8:00, here I am," she smacked the bed again, "here I am doing just that. Talking about it. You've turned me into your enabler. I'm sure Dr. Lederman and his prostate machine are waiting for you."

Rona was right in everything she felt and said.

Weakly I said, "But everything you've been saying about it tonight has been very interesting. I learned a lot. And . . . "

"I give up." Rona said, and with that she turned out her light and rolled onto her side, facing away from me.

At 7:30 am we got out of bed and hugged each other. I tried to apologize. 

Rona said, "Forget about it. I know you're struggling with this."

"I am. I really am. I don't want to be this way. Please, one more time, forgive me. I am trying. I really am."

I knew Rona had heard all this before.

"But one crazy thing," I said with a smile.

"What's that?"

"Like last night when out of nowhere I asked you about the tests, well past eight o'clock, and you began to respond, I assumed I would be lucky to sleep at all. My head would be filled with COVID anxieties. But, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Amazingly, I slept very well. No antichrist. No conspiracies. Just beautiful sleep."

"And what are you taking from that?"

"Maybe a little medical talk is not a bad but a good thing?"

"I think I've heard this one previously," Rona said. "But let's give it a try. We don't have much to lose."

And we have for the past few days. And, in spite of myself and my sleep history, I'm feeling optimistic. I'm sleeping quite well.

May 14, 2020--The Haters

Politico earlier this week identified a constituency of voters who had not previously been identified--Haters.

These haters hate all the candidates but come November still push themselves to vote.

They have been polled and you might be surprised (and encouraged) by the findings.

Here, from Politico--

President Donald Trump is losing a critical constituency: voters who see two choices on the ballot — and hate them both.

Unlike in 2016, when a large group of voters who disliked both Trump and Hillary Clinton broke sharply for Trump, the opposite is happening now, according to public polling and private surveys conducted by Republicans and Democrats alike.

It's a significant and often underappreciated group of voters. Of the nearly 20 percent of voters who disliked both Clinton and Trump in 2016, Trump outperformed Clinton by about 17 percentage points, according to exit polls.

Four years later, that same group — including a mix of Bernie Sanders supporters, other Democrats, disaffected Republicans and independents — strongly prefers Biden, the polling shows. The former vice president leads Trump by more than 40 percentage points among that group, which accounts for nearly a quarter of registered voters, according to a Monmouth University poll last week.

Interesting, no?

May 12, 2020--Zolofting

To make it through our daily interrelated crises, almost everyone I know is seeking distractions. If like me, beginning as early as 4:00 am in the morning.

TV, even for worldly friends and family who I did not know have much less watch TV, or if they do, drastically limit their viewing, they say, to anything from the PBS NewsHour to Masterpiece Theater, watching television these days seems to be at or near the top of virtually everyone's favorite escape.

But if friends and I have a few drinks and I confess my guilty interest in late night Hogan's Heroes, I am regularly surprised when they whisper that they too love Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz, who famously "knows nothing." 

Knowing nothing--how appropriate for our current era where I prefer to escape with Hogan and postpone until 2025 watching the brilliant but deeply depressing, too close to home Plot Against America. 

If curling up with Hogan doesn't do the trick (and even I can't watch the Honeymooners for the 100th time), there is always a reliable bag of chips or a glass of Port.

Which brings me to Zoloft.

I likely could have benefitted from this anti-depressant decades ago, but whenever I moved to give it serious consideration, echoing in the recesses of my agitated mind was my father's admonition--"These drugs are for woman. Men don't use crutches [not even for broken bones I wondered?] Stop whining. Can't you act like a man?"

Fearful of confronting him, and very much wanting to be a man, I was left to fend for myself, which wasn't always a bad thing.

It took me until recently to raise the issue of psychotropics with my neurologist. 

I said to him, "Thanks in large part to you my PD is under control. That's the physiological part. Can we now work on the psychological?"

He smiled and said, "What took you so long?" 

He waved me off with a smile when I began to stammer an explanation. Which included the bit about my father and crutches.

He indicated he had heard similar stories many times from his male patients and, without sturm und drang, suggested I give Zoloft a try.

With my hand tremor ramping up (it is my anxiety barometer), seriously concerned about what side effects might do to me, I asked, "This won't turn me into a vegetable, will it?" 

"I can't tell you how many millions take Zoloft and drugs similar to it. It has almost no side effects and is compatible with your L-Dopa."

For three months I've been taking one tiny Zoloft pill by five every morning to allow it time to get rooted in my body before confronting the agitation I spent the night spinning and which, for so many years, has made me crazy.

Call it a crutch, claim it's not for real men. What I can report is that my life has been changed and with Zoloft, if I have to, I can get through six more months of Trump. And even feel good about life.

May 11, 2020--The Sardine Economy

Every weekday afternoon at 4:00 when the stock market closes, Rona and I look at each other and shrug.

How could it be that millions lost their jobs while the stock market, which is supposed to be the barometer of the economy, went up 300 points?

"Your father had it right," Rona would say, "The economy, the stock market at least, is all about sardines"

"Sardines?"

"You remember his old joke, don't you?"

"About sardines?"

"Yes, sardines."

"I forgot," I confessed. "His jokes, few as they were, were not that funny. But remind me. And you said, it helps explain the economy?" 

Rona nodded. 

"This I need to hear."

