I was born in the Year of the Tiger on the Lunar calendar.  I always thought it was really cool to be a Tiger.  I mean, the Tiger is considered the King of Beasts in Lunar Astrology!  Tigers are described as a symbol of strength and braveness and loyalty.  Specifically, this is a Water Tiger year, the same as the year I was born, and since those only come around once every 60 years, you all now know how old I will be.  This has to be special, right?  And, lucky!  But the last Tiger year, 12 years ago, was a very rough year for me and that got me thinking.  As I looked back over my Tiger years, I realized that while in some ways they were indeed lucky, all of them were—for lack of a better word—formative.  Big things always happened in Tiger years.  So, what happened and how have those years changed me?

My first Tiger year was the year I was born—about as literally “formative” as you can get.  No need to dwell on that further.  My second Tiger year was at 12 years of age when I was in fifth grade.  My Mom remembers this year well.  It broke her heart.  Many of us have a “hurt child” story to tell and this is mine.  I’ve spent most of my adult life dealing with healing her.  The details are unimportant.  Suffice it to say that I went from being a fairly happy-go-lucky kid, totally unaware of 12-year-old social dynamics, to a total social outcast.  The dregs of this followed me all through high school to a certain degree.  It was painful in a “kids can be cruel” kind of way and, while I have my suspicions, I never got to the bottom of why this happened.  In a positive way, this situation kickstarted my development of empathy.  In a negative way, it made me paranoid of being blindsided and left me with a desperate need to be liked.  The former can be turned into a productive drive to always do your homework and push for clarity.  The latter is an unfortunate liability for many a manager and leader.  Knowledge of that hurt child is significant.  I can never truly heal her but I can recognize her voice in my head.  She’s still there but mostly reminds me to be kind to others, to remember that everyone is human and has feelings and value.  That’s not such a bad thing.

My third Tiger year, at 24, found me in grad school working toward my PhD in Chemistry.  My education had been a glorious ride up until then.  I was a good student.  I picked things up fairly quickly.  I had few real challenges—Advanced Organic Chemistry being one of them.  But in this Tiger year, I came up against my Oral Candidacy Exams.  At Penn State, this was really your test for the PhD.  Pass your Orals and the thesis defense was essentially a formality.  Fail and you’re out.  At this exam, you present your current research, an original research proposal, and defend them both against questions from your committee.  I faced two headwinds for my Orals.  First, at the time I was developing my original proposal, my advisor was being courted by another university.  He was not around much physically and not at all mentally.  I developed that proposal all on my own and it was admittedly weak.  Second, my advisor just happened to be instrumental the week before my exams in failing one of the students of his chief rival in the department—who happened to also be on my committee and was seeking retribution.  It was a very long couple of hours and I almost failed.  It was a VERY humbling experience.  It brought me down off of my high horse.  It taught me that maybe I wasn’t quite as good as I thought.  It also taught me a bit about office politics and collateral damage.  The “celebration party” afterwards is also the reason I can no longer drink Jack Daniels.

My fourth Tiger year, at 36, brings us to the beginning of my international assignment in Mexico.  Talk about formative! Moving as a single woman to a foreign country, where I didn’t yet speak the language, and had a nearly impossible assignment was the bravest and possibly stupidest thing I’ve ever done (surpassed only by the assignment I took upon repatriating).  But it was also the most spectacular experience I’ve ever had.  Just reread the title essay to this blog.  No period in my life has ever challenged me more, expanded my mind as much, or provided the richness of experience.  I will forever look back on that time as a period of exponential growth that did more to form the person I am today than any other period of my life.  And that Tiger year was the most intense year of that time in Mexico.  Incredible highs; incredible lows.  And I wouldn’t change a moment of it—including getting robbed by a cop my second week in country.

If you are paying attention, you are probably noticing that each Tiger year I experience is more intense on its impact than the last and my fifth Tiger year at 48 was no exception.  I had two of the most momentous and formative experiences of my life in that one year.  After 22 years at my first company since leaving grad school, I changed jobs and companies.  I went from being a mid-level manager of a support function deep within the bowels of a $10Bn global company to becoming a business manager who owned the P&L of a small business within another global enterprise.  I had long since gotten used to owning the cost side of the equation and fighting the internal battles to support my organization.  Now I owned the revenue side as well and boy did that change things.  I grew more, professionally, in that first year than at any other time in my career.  And less than three months into that transition, I went home to watch my father die from colon cancer.  I grew more, personally, in those ten days than I ever want to grow again.  There is no aspect of life that I do not view differently from before I went home that September day.  I’m not even going to attempt to summarize it here.  Those of you who have gone through this know what I mean.  Being there for the passing of a loved one changes every fiber of your being.

So, here we are on the cusp of another Tiger year.  “Water” years are supposed to be times of extremes.  Big highs.  Big lows.  I am excited and nervous about what this year will bring.  (And after reading this essay, Trish is very anxious!)  It’s not that “formative” experiences ONLY happen in Tiger years; it’s that they ALWAYS happen in Tiger years.  Regardless, I’ve got all the lessons from my previous Tiger years to prepare me.  The hurt child is there to remind me of the humanity of all those with whom I cross paths.  The scientist who almost failed her Orals is there to remind me to be humble.  You are never as good as you think you are.  The brave soul who ran off to Mexico is there to remind me to push outside my comfort zone because the reward is worth the anxiety.  And the introspective soul who whose life changed so profoundly twelve years ago is there to remind me to breathe deeply and be grateful for every single day.  Bring it on, Water Tiger!

Let’s be honest.  We all had high hopes for 2021.  We knew 2020 was going to be a shit show and it did not let us down.  By the end of 2020, we had a vaccine and figured, “This has got to be better.”  Yeah, no.

2020, thumping its chest:  I will go down as the worst year in your memory!

2021, smirking:  Yeah.  Hold my beer.

I do not want to minimize the range of difficulties we all navigated in 2021.  In fact, the next essay I publish looks to be rant on how we’ve normalized all this death and struggle and generally bad behavior.  But this essay will publish right after New Years when we all want to be at least a little hopeful that 2022 will not turn out to be “2020, too”.  With that in mind, here is what I want to remember about 2021:

 JANUARY: This is not usually a top month for me.  It’s cold and gray.  I think the best thing I can say about January 2021 is that Presidential tweets became boring again.

FEBURARY:  This month we got into virtual wine tastings from a favorite vineyard in New Jersey.  For an exorbitant amount of money, which we rationalized as a charitable contribution to help keep the winery open, we were shipped two bottles of wine and some sort of accompaniment (cheese or chocolate or ingredients to make a calorie laden dinner).  Then we dialed into a Zoom call and were talked through the wine tasting.  When neither of you has to drive home afterwards, both bottles of wine disappear.  Even more fun was starting up private chats with people we became better and better friends with as the nights worn on.  They are still in my phone, listed under their first names with the last name of Wine Tasting.

