Who knew screen time would bring such joy? Not me. Since we battened down the hatches here in Michigan to follow the state’s stay-at-home order, I’ve disabled my Screen Time counter on all of my devices, mostly because I don’t want to know how long I’ve been texting, emailing, surfing, scrolling and watching mindless drivel. We’re talking years of my life I won’t ever get back. Oh well. We have a rule in our house: An hour before turning in, we must turn off all of our devices. That’s right. Screen time’s over, kids. Or, as my new favorite YouTube star, Pluto the talking dog, says, “The two-leggeds are unplugging…
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This is 60
Tomorrow, apparently, is my lucky day. At long last, I finally get to experience living in my “birth year.” Born on April 11, 1960, I will turn 60 years old. My age will match the last two digits of the year in which I was born. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Yippee. I had never heard of this. That is, until my good friend Miriam from Delaware emailed me a New Yorker article from 2007. “Hey, Jinny! Here’s a pertinent piece for your pre-birthday perusal,” she wrote with her usual aplomb and alliteration. Miriam is a wordsmith and the best copy editor I have ever known. She still makes me pee my pants…
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Keister eggs
Like most of our social life since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, this Easter will be spent at home. On our keisters. Granted, around the first two weeks of April, we’re normally in Florida on our annual spring visit to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea with friends. It’s a fun trip, albeit rather late in the season, which annoys me to no end because it’s starting to get nice here in Michigan, and we’ve already spent a month in the sun as snowbirds. The struggle is real. But I tend to get over it quickly. When we call family and friends to wish them a Happy Easter, the conversation generally drifts to the…
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‘Quarantine’
It’s a good thing Americans are so adept at national lampooning. Laughter may be the best medicine when you’re sheltering in place with loved ones, pets or all by yourself. As the world tries to limit the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, perhaps a healthy dose of humor can help alleviate some of the stress and anxiety we’re facing. Along with silly jokes, funny memes and goofy GIFs, coronavirus parody music videos are flourishing on YouTube. Seems that even in a global pandemic, music remains a universal language. Some well-known performers, stuck at home with nothing but time on their sanitized creative hands, have joined…
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Front lines
TROY, Michigan, 8 a.m. — Cover me. I’m going in. With all of the gumption I could muster before my second cup of coffee this morning, I headed out to the front lines. Compared with first responders and health care professionals – the real troops fighting this battle on the front lines – my assigned duty was small potatoes. Yet in these uncertain times when a night out means sweeping the garage with the door closed, I have to say that today I took one for the team. Or, as my commanding officer said: “You’re going to Kroger to shop for us since you’re not 60 yet.” And I don’t mean for…
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All for nothing
Life in America has changed like never before, thanks to a family of viruses named for crown-like spikes on their surfaces. Heck, even my dog won’t give me her paw. We can do this, folks. And to think we are doing it all for nothing. As in, here’s what a “successful” shelter-in-place outcome against the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease means: You’re going to feel as if these inconvenient, stay-at-home restrictions were all for nothing. Too extreme? Melodramatic? Anticlimactic? Let’s hope so. Because you’d be right. “The healthy and optimistic among us will doom the vulnerable.” When I first heard those words on TV, they stopped me in my tracks. I…
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Famiglia
“I hope that reading what is happening in Italy, people are convinced that the biggest mistake would be to underestimate this virus and do not make the same mistakes that other European states have made.” Mauro Quaglia, my cousin So, we’re not going to Italy this year. In light of a global pandemic, however, it hardly seems worth mentioning. Next month I have a milestone birthday. (Hint: It’s the new 50.) Our plan was to visit my mother’s birthplace and see relatives who live near Milan in northern Italy, where fashion meets finance. That’s in the Lombardy region, ground zero for the coronavirus epidemic now raging through Italy. Trust me when I…
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My corona
Who knew something that sounds like a Mexican pale lager could trigger mass self-quarantines, a bear stock market and wild conspiracy theories? So much has been written about “novel coronavirus,” the insidious bug causing COVID-19, a disease that has infected tens of thousands of people and killed more than 4,000 as of this moment. Not to worry, my friends. Sales of Corona (the beer, that is) are up. In fact, to help the cause, some theme-partiers in New Jersey threw a COVID-19 bash, complete with hazmat suits and Corona beer. When life throws these East Coast optimists lemons, they make lemonade – or just stuff them in a bottle and…
