Spo-Reflections

It feels like it has been ages since I wrote an entry.  It’s probably because I have lost sense of time particularly what day it is. Every day feels like the others. Normally I go to office: M-W-F I drive to the Phoenix office and T-Th is to Mesa. Since Thursday last I have been working from home. It feels odd not do do this; I’ve never worked from home – ever. 

On the positive:

It’s rather pleasant to be at home. Without the daily commutes to/from office (closed) and to the gym (also closed) I have nearly three extra hours per day.  The weather is nice; I work with the windows open. Someone who is also at home but not working is making me my lunches – no more going out! no pharm rep spiels! He is also there during my breaks to bitch to.  The patients are loving this. Many have voiced their hope this mode of appointments will continue after the crisis ends.  Telephone appointments are lovely. At home and on the phone I don’t have to wear shoes or even socks for that matter. For trousers I can wear blue jeans or Bermudas as no one sees me below the shoulder (at least I hope so). Another advantage of telephone appointments: I can pat Harper or pop some food in while folks are talking. 

On the negative:

The video conferences are tedious. It seems it takes as much time to set up the system as it does to actually have an appointment.  Many patients – particularly the elderly – struggle with how to operate ‘the zoom thing’. I’ve had troubles too especially getting the right emails (sender and receiver) into the invitation (such small print!)   It is awkward to see patients ‘at home’. One patient – a known nudist – did his mid-afternoon appointment in a bathrobe. I had the intuition he had just donned it before answering the call and he would rip it off as soon as we finished – hopefully after we hung up.  The times to set up a video appointment and write the notes accumulate over the day. For the first time ever I am regularly running behind up to an hour.  My blood boils to not be on time. 75% of my genetics is Swiss-German the most timely people on the planet so I can’t help it. Even 5 minutes behind gives me chest pains. Alas it is just not humanely possible to be on time with the video calls. On the other hand patients are not sitting fretfully in a waiting room but in their homes – many of them twiddling their thumbs with little to do so it is not like waiting is an inconvenience.  

Everyone’s life has been transformed in the past four weeks so none of the appointments are just ‘same old stuff just checking in’.

My hummingbird brain is being challenged to stick to the screens. Being home has lots of distractions especially to the kitchen from whence emanate the siren calls of the snacks which must be adjured lest I eat too much.

The work days are long and I end them more tired than usual. I suppose some of this will abate after I get the swing of things with the video and its consequence paperwork. 

Whenever I get a bit grumpy at my lot I only have to think of my colleagues in ER and internal medicine who have things far worse off.   They keep me going. 

Spo-fans: are you having video or telephone appointments with your health care folks and how it this going. Any tips from the other side of the screen? 

‘Pestilence is so common there have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared.’ – A. Camus.

“Spo – what do you think about the pandemic?”

Dear me what a question. This doesn’t sound like fun reading but if this Spo-fan* wants me to write on such I will give it a shot….

All my life I’ve been a history-buff especially medical history. I’ve read up on mankind’s many pandemics and plagues. Covid19 is very much like all the others really. Plagues are like stencils. The germs change but happens doesn’t now nor does how we react. What is different about this one I suppose the shakeup in our complacency about Life and Death and Certainty.  We haven’t had a big one in over a century so we’ve developed a denial such things on a grand scale could never happen again.  

Between plagues we don’t go around conscious of the obvious that we are always vulnerable to random acts that can kill us whether by a germ, an accident, or by someone’s action. I saw a bit of national consciousness-raising after 9/11 but it didn’t last. We fail to keep in our psyches the truism we can never have certainty or safety. 

In times of plague people do not interpret these events and what they uncover as exposing the meaningless of things. We want things including sickness to make sense. These things are invariably interpreted as divine intervention as punishment for human depravity. Go check the news if you don’t believe we still do this. 

Dickens wrote “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” to describe The French Revolution but this better describes a plague. With the illusion of immortality we tend to go for the superficial things in life.  When this shatters people either rise to the occasion and rediscover what really matters or the degenerate.  Already I hear of heroes and great deeds done despite covid19. I don’t have to describe the dark sides and actions also coming out.

Mr. Camus (the fellow with the opening quotation) wrote plague times bring out the absurd of life. He tells us during plague times try not to make ‘sense of it but do what ought to be done that is do our jobs and be decent to others.

When this plague de jour runs its course we will all celebrate the alleged end of suffering and the return of normalcy. We will defeat this one but there will be others. It is hoped the survivors ill will live their lives wiser for it.  