MARCH:  Besides a couple more virtual wine tastings, the true highlight of the month was actually going away for the weekend to the Poconos home of good friends.  We had all maintained a really tight COVID circle and just needed to be together.  Never, ever, ever discount the importance of being with friends.  We ate and drank and generally ignored all WW eating guidelines.  We filled our hearts.  Boy did we need that!

APRIL:  Without a doubt, the highlight of April was getting our COVID shots.  As a chemist, I dove into understanding, as best I could, the mRNA technology.  While I am not a virologist nor epidemiologist, I believe I understand enough of the biochemistry to know that this technology is freakin’ amazing!   While this is the first commercial vaccine, it’s not new technology.  It’s been under development for decades and was ready for prime time.  It is an incredibly elegant solution to helping the body fight intruders.  I got a little thrill when I got that first shot.  I felt like I was a part of history.  And this technology is so versatile that it will become the standard approach, I predict, to vaccine development.

MAY:  The big highlight of May was starting up my biweekly workouts with my BFF again.  It’s not the workouts that I missed, although her trainer worked my body in different ways which is good.  I missed the BFF time.  We work out.  We lunch.  We run errands.  We play with the dog.  We talk and talk and talk.  It’s not that we hadn’t been talking regularly throughout the pandemic.  We’d even had a few lunches when we could eat outdoors.  But there is just something about being TOGETHER.  My soul needs that.

JUNE: This was a big month.  My first trip home to Atlanta in 18 months.  My last trip home was December of 2019, for my Mom’s birthday.  And I had a horrible head cold the whole time I was there.  Everyone has their COVID reunion stories, I’m sure.  To be able to hug my Mom and my sister again, to spend time in the same room together instead of on the phone or over Zoom, to just BE together was amazing.  The amateur social scientist in me again goes back to the power of in-person relationships.  Yes, we have the technology to never have to be face-to-face with anyone again.  In many cases, that is a wondrous improvement over being together live, but there is so much more to our connection with other human beings than voice and two-dimensional body language.  There is stuff we don’t really understand.  And there is stuff we DO understand—like the power of a hug.

JULY:  The highlight of July was going to the Philadelphia Zoo.  Not just because it is the oldest zoo in America, which it is.  Nor because I love zoos and I haven’t been to the Philly Zoo in decades.  It’s because we went with some of our favorite people.  Specifically, we went with two little munchkins who have wormed their way into our hearts along with their parents.  This is a long story, but suffice it to say that while this is a new relationship for me, it is a dramatically important homecoming for Trish.  They are family, pure and simple.  And when a shy 18 month old tries to say your name and gives you an impish grin, or a three year old reaches for your hand, or when he gives you a full body hug as only a kid can do, or when he smiles and says, “I love you!”….  Well, you know.  There is nothing like it.

AUGUST:  This is the month I was able to renew my Lesbian Badge—for the full five-year renewal!  I went back up to our friends’ house in the Poconos to help them cut, split, and stack wood.  This was a glorious weekend!  There was no flannel, but there were work boots and gloves and chain saws and a wood splitter and beer and total exhaustion.  And sore backs.  And a little blood.  Just a little.  There was a lot of laughter.  A lot of deep talk.  A lot of comfortable silence.  And a few really good nights’ sleep.

SEPTEMBER:  September brought the visit of a dear college friend and her husband.  They stopped in Philly for a few days as part of an East Coast trip.  She is part of the biweekly Zoom crew that have helped keep me sane over the last two years.  Again, seeing her in person was so much more meaningful than the Zoom calls.  And we went to a Phillies game.  And it was Dollar Dog night.  Yes!  $1 hot dogs!  And the weather was perfect.  And the Phillies lost.  To the Orioles.

OCTOBER:  Lots of fun things happened in October, but my favorite has to be Beau’s first lion cut.  Beau is our maine coon mix cat, with beautiful think long fur that he gets all knotted up by rolling around on the floor.  And he won’t let us brush him much because he has sensitive little skin.  When the groomer felt his knots she suggested a lion cut: leave his fur long around his head, on the tail, and legs.  Close cut on the body.  He looks freaking adorable!  And he seems to really like it.  He’s become a total snuggler since we did this—and not just because he’s cold!  There is nothing like a 25 pound warm soft purring mass spread from your lap up to your chin.  Who needs a weighted blanket!

NOVEMBER:  We had our first solo babysitting gig with the munchkins.  We had the now-four-year-old all to ourselves since his sister was already asleep.  Besides being scared to death that she might wake up and scream bloody murder since neither of us are Mommy or Daddy (she didn’t wake up), we had an awesome time.  We watch TV, we played games, we learned all about the Goo Jit Zu characters and watched all the Season 1 episodes at least twice.  It was a glorious night!

DECEMBER:  I will admit that December was a tough month.  COVID hit too close to home.  But the year ended in wonderful fashion.  Throughout the pandemic, my major non-home activity was going to the grocery store.  I got to know the woman who helped out at the self-checkout area.  It’s not that we talked a lot.  We just had these brief weekly interactions that got more familiar and friendly over time.  We share little tiny bits of our life and I realized how much I appreciated her constancy.  I wrote up a little card to tell her so and put in a little holiday “cheer”.  Christmas Eve morning was a busy time at the grocery store but she made a point to come over to me during my checkout to wish me Happy Holidays.  I handed her the card, then, as she dashed off to help a customer.  A week later, on a much quieter New Year’s Eve morning, she came up to me at checkout and asked if she could give me a hug.  We spent a few minutes chatting.  She told me the card made her day.  I said giving it to her made mine.  I made a very real connection with another person.  Two people who only slightly intersect in each other’s lives took the time to recognize and embrace the humanity in each other.  And THAT’S how I want to remember 2021.

In 1972, Stanford psychology professor Walter Mischel undertook his famous marshmallow experiment.  Kids were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited 15 minutes, they would get a second marshmallow.  The researcher left the room and the subject was observed.  Would the kid delay gratification for greater reward or eat what was in front of them?  Follow up studies indicated that those who delayed gratification had better life outcomes than those who didn’t, which placed a judgment on waiting and willpower.  While those findings have fortunately been mostly debunked (correlation does not necessarily mean causation, remember?), I can certainly tell you one thing:  I would have eaten the marshmallow in front of me.

I got to thinking about this topic lying in bed this morning while I was deciding on breakfast.  I’m telling you, this is my favorite time of day: I wake up, decide what I’m going to eat, and then I get up and eat almost right away! (I have to feed Bridget first.)  I know this behavior is more than not wanting to delay the gratification of breakfast.  This whole “delayed gratification” issue is wrapped up with “anticipation” and the well-studied phenomenon of me needing to eat at regular intervals and ON TIME (breakfast no later than 7:00, lunch at noon, dinner at 6:00).  Today, however, we will focus on “delayed gratification” in honor of the upcoming holidays and the fact that I already titled this essay and I’m too lazy to change it.  Come to think of it, “laziness” is wrapped up in my behaviors as well.

