Jim Styro's COVID-19 Update - Easter Sunday Edition, 2020-04-12

Oh man - I have so much to tell you...and so much time available to tell it.

Actually, that may be more true for you than it is for me.  It seems that I am an "essential employee" - or, at least, I am able to do whatever it is that I do from home.  So my schedule has not been adjusted much - at least not during U.S. business hours.

I had every intention of sneaking in a blog post last week on Palm Sunday.  But I decided that I would only post if I had completed ANY of my annual reviews beforehand.  As you can see, that motivational technique was...ineffectual.

Motivation - Round #2 was based on the same restriction (no blogging until the review were fully complete - since the deadline was midnight tonight, Easter Sunday) - but with much better results.  I actually finished and posted all the reviews last night, so I was able to sleep with a sense of accomplishment.

But now I'm starting to get ahead of myself.  Let's go back in time and review Weeks 3 and 4 of the New Normal -

• Family photos - The Girl (my daughter) and her husband, Derrick, are currently residing with my bride (The Middle Aged Woman) and I.  The Boy (my son) is living in our previous residence in Redford, MI.  Two Fridays back now, The Boy came over for dinner and we watched Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood".  But before the movie, I wanted to get a family photo that would reflect appropriate physical distancing in these harrowing times.  Below is the youngest to oldest version (Boy, Girl, Derrick, MAW, me) 

• I found out during Week 3 that Jackson Browne tested positive for COVID-19 - but based on this article from the LA Times, he should be fully recovered by now.  [If the link doesn't work, I can send a PDF of article - just leave a request in the Comments.]
• Exercise update:  Until the weather turned cold and damp this past Thursday and Friday, I have been on an eight-day exercise streak (4/1-4/8) - either walking 2 miles or doing the equivalent of 12-14 miles on my recumbent stationary bike.  Started what I hope will be a new streak on Saturday walking with MAW.  And today I did double duty - did 14 miles on the recumbent bike this morning before church and walked 2 miles before dinner this evening.

• This Week(s) in Video Conferencing:  Had a bunch more video conferences during the past two weeks - for church, with friends, and with family.  My single biggest video partner has been my Dad as I helped get him get prepared to join the on-line worship at my church for Palm Sunday (he joined us again for Easter this morning), use Google Hangouts for video calls, and play the World Golf Tour (computer golf) with me on-line.  And just today, I was able to show my Mom how to receive a call from me in Google Hangouts on her computer.  I am clearly ON FIRE providing tech support to retirees.
• This Week in Entertainment:  No Redbox rentals the past couple weekends - but I did watch -
• Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (mentioned above; apart from about 3 minutes of completely over-the-top violence, this is arguably his best movie)
• Yesterday (if you love the Beatles, I highly recommend this flick)  The basic premise is: what if there is only one musician left on earth that remembers the Beatles' songs?  A world in which that band never existed.  A great "wish fulfillment" scene toward the end of the movie is almost worth the price of admission (I mean, rental).
• Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (for Kevin Smith fans only.  I'm glad I watched it.)
• Finished making CD for my Mom with selections from the Purdue University Choir and Varsity Glee Club (with appearances from the Morehouse College Glee Club as well).
• Al Kaline:  Where have you gone, Albert William?  A sad day in the midst of many such.  One of the greatest players that I can say I saw live and in-person.  May be THE greatest.
• Michigan - Top 5 with a bullet:  There are some contests that you just don't want to win.  One of those is - State with the most COVID-19 cases and/or deaths.  It seems unlikely that we will shoot past NewYork or New Orleans (in deaths per 100K population) - but it seems like we are solidly in the Top 5 - and moving up.
• Braving Costco (or "The return of toilet paper and donuts"):  For a solid month or more, I have been unable to purchase toilet paper from my usual toilet paper vendor, Costco.  But this past Wednesday, I made a trip in the mid-afternoon and was able to sip from the sweet cup of victory.  Even better, I cruised by my favorite donut shop (which had been closed previously due to the governor's Stay At Home order) and found they have reopened.  (On a person note, I have always felt that donut-making was an essential job.  Without certain things, life just isn't worth living.)  Needless to say, the transaction was conducted at a distance (yelling my donut selections into the store) and I tipped big. 

I was going to post a picture that I call "The Easter Without Pants" - but I chickened out.  It's probably all for the best.  I will post another "Family Portrait in the Era of Physical Distancing" instead.

Hope you are staying home and staying safe.  Happy Easter!

Take care.

Limping towards Blogoversary:T-minus 7 days and counting

I'm used to being busy. I am often extremely busy - as in, busier than most people (i.e. anyone else I can think of at the moment) care for. That doesn't normally affect my ability to focus myself; in fact, oftentimes having too much to do focuses me into a living laser. But I've been rather scattered lately.

My Dad's cancer diagnosis and surgery moved things into a different realm since the last weekend of February. Not because there was so much more to do - the change was due more to that fact that I ended up spending a good deal of time away from home (which meant less time to deal with all my normal commitments) coupled with a new set of issues which occupied my mind but concerning which there was little that I could actually do (other than prayer and remaining calm).

This probably makes it sound as though I was more worried about the whole situation than I felt (on the whole). Although I had a few dark moments, I felt that things would turn out OK - and knew that maintaining my composure was the right thing to do, even if the worst should happen. I had long ago steeled myself to the fact that my father (an overweight smoker with high blood pressure) could take his leave of this mortal coil with little or no warning - so facing that real possibility wasn't something I had never considered. Still, I like the world a lot better with my Dad still in it - so I'm quite gratified that his surgery was (seemingly) so successful.