*The Spo-fan who asked is a dear well over four feet. 

Someone’s work at the convention center is closed. He’s at home now and the auguries portend no soon end to his or anyone else plight. He’s going to try on-line delivery groceries to cut down or perhaps discontinue our need to set foot at Uncle Albertsons. Back in my bachelor I did this sort of shopping. I recall it was called “Pea pod” and I found it a marvelous thing. Maneuvering a car in Chicago traffic was a tedious time-consuming endeavor. Whenever I remembered something I wanted I would add it to the list and eventually I press the ‘send’ key and hey presto! some nice person delivered it all to my doorstep. If Someone’s present efforts succeed we will have eliminated another reason to go outdoors.

I’ve already begun to wonder how much of all of our retreats will reverse when the coast is clear. After weeks – months? – of working at home/not going out/ordering things in (food and everything else) will we all throw it off and return to an gregarious business-as-usual existence or do we continue to stay put at home?

There is a Japanese word for this sort of people: Hikikomori. They are the ones who have withdrawn from society to seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. They don’t go out. They work and eat and do everything at home. All is brought to them (but company) through the means of their computers and phones. They are usually teen-types and younger men who have grown up with technology and without lessons in social skills. Perhaps they have severe social anxiety or depression or agoraphobia. No one really knows for sure why they are this way; they aren’t the types who respond when sociologists reach out to them.

 
In the olden days these sorts were hermits or mystics. They withdrew from society to focus on the numinous and grow in wisdom. I don’t think today’s stay-at-home types (voluntary or involuntary) are seeking enlightenment. Rather we are binge-watching reruns and eating comfort food.

 
I mustn’t let germs or government gel with my proclivity and desire to crawl into a hole and shut off the world. Somehow I need to stay in touch with others and keep my composure so when I emerge from this biological retreat I shell return to a salubrious and wholesome social well-being.

I went through the weekend without reading any blogs. This is a first in a long while. I feel guilty for this; if I want readers it is only good manners to reciprocate by reading others. It wasn’t like I was ‘busy’ yesterday. Without any external there’s-work-to-be-done chores and time spent at the gym/grocers etc. there was ample time to do so. A part of my psyche went several stages above and beyond ‘social distancing” and didn’t go online. As I do some self-analysis on this matter I realize going online to visit my blogger buddies (the dears!) means first going through Yahoo! where I see alarmist headlines and (oh the pain!) always a photo of He-who-won’t-even-be-acknowledged. I can’t stand even the sight of him. The proper bastard has even barged into my personal zone. Enough of that! This evening I will have lots to do The Board of Directors Here at Spo-Reflections and I will go a-viking to everybody on the blog roll and read how all are doing. I hope well enough.

It is Monday morning prior to what looks like a typical busy workday. The roster seems ‘business as usual’. There are a bunch of video appointments today but not many. Nobody at work has told me how these video/telephone appointments are determined vs. the face-to-face ones. Perhaps it is insurance-driven or patient-preference? I insist on seeing new patients face-to-face as so much information is not gathered in a sitting down interview. Curiously the newbies are all showing/not cancelling. Some of them have been waiting for months for their evaluation. So far no one has complained about having to come in; quite the contrary some are actually thanking me for ‘being here’.

And now to the sensitive topic of toilet paper. Last week while rummaging about the unused guest bathroom I found five rolls. Holy mackerel what a find! I put these strays in the laundry room cabinet with the ones already accounted for. There are a total of 14 rolls. Has anyone actually done the math how long a roll last? There are many variables:

Number of people in the house.

If the people are ‘wadders’ or sheet-oriented in their application.

The quality of the toilet paper.

The amount of Mexican cuisine and curried snacks consumed (oh the pain!).

I suspect and hope fourteen rolls for two (male) adults are enough for a long while. I’ve try to be more prudent in the number of squares taken at a time. One nice thing about going to work is this cuts down on home-based TP consumption. The third floor where I work has ~ six businesses that share a common loo (one for each sex); there doesn’t seem to be any signs of such running out at work. This may be because many of the other businesses are not open. I shudder if there comes a time when I am obliged to bring TP from home to use at work. By then I will insist on working at home,  if not for my physical wellbeing than for my backside.