“Delayed gratification” has been an issue for me for as long as I can remember.  Besides the anticipation and laziness aspects, I am also impatient and have had issues with impulse control, especially when it comes to food.  Thanks to Weight Watchers, that has gotten A LOT better, thank goodness!  I am really bad at denying myself what I want if it’s clear to me that I can have it.  In the past, this created real problems in my romantic life.  (Now that wild oats have long since been sown, this is no longer an issue.)  This problem expresses itself nowadays most often around gift giving, hence thinking about it now.

Trish knows this well.  As soon as I get a gift for someone, I want to give it to them RIGHT AWAY.  I’m excited about what I’ve gotten them and I can’t wait to see their reaction!  Here is a reenactment of a typical morning on a gift giving day:

Me:  Can we open gifts now?

Trish:  It’s 5:30 am.

Me (later):  We’ve eaten breakfast.  Can we open gifts NOW?

Trish:  No.  Let’s wait a little bit.

Me (one minute later):  Now?

Trish:  Ugh

It’s not so much that I want to open MY gifts.  I want her to open HERS.  And let me tell you, the weeks leading up to The Day aren’t much better.  Every time I come home with a gift for her (or, more likely, one gets delivered), I want to give it to her RIGHT THEN.  And I’ve really made it hard on myself this year.  I will say no more, but Trish will understand on December 25^th.  So, why does this happen and is it really a problem?  Let’s unpack that a bit, shall we?

As an amateur social scientist, I spend a lot of time observing and analyzing behaviors.  Since that behavior tends to bug the crap out of those around me when I point out my “observations” about them, I most often turn that spotlight back on myself.  I can’t really think of anything in my childhood that may have created this inability to wait. I do have the attention span of a gnat, so maybe that plays into things: I’m afraid I’ll forget if I don’t do something right away.  We’ve established my obsession around regular feedings, which is why I’m horrible at trying to fast on Yom Kippur (sorry, Gd; sorry Dad).  Maybe some of it is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)—if I don’t do something right away, I fear the opportunity will pass forever.  All I know is that I want that marshmallow.

There is a danger with this tendency, of course, that life becomes all about the destination and not the journey.  And I will admit that for most of my life that held true.  I was always in a hurry to get to somewhere else, either physically or metaphorically.  The unspoken part of this angst was that how I was feeling at that time was not such a good place and that I would be happier or more content once I got to where I wanted to go.  I didn’t want to delay gratification because that meant it would be that much longer until I could feel happy.  Actually, that’s not right.  I don’t want anyone to have the impression that I was always sad, although I’m sure I had my moments.  I think I was laboring under the impression that I wasn’t happy ENOUGH.  If there was the possibility that I could feel happier, I didn’t want to wait.  (I can almost FEEL all the head nodding, especially from my college friends and people who walked with me during my younger adult years.  I think if you went to the word “angst” in the dictionary, my picture would have been there.)

That’s why I’m so grateful for where I am now.  Lots of things changed to calm me down.  Experience taught me that my instincts were pretty darn good and to trust them.  I took some really hard looks in the mirror.  I accepted who I really was and started the on-going work of making changes around the parts I didn’t like so much.  I purged some toxic people from my life.  I learned to speak my mind.  I found an incredible partner who validated what needed validating (both the good things and the things that needed to change).  And I actually started to enjoy the journey.  Wow, am I blessed!

So maybe this impatience, this aversion to “delayed gratification” is not such a bad thing.  I’m not hoping to be happier so much as excited about what comes next!  Let’s open some gifts!  And eat some marshmallows.

This feels like a time of new beginnings.  We are emerging from the pandemic and facing what used to be very common activities as if they were brand new experiences—going to out to dinner with friends, family gatherings, grocery shopping without wearing a mask.  It’s like emerging from a dark cave.  At the same time, a number of “young” people in my life (they are in their 20’s and 30’s) are at really big “adulting” inflection points—getting married, buying first homes, starting new careers.  It has gotten me thinking about my own new beginnings all those decades ago and how much I just didn’t know about what was ahead of me and challenges I would face.  So, this week’s essay is a nostalgic note to my younger self.  And twenty years from now I hope I will look back on this essay with a bit of nostalgia, reflecting on how much I didn’t know when writing this very piece.

Dear 26-year-old-Sherri,

You have accomplished so much already in your young life!  Take a moment to be proud of yourself.  You navigated some tough emotional times growing up.  You got a college degree and then a PhD in Chemistry.  You landed a good job in R&D with a good company and you are about to start your “real” life.  As your retired 58-year-old self, I am proud of you.  I’m also excited and a little scared for you.  You see, I know what’s coming.  You are going to face challenges you never dreamed of and opportunities you never thought would be open to you.  You are going to face incredible highs and successes and debilitating lows and failures.  You will have time periods of extreme confidence and valleys of extreme self-doubt.  As you face this new beginning, I want to offer you a few gentle thoughts to consider.

Be humble.  You are on a real high right now and you should be!  You feel like you’ve got the world by the tail!  Outwardly, you appear supremely confident.  Inwardly, you are scared to death.  There is so much you don’t even know that you don’t know, but you sense it’s there.  Everyone around you seems to have it all together.  The truth is that they don’t.  And they think that YOU do!  There is a happy medium between arrogance and self-doubt and that’s humility.  Remember that you’ve already shown you can do great things.  Remember, also, that there is and always will be so much more for you to learn.  Start with that humility and always search for growth.  Everyone can teach you something.  Look for that within everyone you meet.

Find and be true to your authentic self.  Unfortunately, it’s going to take you until your 50’s to really embrace this truth.  I wish you would have understood the importance of this earlier, but better late than never!  You have some serious headwinds ahead, to be sure.  Accepting yourself as a gay woman will not be as easy in the 1980’s and 90’s as it will be in 2021.  Remember the first time you walked into a gay bar and you were so afraid that you almost fainted?  The first time you go to a Pride Fest will be even worse.  You will be scared of being attacked and beaten.  The first time you come out to someone at work, you will be afraid of being fired.  But you will keep moving forward because you have to.  Something deep inside you will push you toward authenticity because you know it’s critical for your mental health, happiness, and even professional effectiveness.

That part of your authenticity journey will absorb you for a good 20 years.  An equally critical part of your authenticity journey is finding your true self as a friend, partner, and leader.  I will tell you now that your instincts are right on target.  It’s going to be hard for you to be true to those instincts because the behaviors of those around you will make you feel like you are wrong.  You will second and third and fourth guess yourself all the time and for many years.  Little by little, time and experience will show when your instincts were right.  It’s a good thing one of your instincts is to find a wide array of mentors and role models.  That certainly helps.  Along with authenticity, you will need to embrace vulnerability—admitting when you don’t know something and owning your mistakes.  Both are really hard but absolutely required for growth.  Vulnerability takes courage and people will ultimately admire you for it.  What really matters, though, is finding the courage to embrace who you really are, flaws and all, and to give yourself the grace to be who you are.  That’s when you will become a truly happy person who lives in the present instead of always waiting for something good to happen.  That is also when you will meet Trish, because until then you won’t be ready for her.