He still has chemotherapy in his near future. In the weird logic of modern medicine, once he is healed up from this major surgery, his oncologist will begin to introduce toxic chemicals into his system to attack any cancer-like cells. Let's hope that the chemicals attack the "bad cells" and leave the "good ones" relatively undisturbed.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting my groove back. I need some exercise. I need some sleep. I need to get prepared for Easter. I need to prepare the basement for our new TV.

And I need to write a few more decent posts before my Blogoversary.
T-minus 7 days and counting.

Take care.

RTT: Limping towards Blogoversary

• As of next week, I will have been doing this for a year. And when I say "doing this", I mean "having a blog" rather than "writing a blog"- cause my track record on the latter has been pretty weak since October*.



• My dad has lung cancer. (If you read the Middle-Aged Woman, you probably know that already.) To be more precise (or maybe the word is "optimistic"), my dad HAD lung cancer - but the surgeons removed it - along with half of his left lung and some lymph nodes. (Hopefully Dad will cut me some slack on this egregious HIPAA violation...) He was released from the hospital yesterday - the fifth day following surgery! That was good news - but rather a surprise, since he thought he would be in the hospital for a week to ten days. I am expecting to visit him in Dayton again this coming weekend - if the Lord's willing and the creek don't rise.



• I had every intention of completing my mini-reviews of the last three films viewed as part of The Plan (The Blind Side, Avatar, and The Last Station - which were all good, by the way) but as more time has passed since the Oscar telecast, I wonder if anyone is still interested. I may do it for my own strange reasons, of course - but my motivation has not been good lately.



• I bought a large TV last week. (If you read the MAW, you know that already too.) I really do owe debt of gratitude to Larry at OneCall for his consideration regarding the purchase. Amazon advertised an incorrect price for the TV - and I was the only person on the planet to place an order for that item during the few minutes that the erroneous pricing was in place. Larry and OneCall could have decided to nix the sale - but they decided to honor the advertised price despite the error. Once I take delivery on the set, I plan to do a more lengthy writeup on both the TV and OneCall to point out the excellent service they provided me - despite selling the TV at a loss.



• As a result of buying the new TV and a Blu-Ray player to go with it, I'm planning to give my Roku player to my dad so he can stream Netflix movies and my Major League Baseball subscription to his TV. My Blu-Ray is able to stream Netflix, so I shouldn't need the Roku anymore.



• I was the master of ceremonies at a fund-raiser on Sunday for the Joy-Southfield Community Development Corporation, an organization spearheaded by my church (Second Grace United Methodist) not quite 10 years ago. One of the major initiatives of the JSCDC was establishment of a free health clinic that was originally housed in our church and later moved to a new building constructed across the street. It was a wonderful occasion - and appropriate that our event should take place that Congress finally enacted comprehensive health care legislation. Plus I bought a nice bracelet for my wife at the silent auction.



• Did I mention that my TV is currently in Fridley, Minnesota?

Take care.


PS: Go visit Keely at the Un-Mom willya?!



Please? Come on - do it for me. Do it for Keely!

* I should probably go all the way back to August. But I did hit (low) double-digits for my posts in October.

My Dad

If I didn't know any better, I would think that my father was never a child. To the best of my recollection, I've never seen a picture of my father as a child. I do have a photo of my Dad dancing with my mother around 1960 - before they were married. My Dad was 16 at the time the picture was taken - but he's turned away from the camera. So I didn't include the photo below.

I have been told that the picture to the right was taken on my father's birthday in 1963 - so this shows my Dad a little over four months before my birth. He was 19 - but with that baby-face, I think he looks even younger.

At this point in his life, my Dad was trying different jobs (working in a factory briefly, running a pizza parlor) trying to acquire the means for he and my mom to live independently. You see, I am the oldest child in my family. My parents were married in November and I was born in June (not prematurely) - you do the math.

My father and I have never discussed how the unplanned nature of my arrival on earth affected his young life - but it must have been difficult at the time.

The next two pictures were taken about 10 years apart. At left, my Dad is pictured with my sister, Wendy (the older of my two sisters) circa 1968. On the right, my Dad is pictured in the late 70's - at the time, he was still younger than I am now. Both of pictures were cropped from larger family photos - and when I look at them, I remember that by late 1970, my Mom and Dad had four children. My Dad was 26; the same age I was when the Middle-Aged Woman and I had our first child.

By the time of the later photograph, my Dad was working for Montgomery Ward, a company that he would serve for 25 years before leaving to pursue other lucrative opportunities (getting out before Wards went belly up). My Dad worked his way up from salesman, to department manager, store manager, and regional manager. And he did quite a bit of travelling for business as his responsibilities at Wards increased.

In the early 80's, while I was living on-campus at the University of Detroit, the rest of my family moved to the Chicago area where Wards was headquartered. After leaving Wards, my Dad moved to Maryland, then Ohio as the result of job changes. Earlier this year, he retired - and I am looking forward to seeing him more frequently and getting in more rounds of golf with my Dad than in times past.

The last picture I will include today is from about 10 years ago. The MAW, my Dad, and I took The Girl and The Boy to a cider mill to see the animals, drink apple cider, and eat a donut or two. It was pretty darn cold that day - but we all had a fine time.

My Dad is a gentle soul. Although he can clearly be difficult to live with (he and my mother separated in the late 80's - around the time The Girl was born; but did not divorce for another ten years!) - my experience of my Dad is that he is a warm, easy-going and articulate fellow.

For years, my father smoked too much and weighed too much. He still does. I don't harp on him about it anymore - because I don't expect him to change. But I hope he will prove me wrong. The point is: I long ago accepted the fact that, given his habits, my Dad could die of a massive heart attack at almost any time. So I don't pass up an opportunity to hug or kiss my Dad and tell him I love him.

Writing all this down is one way of doing that long-distance. But I'll give him a call too. Just so I can say:

I love you, Dad.

Take care.