This morning having woken from a series of disturbing dreams I did not find myself having been transformed into a large-size monstrous vermin (it could happen) but in a pleasant mood. The sun is shining and it isn’t too cold. Provided I didn’t turn on the cellphone to read the headlines  to spoil things Life looks good today. I am quite aware things are not that jolly but it helps to disinvite the world in when one isn’t even out of bed.  Every morning I say a silent prayer to whatever gods that may be listening: “I am thankful I have another day – more Life.”  These days gratitude is heightened and good for that.   

Unlike many I went to work last week. It felt good to be in some sort of normalcy especially when I remember I am trying to heal the sick ‘in the trenches’ as it were as doctors ought to do (at least the ‘good ones’ anyway).  I am going on the surmise it is just as matter of time I get the bug or at least ‘turn positive’ and have to stay home for a fortnight or more.  This dreadful prediction is another aspect folded into my morning meditation of thanks I’m still here for now.

It’s Saturday and there’s work to be done. I am grateful for some charting to do. Lands sakes! There isn’t much else to do really!  However all is not drab and drudgery. We have a ‘date’ this evening. The fellows with whom we were to rendezvous in Palm Springs have proposed we do some sort of ‘virtual dinner party’. This means we all make a meal and somehow sign onto the internet so we can see each other eating and we natter.  This will be a new experience and I wonder if I will I awkward. Watching folks eat online shouldn’t be any different than watching them munching in real life no? 

Then there is the menu. Someone and I were scheduled this evening to eat leftovers or who-hash or (worse) open tinned cans of something. Does one dress up and make something fancy for a virtual dinner-party? I looked it up online and Miss Manners is silent on the subject.  I suppose in normal times I wouldn’t dream of going out with chums to a restaurant without attending to my appearance and being on my best behavior. I go with the notion virtual dinner manners and protocols ought to be the same – even with familiar friends whom I have seen parading around ‘sky-clad’ at clothing optional resorts.  

This leads me to the delicate topic of what to call such virtual experiences.  This morning I was online with Brother #3 and Father; they referred to our trio-communication as ‘having a three-way’. This is not an appetizing notion. I did not explain my more lurid association with their word-choice. Is there a less-suggestive word for such social intercourse? 

I bet you a nickel this evening somebody will make the ribald joke of ‘having a three-way’ and threaten (as a reference to Palm Springs shenanigans) to drop his pants in the middle of dinner.  This is something normally one doesn’t do at proper dinner parties but all bets are off if there are cocktails involved or The Other Michael is in high spirits. 

I need to start watching my diet. There is a perfect storm brewing consisting of inactivity at home and high-calorie/comfort foods and boredom eating. They are all coming together to wreck havoc on my waistline. I see signs at the grocers I am not alone in this health hazard. What’s flown of the shelves are the pasta boxes, canned comfort foods and peanut butter jars;  fresh fruits and vegetables remain plentiful and untouched. Sitting on ones butt at home and eating nasty chips while binge-watching episodes of Big Bang isn’t good on body or soul.
In response to the creeping crud I am being more conscious to eat less and eat better. I’ve become a fan of sheet pan vegetables. I chop up the veggies and toss’em in olive oil and whatever spices and herbs are at hand. They are spread onto a baking sheet and baked at 450F for 15-20 minutes. They’re tasty, quick, and not too expensive – like my men.
I have to be mindful what happens next viz. avoid those oh-so-tasty ‘dips’ full of nasty calories and hidden sugars (oh the horror!). The covidiots aren’t interested in vegetables let alone the more exotic types so I have heaps to choose from. I am getting into baking rutabagas and aubergines and even okra when it’s available. It’s almost a challenge now to see what can be cooked on a sheet pan. So far I haven’t found a vegetable that doesn’t stand up to this mode of cooking although I’ve learned green beans and sliced carrots don’t appreciate a full 20 minute in the oven as they turn into brown withered things quite unpalatable.
As for exercise I try to get up and move every 15 minutes. Harper is quite glad to help me in my endeavors not to sit still. She never tires of quick five-minute walks around the block. I haven’t gone so far as to make a ‘home exercise program’. I suppose I should do so as eating less and more sensible may not suffice particularly when a certain someone brings home nasty chips whenever he goes to the grocers to fetch more vegetables.* Enough now with the pasta-based dishes! Begone you thawed slabs of mystery meat put into the freezer during The Pliocene epoch.

Tonight’s menu consists of grilled vegetables with coucous. It’s a start.

If Spo-fans have fabulous grilled/baked vegetable recipes please share’em in the comments.

*I shan’t say who.