It won’t all be good.  Intellectually, you already know this is true because it hasn’t been all good up to this point.  There is a part of you, though, that thinks you’ve paid enough dues.  You haven’t.  What you will ultimately realize is that the tough times are when you will grow the most.  None of us, though, eagerly seeks out pain.  You will beat yourself up for bad decisions.  You will flush with shame when you have to confront your failures.  You will doubt that you will ever achieve ultimate success and happiness.  You will want to get out of what seems like a bad situation as quickly as possible.  And, for the most part, you will not be aware that everyone around you faces the same struggles.  It will feel lonely.  And all of that is ok as long as you keep moving forward.  Some days it will be the tiniest of steps; other days it will be big leaps.  But you will, you MUST, continue to move forward.

Choose love.  This is a message that you will learn from Dad, but actually not realize until long after he has passed.  “Life is a series of choices.  Choose love.”  I cannot tell you how important that is!  Choosing love means dealing with people and the world and especially yourself with compassion and empathy.  Will people sometimes take advantage of you or treat you poorly?  Absolutely.  You can and should advocate for yourself and seek justice.  You also can and should believe in the goodness of people and choose to act and react in a way that reflects your true self.  There will be a time when you are in the Philly airport, coming home from a long business trip.  You are heading to the parking lot to get your car when a woman comes up to you, panicked, saying she lost her wallet and needs money for the train into the city.  Give her the money.  Could she be trying to rip you off?  Yes.  Could she be telling the truth?  Yes.  Give her the money.  If you were in the airport and had lost your wallet (and this will be before cell phones), you would hope for the kindness of a stranger.  Try not to judge others, although it is sorely tempting and you will definitely do it more than you wish you did.  You rarely know someone’s whole story.  And remember—just underneath the skin of most assholes is a hurt child who just wants a hug.  That realization can help you let go a little of the resentment and frustration those people can engender.

I could go on.  I know what the next 30+ years has in store for you and am tempted to give you some hints to see if some things could be different.  I won’t, though, because I know where you end up (at least at 58) and it’s pretty good.  I’m so excited for you!  You have such an amazing adventure ahead of you!  Try to savor at least a bit of it in the moment before plowing quickly into the next moment.  Be humble.  Be kind.  Be happy.

Love,

58-year-old-Sherri

This is a story about a farkakt kitchen drawer and a cat with food insecurity issues.  It’s also a story about patience and frustration, with a dash of procrastination, along with figuring out the right problem to solve and then actually solving it the right way.  Then we throw in a little about temper and compassion.  In short, this is a story about life.  I hope it has a happy ending.

We have a wonky drawer in our kitchen that just happens to be our junk drawer.  I’m guessing you have one of these drawers, too.  You’re not really sure all that’s in it but there are a few things in there that you need to access on a regular basis.  If you are unlucky like us then that drawer sticks and jams consistently.  This drawer has been like this for the five years I’ve lived in this house.  Under questioning, Trish admits that the drawer has been like this since she moved in—approximately 30 years ago.  The drawer is just pathetic.  It is literally held together with wood glue and duct tape.  There have been attempts to fix it countless times.  Sometimes it has been a half-hearted effort.  Sometimes it has been a well-intention full assault—a project, if you will—that involved emptying the drawer and using an array of fasteners that THIS time will fix it for good.  Within one hour, it is always sticking again.  We have been so frustrated that we have actually discussed remodeling our kitchen—spending tens of thousands of dollars—to get rid of this drawer.

Our story begins one unremarkable day when I said, “How would you feel if I found a carpenter who would be willing to rebuild that drawer?”  Trish was immensely pleased that I was actually willing to take on a task that required picking up the phone, possibly more than once, to call a person I did not know.  (Yes, it is a wonder I ever held a job.)  One Facebook post on the Township Page, one Messenger conversation, and one phone call later, I had our man.  I was VERY pleased with myself.  Jack came the very next day, surveyed the problem child and took it with him to rebuild.  A few days later, he brought back to us a bunch of dried wood glue with some drawer in it, with a new bottom and a bunch of metal L clips at each joint.  And did I mention a ton of wood glue?  Never mind, he was able to salvage the frontispiece and return a drawer that seemed to work.  We were thrilled!  We loaded all the crap back in the drawer and went about our business.  Within a couple of days, the drawer started to stick again.

The fateful day in question dawned bright and sunny and comparatively warm.  It was The Spring of Deception in Pennsylvania.  Soon we would plunge back into the darkness and cold of Third Winter, to be followed by The Pollening.  But it was The Spring of Deception and we were feeling good!  It had been a nice day.  We were out and about, wearing only lightweight facemasks and no jackets.  Around 4:00-ish, I made the damning statement:  I think I’m going to try and fix the drawer.  Trish recoiled in horror before collecting herself and bravely saying, “OK.”  She then slinked off into another room.

“It has to be something simple,” I thought.  “The drawer has been FIXED.  Probably just need to center the drawer in the rails better.”  Thus, began the yanking.  And the more stubborn jamming.  And more yanking.  And cursing.  HOW?!  How is this happening?!  We FIXED the drawer!  I hauled off and whacked the drawer but good, trying to get it to reseat on its rails.  A little voice in my head screamed, “Oh good lord, don’t break the drawer again!”  It made a pained crunching sound but did slam shut.  It would not reopen.  I backed up a step, expelled an expletive, and stepped on the cat.

First, you have to understand a little about Bridget.  She was found as a tiny kitten on a concrete barrier in the middle of a bridge (hence her name) over South Philly in the middle of rush hour.  The daughter of a friend was stopped in rush hour traffic and saw her little eyes.  One allergic fiancée later, we had ourselves a sister for Beau the Wonder Cat.  I am convinced she retains food insecurity issues from those traumatic early days.  Every day she acts as if she has not eaten in weeks.  Come feeding time, she weaves in and out of legs, supervising the feeding process:  first the fresh water, now the cans of wet food, now the dry food.  Hurry hurry hurry!  In fact, I swear the cat can tell time.  We feed them at 5:00.  Starting around 4:00, she starts bugging us.  Then she starts doing things she knows will annoy us, hoping we’ll give in and just feed her.  It was dinner time, but all of my moving around in the kitchen was not producing dinner and she was beside herself.  She kept trying to supervise and I wasn’t getting the job done!  Then I stepped on her.

Anyone who has ever stepped on a cat or a small dog knows the pain/fear/heartbreak/guilt of that high pitched scream.  I, however, was in no mood for this and I yelled at her.  Then I decided that I needed to fold the laundry and stomped upstairs.  Poor little girl!  She didn’t understand the drawer thing!  I was in the kitchen.  It was near feeding time.  Her job was to follow or lead me around and make sure I fed her.  It wasn’t HER fault that the damn drawer still jammed, nor that I stepped back suddenly.  You always hurt the ones you love.