"It goes like this"--


All Trescot  calls his friend John Allan and says, “John, do I have a deal for you. I have a warehouse filled with thousands of tins of sardines. Since you’re my friend, I’ll let you have them for only $10,000.”

John agrees to buy them and two weeks later calls his friend Deb Plamondon. He says, “Deb, do I have a deal for you. I have a warehouse filled with cans of sardines and since you're my friend, they're yours for just $15,000.”

Deb buys them and soon after that calls her friend Steve Zwerling (Rona winks at me). Deb says to him, “Since you're my good friend, I have a wonderful deal for you--50 shipping containers filled with tins of sardines which I can let you have for only $25,000.”

Steve sends her a check and a month later goes to the warehouse to check on his sardines. While there, he decides to taste them. He opens a tin and discovers that the sardines have spoiled. So he tries another can. Same result. He thinks maybe these are a bad batch and so he tries sardines from three other containers. All are spoiled.

Upset, Steve calls Deb, who he bought them from and says, “I just learned that all the sardines you sold me are rotten. What’s going on?”

She says to him, “What did you expect? These are not eating sardines; they're buying and selling sardines.”

Chuckling, to Rona I said, "You're right, my father's right we're living in a sardine economy."

May 7, 2020--Michelle Obama For Veep

For well over a year, fending off concern from friends about my political mental health, I have been talking about a dream ticket to run against Trump--Michelle Obama is drafted to run against Trump and wins in a historic landslide.

Now there is talk about another less dramatic and more realistic dream ticket that could also win in a walk--Biden (for president) and Michelle Obama (for VEEP).

Here is what "The Hill" had to say about this yesterday afternoon--

A Biden-Obama ticket would have a high probability of winning the White House, very possibly by an epic landslide, and winning control of the Senate as well as the House. 

A Biden-Obama victory would represent the historical greatness of the Democratic Party, would decisively change all three branches of government, and would powerfully change the course of American and world history.

Here's how I would frame the deal--privately, Biden tells Obama he would serve for three years and then resign from office, allowing her to become president and get well situated for a run of her own in 2024.

Michelle Obama continues to be America's most admired woman and also I am sure has a deep interest in restoring the Obama legacy. 

I am sane enough to know this is improbable, but desperate times require bold action. More unusual things have happened.

May 6, 2020--Yellow Peril

The one foolhardy thing Trump has not (yet) tried to distract the public and rescue himself from responsibility for making the coronavirus crisis worse is "wagging the dog."

Traditional wagging the dog involves getting the U.S. military involved in a small scale war against a feeble opponent. All designed to elevate presidents' approval ratings. 

Like the small war in Grenada during Ronald Reagan's administration, in Panama when George H.W. Bush was in office, and in Kosovo when Bill Clinton was president and ensnared in a sex scandal.

As in all such situations the message to the world is that America is not to be messed with. More accurately, President So-In-So is a tough dude and not reluctant to carry and use a big stick. 

He might even be represented as a little crazy and thus extra dangerous. With Kissinger shilling for him, Nixon played that card.

In regard to Trump and wagging, keep an eye not on Iran but China. Yes, China. By no means a feeble opponent.

Then why China?

From even before he was elected it has been apparent that Iran is in Trump's crosshairs. He unilaterally abrogated Barack Obama's deal with them to limit for 15 years their nuclear weapons' program and recently there has been an intensification on both sides of saber rattling.

But this emerging confrontation seems to have calmed since Iran-hawk John Bolton (remember him?) left the Trump Cabinet.

The focus now is preposterously shifting to China. Not just to it's cheating in the acquisition of purloined intellectual property and its unfair trade practices, but also in response to our charging them with the intentional fabrication and spread of COVID-19. 

This, in an effort to shift blame from Trump's inability to limit its impact by attributing it to the "Yellow Peril," the way conservatives and American isolationists during the Cold War in a racist way referred to the Chinese Communists.

Secretary of State Pompeo has been mobilized by Trump to assert that there is "enormous evidence" that the virus "originated" in a lab in Wuhan and to imply to the Chinese leadership that unless they cease this behavior the United States is even prepared for military intervention.

In response the Chinese Foreign Ministry has accused the Trump administration, in their words, of "shirking responsibility for their own epidemic and prevention and control measures and divert public attention."

In other words, classic wag the dog. In this case a very big dog but Trump has a big crisis to wish away and an ego out of control that is bigger than the island of Grenada.

May 4, 2020--Hilary Murray

On a gray day, on a chilly day, on a grumpy day, at the Bristol Diner in Bristol, Maine, Hilary Murray and her husband Paul would arrive pooled in sunlight. 

By her presence, by her very being, she would brighten the room.

Look at her smile and see if you agree.

She died on April 4th. 

Some time it takes the local news a week or two to find its way to New York City, but if you are patient it finally does. Before then, though, if you paid close attention, you would have sensed a disturbance among the planets.

I am sad we weren't there to say goodbye. But I know the next time we are spread out in our booth, even in the rain, especially in the rain, a flicker of Hilary's light will still be with us.

May 1, 2020--That Masked Man Still At It

After reading my recent post about face masks, Vice Pesident Pence showed up yesterday at a GM factory in Indiana that makes ventilators.

And wouldn't you know it, he was wearing a paper face mask.

Glad to be of service Mr VP.

Oh, and Pence lied about the Mayo Clinic, claiming that he didn't know they had face mask rules. This after the director of the unit he visited, because of their policy, offered to give him one.