From good company to Covid and Mac and Cheese

 

Colin taking a break from all my chores.

It’s been an intense two days. My oldest son, Colin, has been here to work on “boy chores,” my financial status and a trust, and cleaning up what he sees as messes on my computer. Okay, yes, I did have three iPads and an email account I haven’t looked at in years and other such eccentricities. Tonight, when I thought he was through, I closed out a bunch of windows so I could place my weekly grocery order with Central Market. Wrong thing to do. It brought forth great groans and moans. So I’m not sure what problems I will be left with when he leaves tomorrow. The work on the trust, however, has been fascinating—an interview with the lawyer who did Colin’s trust and that of his wife opened my eyes to a lot of financial quirks I had never thought about. The business end of the visit has been worthwhile and reassuring.

But I am, as always, overjoyed to have him here and enjoy his company. My way of showing it, of course, is to kill the fatted cat, so I had emailed him to ask if he wanted meatloaf or tamale pie. He chose meatloaf, and I worked hard to get it ready before a scheduled Zoom appointment last night. Timing was perfect, and meatloaf was ready when the call was over. But guess what got the raves? Not my meatloaf but Louella’s rice which Jordan threw together at the last minute. Tonight I fixed tamale pie with polenta. When Colin smelled the sauce, he said, “I’ve had this before,” and I agreed he probably had. Turns out he was not anticipating liking the polenta part but loved it and had a huge second helping. Then Jordan confessed she and Christian don’t really like polenta, but they eat it because I “fix it good.” My cooking ego has taken a bit of a bruising.

Yesterday I read an article that I think was by a faculty member at West Virginia University, where they are considering discontinuing all humanities courses. One line in his writing particularly struck me: “I am angry because we seem to be turning everything that celebrates our shared humanity into a business.” The attitude today is if it doesn’t make a profit, get rid of it. As an English major and occasional classroom teacher, I grieve for this in education. We will lose our common heritage, the ties that bind us together, if we lose art and history and literature and dance. I think it’s particularly scary as AI surges in use and misuse. Magazines are beset by submissions that are AI generated, novels are no doubt being written the same way. And I have read a lot about college faculty taking precautions to weed out AI-generated reports. If the world of Orwell’s 1984 is not to become a reality, we must embrace and support the humanities, not throw them aside.

It's a circuitous route but cutting out the humanities ultimately increases the power of the one percent, because it diminishes those who are more interested in creativity than profit. By eliminating the humanities, the way is left open for “business and entrepreneurship” to sweep the field.

I did not watch the Republican candidates debate this week, but the critiques I heard were all over the board, with some reassuring that we were hearing more traditional conservative voices than MAGA. But I was horrified when a local columnist, with whom I frequently disagree, called Ron DeSantis strong on education. There again, we’re back to wiping out the humanities which he has done in Florida with book banning and censorship. He who claims education is not about indoctrination, has managed to be the most indoctrinaire ever.

And the same concern, that profit overrules everything else, applies to environmental concerns. We need to fight the big corporations that are drilling and mining and shipping in areas that endanger the environment. I saw a meme today that said, “There is no profit on a dead planet.”

Moving right along, we are apparently being visited by a surge in a Covid virus that is a variant of omicron and is particularly resistant to vaccines. A new vaccine is being developed, and I will be among the first in line to get it. But I am aware we will fight the vaccine wars all over again with extremists on the right (led by Robert Kennedy, Jr). Those people with their flagrant disregard of science endanger the health of the rest of us. A friend was coming to dinner last week but emailed that she had been exposed. Reluctantly, I cancelled. If it’s going to take more isolation, I’m ready.

The good news I can think of tonight is that there is a new restaurant chain with a strange but intriguing name: I Heart Mac & Cheese. Yep, they have varieites of Mac & Cheese (lobster always intrigues me) and several kinds of grilled cheese. The menu fascinates me, mostly because I’m a cheese fan, but it presents an old dilemma to someone like me who cooks: why get so excited about a new chain when it features things you can easily fix at home? On the other hand, would you fix a grilled cheese with pulled pork, ham, Swiss cheese, and dill pickle? I don’t think so.

Stay cool everyone, and cross your fingers that relief is in sight.