By the time I finished folding, Trish had fed the cats.  I fiddled more with the drawer and got it open and emptied.  Then I finally discovered the real problem:  the cabinet was not square.  It was ever so slightly wider at the top than at the bottom.  The top drawer was always going to fall off the rails.  They were just too far apart.  The drawer falling apart was a symptom, not the cause.  It was yanked on so much over the years it just fell to pieces.  Upon interrogation, the long-time homeowner admitted she KNEW that was the problem, hence the paper shims behind the rails that worked for a few days but kept falling off.  Yours truly just never put those facts together.  (And Trish never got the drawer fixed properly.)

How many times have I done that?  Gotten so frustrated over a “problem” that I never took the time to ask myself, “Is this really the problem?  Or just a symptom?”  And in my anger and frustration, I ended up taking it out on this innocent little being who just wanted dinner.  What a mess!

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.  Bridget did, indeed, get fed that night and every night since.  She still doubts that it will always happen.  Jack called to see if the drawer was fixed to our satisfaction and agreed to come back and fix the REAL problem.  Is it perfect?  No, but there is only so much you can do with 1980’s era original construction cabinetry.  It’s still a tad wonky, but it doesn’t jam anymore.  So, as you can see, I am continuing to learn and relearn all the lessons I write about.  I’m here to “get it right, not BE right”.  We are all works in progress!

EDITORS NOTE: As said “long-time homeowner,” I wish to explain that the drawer was never THAT much of a problem until the author moved in. My Southern Peach is a delicate flower until she isn’t.  Her longshoreman swearing scared not only Bridget, but also Beau and me.  And the laundry she went to fold?  It looked like I had folded it—small balls of fabric and mismatched socks.  *Sigh* Thank goodness Jack came back.

The new year has finally begun!  So much to do!  I have a growing list of Serious Essays that I want to write, but I’m just not ready to be serious yet.  So, I thought I’d take you along on a recent Trying Journey:  getting new cell phones.  Let me say right up front that I recognize that what you are about to read fits squarely into the category of First World Problems.  But it’s still funny.

The Monday after Christmas dawned bright and sunny.  Or it may have been raining.  All I know is that my agenda was to go on a Costco run, something I normally do alone.  I shared this plan with Trish and asked the obligatory, “Do you want to go along?”  She answered, “Yeah, I think I might!”  That was our first mistake.  We arrived at 10:15, list in hand, and entered.  As we headed down toward the Brita replacement filter aisle, we saw a kiosk for cell phones representing all the major carriers.  We’d been working up the energy to get new cell phones because I had an iPhone 6 and Trish a 6s.  Hers was “more current” only because the cats dumped her 6 into their water bowl.  It was time.  But we both hate spending the money only slightly less than we hate the “process”.

Drew was a really nice guy and told us that the “process” would take no more than 30 minutes.  Believing him was our second mistake.  We flew through our shopping list and were back at Drew’s side in 15 minutes, but now had to wait for three other people in front of us to finish.  One person wasn’t quite sure how a cell phone worked.  One was trying to complete a complicated transaction that seemed sure to threaten national security.  One kept having to go back and forth through check out and The Cage.  Ultimately, we got Drew’s attention and began the “quick process” to buy our iPhone 12’s.  Except we couldn’t just buy them.  We had to put them on our plan and pay them off over 12 months.  I left Trish to manage the transaction while I checked out and took our purchases to the car.  Good thing it was cold out.

When I got back to the kiosk, Trish had That Look on her face.  That “I knew this was not going to be easy” look.  Drew was trying really hard to keep a very neutral semi-smile on his face, but the panic in his eyes betrayed him.  He was typing slowly on his keyboard, a key here and there, while talking on his cell to the first of, I don’t know, 20 different people at HQ.  Trish and I took turns watching Drew and sitting on a surprisingly comfortable couch, people watching.  I calculated the percentage of people wearing either sweats or leggings at 90%.  An interesting factoid.  Anyway, The System was requiring us to put a down payment on the phones that we would have preferred to pay for outright.  $100 didn’t work.  Neither did $250.  Ultimately, we put down $750 “deposits” on phones that cost $769.  We went through the line, paid our “deposit” (and bought phone protector sets, which becomes important later), retrieved our phones from The Cage and were escorted back to Drew.  He went to complete the transaction, deactivating our old phones and activating the new ones and….the final transaction just would not clear.  It just would NOT.  Exasperated and without his commission, Drew told us we needed to go to a Verizon store, apologized profusely and escorted us to the Returns line.  Not the front of the Returns line.  The back of the Returns line.  On the first business day after Christmas.

We finally got home around 1:00 and were both hangry.  People who know me know how dangerous this is.  “The First Rule of Sherri” is to feed me on time and at regular intervals.  I was not happy.  Trish knew not to even try to talk to me until my blood sugar had stabilized.  Then came our third mistake:  we are both Virgos who, once we get something in our mind, cannot let go of it.  So after we ate we said, “Let’s just get this done and go to a Verizon store.”  We knew enough to go to a REAL Verizon store and not a Verizon Authorized Dealer, but that’s a story for another time.  Trish smartly said, “Let me call first and make sure they have phones.”  Store number one had no 12’s in stock.  When she called store number two, they transferred her to a national sales rep.  Trish was introduced to Alberto, who lives in Seattle, and thus began a relationship none of us expected.  They became friends fast, so I went into the other room to try to read.  At some indeterminant time later, they were completing the transaction and all we’d need to do was go to the Verizon store and pick up our new phones! Yay!

That was until the credit card company turned down the transaction.  Not a big surprise.  A charge of $1780 dollars for two iPhone 12’s?  I’d turn it down, too.  We thought she’d get an automated text to approve the transaction, but no.  I went to call the credit card company on my cell phone since Trish was on the land line but DREW HAD TURNED OUR OLD PHONES OFF!  Which also meant there were two activated 12’s in boxes in Costco’s returns pile.  I kicked a cardboard box across the floor that the cats were playing with and sat back down.  Fortunately, Alberto was able to deactivate those Costco returns and reactivate our old phones.  I called the credit card company and was put on hold because of “unusually high call volumes”.  “What might be ‘usually’ high call volumes?” I wondered.  So we waited.  And waited.  Trish was still on the phone with Alberto.  They were telling each other stories from their childhood.  And waited.  And waited.  Trish was now telling him the story of how we met.  And waited.  Around 45 minutes or maybe three days later, as Trish was finalizing vacation plans with Alberto and his family, a customer service rep picked up.  Yes, she said, your card is locked.  I’ll unlock it.

Alberto put the transaction through again.  It was declined again.  He tried a few more times.  We envisioned the FBI coming to our doorstep, asking about the drug ring we must have been setting up by buying 15 iPhones.  I called the credit card company again.  Trish and Alberto were now discussing the finer points of Existentialism.  The card was unlocked AGAIN and we were scolded to wait 5-10 minutes before trying the transaction again.  FINALLY the purchase was completed and Trish and Alberto said a tearful goodbye.  I think we are now godparents to his children.

As the winter sun began to set over the Philly suburbs, we hightailed it to the Verizon store.  I wisely stopped at a Wawa and got Trish coffee, her pacifying juice.  We saw a sign outside the Verizon store telling patrons to wait there to be let inside.  It’s 31 degrees out, with a stiff wind.  A woman was standing there already, stomping her feet to keep warm.  We waited in the car.  Trish decided now was the perfect time to make a dental appointment.  The first woman got let in.  Another person wandered up while Trish was on hold.  Then another.  Time marched forward.  After losing our place three times in the freezing line we were finally let inside to wait in the cordoned off COVID Bullpen.

Ultimately, a nice young man retrieved our new phones and wished us well.  Yeah, that’s it.  No data transfer help or even a hint of support.  We pulled out our $20 Costco protector sets and asked him to please just put the safety film on for us.  He said, “No, I can’t do that since you didn’t buy those here.”  It’s now after 5:00.  We’ve been at this for seven hours.  All we wanted was this one little bit of kindness.  We both erupted.  He looked at us passively and tried to mansplain again why he couldn’t help us.  I offered to pay him.  Anything!  Just please do this!  I’m not sure what changed his mind.  Maybe it was the pleading look in my eyes.  Maybe Trish was making a gesture just out of my sight.  All I know is he relented, reluctantly, as long as we took everything out of the package and promised to not hold him liable should anything break.

Home with our news phones, we at least found the set up easy.  Thank you, Apple, for making something easy.  We have the newest phones.  We shouldn’t need to go through this again for at least five years.  I hope.  My marriage depends on it.

(Author’s note:  I have been very serious in my essays these last many months.  Since this has been a Very Tough Year, I thought I would end on a more humorous note!  I am so grateful for all of you.  Thank you for choosing to spend your time reading my essays and giving me such wonderful feedback.  Have a safe and happy holiday season!)

As many of you know, I recently discovered the Joy of Cooking.  No, not the cook book.  The ACTUAL joy of cooking.  I had always been intimidated by the kitchen.  When I was in high school, instead of taking Home Economics, I took a third year of chemistry.  I was similarly reluctant to learn from my Mom as a kid.  As an adult, I marveled at what wonderful cooks my sisters and best friend were—and became even more loath to try to learn.  Over the years, I learned to make only a few simple things:  a beef stew, chicken rice soup (all Jewish women make this; it’s in the Handbook), a salad, a hamburger.

A few years ago, my sisters-in-law bought us a gift of a box of meal kits from Blue Apron.  I became hooked.  The recipes were easy to follow but more importantly gave me many little tips on how to prepare ingredients and put them together into a meal.  My confidence grew as I began to make things that were more than “just edible”!  The mystery around cooking started to melt away.

Then, Trish and I joined Weight Watchers.  A cornerstone of that program is cooking your own meals from whole foods.  And they provide access to recipes galore!  I am not a creative cook, mind you.  I’m not one of those people who can look in the fridge, pull out a tomato, a wayward grape, an old pork chop and a pint of sour cream nearing its expiration date and build a three star Michelin meal around them.  But I can follow a recipe well and I’ve learned enough tricks to make things taste good, although Trish says I never add enough salt.  Or pepper.

Big Food has worked hard and spent heavily on advertising to convince us that we are too busy to cook and that people who do cook a lot are either retired or otherwise not contributing significantly to society.  Cooking, they told us, was for “fun”.  Putting food on the table for a family every night, if you were a “normal” person, required the assistance of their processed and packaged foods.  Nonsense, I say!  Cooking from whole foods can be as straightforward and rewarding as you choose it to be.  And it really does not need to take hours.

There are a few useful things to know, however.  Herewith, I share a few key observations from a new cook.  Bon Appetit!

• 50% of cooking is chopping onions.
• Another 25% of cooking is chopping other things.
• True courage is taking a very sharp, very large knife in hand and cutting open a spaghetti squash.
• Speaking of sharp knives, spend some real bucks and get yourself a top notch set of chef knives.  I had bought a set from Pampered Chef many moons ago, supporting a friend who had a Pampered Chef party.  Best dang purchase I ever made—even if I didn’t appreciate it until 15+ years later. 
• Same comment regarding a good skillet.  I spent an outrageous amount of money on one from Our Place (it was even a 50% off Deals and Steals from GMA) but it’s worth every penny.
• Never let ANYONE touch your good knives.  Or your good skillet.  Trish put one of my good knives in the dishwasher once.  I freaked out.  Fortunately, I rescued it in time.  She has not touched one of my good knives since. (Sorry, honey.)
• Clean up as you go—even if someone else has the responsibility to clean since you’ve cooked.  One, you may need some of those items again.  Two, it just feels nice to have a clean sink.  Three, it will keep you from moving too quickly to the next step in a recipe when something needs time to develop.  And, four, it will keep people from touching your good knives.
• When you are making a soup or a stew:  Once you’ve sauteed onions, add the spices and “toast” them onto the onions for a minute before adding liquid and other items.  It’s stunning how that brings together, and brings out, the flavors.
• Similarly, I have learned to worship at the alter of the Holy Trinity: onions, carrots, celery.  I buy bags of them, now, with no specific recipe in mind and actually use them up before they go bad!
• You can learn how to do anything cooking-wise from YouTube.  Want to peel a kiwi? YouTube.  Want to cut into a butternut squash?  YouTube.  Want to root an avocado pit?  YouTube.  I could go on.
• If you start cooking more from whole foods, expect to go to the grocery store at least 2-3 times per week.  Don’t worry—the produce section is an excellent place to social distance.  Never a big crowd.  The frequency is partly due to the limited shelf life of fresh produce and partly due to meal planning only 2-3 days at a time.  Otherwise it gets overwhelming.  And you’d need another refrigerator.
• Prep all your materials before you start cooking.  Yes, it can be a pain and you just want to get going, but there is nothing worse that needing to add something that you haven’t chopped yet or gotten out of the cabinet or brought up from your stash downstairs.
• It is natural to talk to yourself while cooking.  In fact, it is also natural to pretend you are hosting a cooking show, sharing your tips and tricks with your loyal audience.  This is even more fun when you do your prep properly and have all your ingredients lined up in little dishes.
• An immersion blender is the reciprocating saw of kitchen tools—most fun ever!
• Get a good meat thermometer.  There is nothing scarier than looking sideways at a chicken breast and wondering if it’s cooked enough.
• A mandolin slicer is as dangerous as it sounds.  I have spent the last two weeks rebandaging a wound on Trish’s thumb that really should have had stitches.
• Having a dog would be helpful.  As careful as you might be when chopping and transferring—and I decidedly am not—things will drop on the floor.  A dog will quickly vacuum that up.  Cats?  Not so much.  While they are my constant companions in the kitchen, their main goal is to quietly lie down behind me and try to trip me.  Oh, and see if there might be some fresh chicken breast meat or water from a tuna can appearing.  Anything else that ends up on the floor just gets sniffed at with disdain.
• Roasting vegetables has changed my life.  Why did I ever nuke or boil?  A red onion, some cherry tomatoes, a range of cruciferous veggies and/or potatoes and/or squashes; some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Cooking truly has become my love language.  I so enjoy cooking for those I love, especially now that I’ve gained some confidence in the kitchen.  It’s also a reminder that we humans are lifelong learners.  There is a big difference between saying you can’t cook and you don’t cook.  If you want to learn how to do something, you can.  It’s just a matter of priorities and commitment, which we have discussed at length.  Start small but challenge yourself.  And don’t give up.  You, too, might be able to make potato leek soup that is the bomb!