PS This was my Friday night blog but between Colin, me, and changing default emails, I lost the ability to post to the blog. Another intense computer session, and I'm back. Colin is headed home to Tomball, so if I find more problems, I'm out of luck!

A strange sort of a day

 

Tonight a friend was coming for happy hour at five. He emailed this morning to confirm, and I wrote back that I would have the gate open and a snack ready. So at quarter to, I put out smoked salmon, cream cheese, and crackers. Jordan poured me a glass of wine, and I fiddled at my computer while I waited. Five-fifteen, five-thirty—nothing. At quarter of six I decided something must have come up, he wasn’t coming, and I put the food away—just as he walked up the driveway. Then we both fell all over each other apologizing—he insists that I said six when I confirmed. I can’t imagine that because I know he gets off work at TCU at five, and it’s two minutes from here. I may have made a typo, but I can’t find the email to find out. At any rate, we had a good visit about books and TCU and restaurants.

Christian had thought to join us, but Jacob’s car died in the high school parking lot today, so it was towed to the house and carefully backed into the driveway, with the tow truck driver holding the battery in place, so Christian could install a new battery. When James left, about seven fifteen, he, Jordan, and Christian had a good driveway visit. And I had a salmon and cream cheese sandwich for supper.

Today I finally cleared up the last of the busy-ness details that had burdened me this week. Got my Origins (cosmetics) account straightened out and was able to place an order. But it took three chat sessions over three days, which I consider a chunk of my time. Those chat options are great for me because when I get a tech in Indonesia, I can’t understand her or him, but the chat moves slowly and does take time. And often it’s over such silly small matters. But I feel good that by mid-week, I have those niggling little items off my desk and calendar.

A few days ago I wrote about my renewed conversation with the older sister of one of my best friends growing up—and mostly with the sister’s daughter. You may remember I sent them a manuscript titled, “I Wish I Lived at Eleanor Lee’s House.” Today, Leslie, the daughter, sent me a PDF of faded newspaper clippings about the daycare program Elizabeth, Eleanor Lee’s older sister, established in their back yard when she was twelve, and Eleanor Lee and I were probably eight or nine. I remember it well—they had maybe ten or twelve neighborhood kids, fed them snacks (probably Kool-Aid, yuck!), and played games with them. One summer my mother was gone a lot—her sister was dying—and I spent my days helping with the daycare children. We were all impressed that it made the newspaper, probably the Chicago Tribune, because the Harrisons were conservative. The Tribune was not allowed in my liberal household; we read the Chicago Sun-Times.

Those clippings triggered another memory. Liz and Eleanor Lee used to go around the neighborhood after Christmas, dragging home every discarded Christmas tree they could find. This was in the days before artificial trees so there were lots. They stashed them all in the backyard and made a forest. Great for playing hide-and-seek—until the fire department got wind of it and cleared out the forest as a fire hazard, which it really was. But you can see why I wanted to live at Eleanor Lee’s house! No such excitement at my house.

Today, as almost every day, I don’t know whether to weep or celebrate when I read the news. But today there are several disturbing developments—Ron DeSantis has absolutely gutted education, particularly higher education, in Florida. Public universities cannot teach DEI, nor anything that reflects a biased history, racism, etc. He even gets specifics about what pronouns are to be used, though I don’t see how he can enforce that. I hope the ACLU hops on this quickly. Many students at public universities in that state are people of color who cannot afford private or out-of-state schools, so they are being robbed of their only chance at a broad, liberal education which will help them advance in the world. And we will have a generation of people so uneducated that they are not qualified to be leaders in government, industry, health care, all the fields vital to advancing America. It is classic dictator tactics.

In Texas the gun news continues to be horrifying. You probably have heard of the Sonic employee killed in Keene, south of Fort Worth. A thirty-some-year-old man took a leak in the back of the Sonic parking lot. When the employee went out to talk to him, a twelve-year-old boy in the man's car grabbed an AR-15 which just happened to be handy and blew the Sonic employee away. Dear Governor Abbott: that is not a mental health problem; it is a problem of the availability of an assault weapon. I am not sure what the answer is, where we will find a solution, but I know that something like eighty-seven percent of Americans want better gun control. We do not have to live like this. And I am ashamed that Texas leads the way in killings.

On that note, be safe, everyone. And do whatever you can to protest. I’m thinking hard and long about it.