It’s late Friday afternoon and my publishing deadline is Sunday.  I have no idea what to write about for this post.  It’s not that I lack topics.  I just lack topics that I actually want to write about and that you might want to read.  There is no overlap in that Venn diagram this week.  Writing is therapy for me, so it’s not that I haven’t been writing.  I’ve been writing furiously.  And, trust me, you wouldn’t want to read any of it.  Not if you like and respect me and want to continue to do so.  I am therefore doing what writers are supposed to do: just start writing.  My goal as a writer is to find language to express feelings and emotions.  When you are able to put words around something you sense, you are on the road to awareness and reconciliation.  I’ve got lots of stuff nudging at me.  Let’s see what comes out.

I’m guessing that you, like me, are getting dang tired of this pandemic.  I’m tired of the upward curve on deaths in the US that does not seem to be plateauing even after reaching 100,000.  I’m tired of the mental mood swings that run the range from gratitude that I have the means to stay home and enjoy doing it (most of the time) to raging at the injustice of how this virus is attacking our most vulnerable (both physically and economically) to fear that I’m not as safe as I think I am to frustration at how really, really badly I need a haircut to boredom with the same activities to self-flagellation around my own privilege and hubris.  And I’m tired of feeling tired.

The Pennsylvania Governor is set to move my county into the Yellow Zone next Friday, which brings with it many new freedoms.  Don’t really know what those freedoms are beyond some limited outdoor seating at restaurants but I am assured there will be more freedoms.  Will I really do anything different?  The Y won’t be open yet.  I doubt the in-person Weight Watchers workshops will start back up this soon.  Will I finally be able to go to DSW and get new “running” shoes? (I don’t really run.)  I know that whatever I’ll be doing, I’ll be wearing a mask and harshly judging (and avoiding) those who don’t.  I won’t be getting my hair cut.  I won’t be booking flights anywhere anytime soon.  And I won’t stop being wary of strangers that get too close (not that I was ever really comfortable with that, anyway).  I guess the bottom line is that I won’t feel “safe” and that is what I really want.

But enough of this Debbie Downer stuff!  There are also a lot of really GOOD things going on!  People are showing kindnesses to one another in very heartwarming ways.  We are taking care of each other and while we aren’t making everything all better, we are at least remembering our—and others’—humanity.  Let’s count up some of those good things.  For one, my family is now doing a weekly Zoom call.  I started Zooming with my Mom a month or so ago because I just wanted to see her face.  For Mother’s Day, a couple other family members joined in.  Last week, almost all of us were on the call and we’ve decided to make it a weekly thing.  Not a requirement, mind you.  But we now actually might get to see each other’s faces all together more than three times a year.  This is one of those pandemic workarounds that hopefully will outlast the virus.

I have discovered a local food pantry that I am now regularly supplying.  They have a list each week of what they need most and when I go to Costco, I pick up a few things along with my own list and drop them off.  This food pantry existed before the pandemic and will continue afterwards.  There has always been local need, it’s just more urgent now.  After the pandemic passes, the food pantry will still be needed and now I have a local outlet I can regularly support.  That makes me happy!

Speaking of Costco, when I went for my biweekly run yesterday, guess what?  Kirkland toilet paper was back!  Huge piles!  Like “normal”!  It didn’t even look like they were limiting amounts.  There were a bunch of us standing around the mountainous display just smiling.  Or, I think people were smiling.  Masks, you know.  But you can see it in their eyes.  “Feels like we’re getting back some semblance of normalcy!” I said to no one and everyone.  There were mumbles and head bobs of agreement.

Masks, by the way, have quickly become the fashion accessory du jour.  My Facebook feed is littered, now, with all kinds of nifty designs and breathable, washable fabrics.  I feel like buying more than the utilitarian ones I have now.  We’re going to be wearing these things for a while (or at least I hope so).  I want one of the ones that seem designed for working out.  I want at least one gator.  I might get one imprinted with an owl image.  One for the Philadelphia Eagles.  Maybe the Phillies.  The possibilities are endless!  AND, I don’t really need to put make up on if I’m going to be wearing one.

I’m saying Thank You a lot more these days, too, and I’m seeing others do it as well.  That’s something else I hope sticks around.  We’ve made “essential workers” heroes during this time.  Why weren’t we appreciating them more before all this?  The servers, the grocery store clerks and stockers, the garbage dudes, the mailmen.  People are actually seeing them now.  And appreciating what they do.  And saying Thank You.  Please don’t stop that.  Ever.

Tonight is Treat Night.  Trish and I do this every couple of weeks, usually on weigh-in day.  We split a cheesesteak for dinner along with a piece of pizza each.  There is usually a beer or a glass of wine.  To prepare for this, we eat “zero point” foods the rest of the day.  And we still go over our point allowance a bit, but it’s just one day.  I used to chow three pieces of pizza without taking a breath and barely remembering the taste.  Now, I savor that half a cheesesteak and that piece of pizza.  I love every bite.  It’s plenty of food.  It tastes delicious.  I am much more aware of food that I never really took a lot of notice of before.  Don’t get me wrong:  I love the way we eat now.  I’ve lost a bunch of weight and feel better and truly love the food.  I just have more appreciation for delicious food, any delicious food, because I am so much more mindful about eating.  THAT is something that I want to see stay after we have a vaccine and the extreme awareness we have around COVID-19 fades.  I want to see people stay more mindful about the people around them—family, friends, service providers, everyone.  Being kind to each other.  That would be a good outcome.

I feel better, now.  I’ve put words to some of those feeling nagging at me.  I’m guessing they’ve been nagging at you, too.  I guess I had something to write about after all.

I’ve been trying to motivate myself to write for the last two weeks.  Writing, normally, is therapy for me so I’ve been surprised at the difficulty.  Lord knows I could use some therapy these days!  I’m starting this essay on Friday, knowing my posting deadline is Sunday.  Nothing like a self-imposed deadline to get you started!  I just haven’t felt like writing about leadership topics.  Rather, it is hard to make these topics more humorous and based on the response to my last two essays y’all want to laugh, not think.  Wait.  That didn’t come out right.  My clearly intelligent and discriminating readership would prefer to laugh while they think.  So, instead of delving into a single topic, today I am going to share with you a number of observations I have made about myself and the world over the last few weeks and how I might in the future weave some of these into essays of their own.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gone off of Prozac  Let’s start strong!  Like many a Woman of a Certain Age, I had some difficult times with inhuman hormonal swings several years ago and at the insistence of my doctor (“Don’t be afraid of chemistry, Sherri.”) went on Prozac.  I stopped a couple of years ago when various internal chemicals and my life evened out.  My coping energy has generally been fairly strong as of late.  These past few weeks, however, anxiety has come roaring back.  As usual, it has expressed itself by keeping me from sleeping which, in turn, messes with other rather important bodily functions leaving me tired, cranky, lazy, and bloated.  This state is different from my usual tired, cranky, lazy and bloated condition by the addition of feeling both helpless and angry.  I am a joy to be around.  Why am I feeling helpless and angry?  Read on.

Hair Salons Should be Essential Businesses  It is the little things.  I remember when I lost power for four days after Super Storm Sandy.  Electricity is something you really take for granted until you don’t have it.  Those were four miserable days.  Thank goodness for a fireplace and two very warm cats.  When the power came back on, I channeled Scarlet O’Hara yelling, “With Gd as my witness!  I will never take Electricity for granted again!”  I am replaying that emotion now with respect to my hair salon.  It has been 43,200 minutes since I’ve been to the salon.  Not that I’m counting.  It is not, as you might guess, about hair color.  I am one of those lucky few (thanks, Mom and Dad) who is graying late and in a nice salt-and-pepper way, so I don’t color.  No, it’s the Waxing Room of Torture that I miss.  I have taken to plucking hairs that should never have to be removed one at a time.  The concept makes Trish literally gag, so I can’t even tell her about it.  I’m sure she’s gagging editing this paragraph.  I have written to the CIA, explaining in detail how they can now do away with water boarding and just use strategic plucking.  Although I’m guessing this is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, too.

I Have a Righteous Streak a Mile Long  “Really?” says everyone who’s ever known me, rolling their eyes.  “I’ve never noticed.”  OK, but I come by it honestly and I’m clearly not alone.  We are all self-isolating.  And we are doing it for a rather altruistic reason:  in most cases, it’s not so much about us getting COVID-19 ourselves, but making sure that we break the chain of contagion thus keeping our health care system from totally crashing.  Yes, most people have very manageable symptoms.  But this virus is contagious enough and enough people are asymptomatic long enough that without us all staying home, this thing would pass through the country/world like wild fire.  Even the relatively small percentage of people that have a serious time with this illness would be enough people to totally overwhelm hospitals.  Think about that: we are staying home so that people we don’t know won’t die.  That is incredibly selfless and community minded.  And American culture is diametrically opposed to those two characteristics.  But we DO believe in fairness!  That happens to express itself as “If I am going to stay home 99% of the time and wear an uncomfortable face mask when I do go out, then I am going to judge like hell the people that DON’T do that!”  This is partly why lines at gun stores have been a mile long.  This and the fact that Pennsylvania inexplicably closed the liquor stores. If there ever was an essential business!  Anarchy is just one bad day away.  Thank goodness the sun is out today.  “The Individual vs. the Community” will undoubtedly become an essay in the future.

The Average Person Does Not Understand the Scientific Process  I have previously indicated that I would like to write a series of essays entitled “Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Freshman Chemistry” and an explanation of the Scientific Process will be a key part of that.  Let me give an example: Having a gut instinct about the efficacy of a drug combination to fight COVID 19, based on a few anecdotal cases, does not replace a well-designed study.  Why not just try it?  What do you have to lose?  Remember thalidomide?  That’s a drug that was found, anecdotally, to reduce nausea in pregnant women.  It was then prescribed widely for this problem, until they realized that a high percentage of babies born to women taking this drug had horrific birth defects.  This is also why I can’t stand “sound bite” journalism.  It is very easy to find isolated examples to prove whatever point you want to make.  A well-designed study that proves cause and effect is critical. And don’t get me started on people who read one article, written for non-scientists, and are now self-proclaimed scientific experts.  Stay in your lane.

Speaking of Correlation vs. Causation  Did you know that there is a strong correlation between number of shark attacks and people eating ice cream?  Well, clearly then, people should stop eating ice cream if we want to prevent shark attacks! (Actually, they are both correlated with warm weather and people taking a swim in the ocean.)  Check out this one:

Clearly Scripps needs to be very careful of the words they choose in the final round!  Just because two events or actions are correlated doesn’t mean that one caused the other.  Just because a couple of people took a particular drug and recovered from COVID 19 doesn’t mean that the drug caused the recovery.  This relationship is oh so important in all aspects of our lives!  (Fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing already know this maxim.)  Expect this to show up again.  And remember, if something seems simple or obvious, it just means you don’t know enough about it.  See also: self-proclaimed scientific experts, above.

The Center is Relative  There is so much more about basic scientific principles applied to life that I want to explore.  The Law of Unintended Consequences.  The Importance of Significant Digits.  The Dose Makes the Poison.  But I will touch on just one more here:  The Theory of Relativity.  While we are all trying hard, kind of, to not politicize this pandemic there sure seems to be a lot of complaining tied to political party.  What I find interesting is that almost everyone considers themselves Centrist in their thinking.  Most people can easily find others who are both to the right and left of their own position on any given topic.  As such, by definition, they are “centrist”.  (“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right and here I am: stuck in the middle with you.” Bragging rights to the first person who identifies those lyrics!)  And, your own ideas seem so eminently reasonable to you that they MUST be centrist and anyone who disagrees is either an idiot or a maniac. (Who gets THAT reference?  Clue: comic from, um, the 80’s?)  Just chill, people.  The center moves around a lot.  It is relative to where the majority is at any given time in history.  No one ideology has all the right answers.  And in complicated situations like what we are wrestling with today, there IS no one right answer.  There are just different pathways with different consequences.  We are all right and we are all wrong.  “Balance” is another topic I’m sure I will dive into.  We don’t need to open up the whole country at once; nor do we need to stay in 100% quarantine until 2025.

Which brings me to my final thoughts.  Last night I had a Zoom happy hour with my college friends (the famous crew from Miami).  We were all talking about hitting a “pandemic wall”.  We’re tired of the constant stress of the unknown and uncertainty.  I will leave you with a thought from my friend, Jackie, who said “learn to relax into it.”  So perfect!  Control what you can control.  Breathe and relax into the rest.  And wear a damn face mask when you go out!

Be safe out there.