Ramblin' with Roger

Getting thru the rest of the pandemic

For MY sake, people, PLEASE get your damn shots!

How am I going to get through the rest of the pandemic? Eighteen months after it hit our area, I have found the need to analyze the ups and downs of my mental health.

Thursday, March 12, 2020: Last choir rehearsal to date. The next day, sensing things would shut down for a while, I took out seven Marvel DVDs (which I didn’t watch for a few months). The church was canceled that Sunday.

Sunday, March 22: Church started on Facebook, with the pastors, their older daughter, and one church member. The music was previously recorded from past services. An ersatz experience, but better than nothing. It got better over time, with section leaders and a handful of others taping music specifically for the service. BYOC – bring your own communion, often Wheat Thins and my MIL’s homemade grape juice.

April: Starting to feel a bit isolated, I started to call people on the telephone, two per day until Memorial Day, Then one a day until August.

April 22, 2020: My father-in-law died, unrelated to COVID. His three surviving children were with him. No service at that time.

Mid-August to early October: Worked the Census. Did I feel totally safe going door-to-door wearing a mask? Why no, but it was important work.

December: Missing the chance to sing at church during Lent and now Advent sucketh.

I’m not throwing away my shot!

January 2021: There are a couple of vaccines out there. When will I get mine? When will I get mine?

February: When will I get mine? My wife got her first shot.

March: I got both of my injections, my wife got her second and my daughter got her first! Yay!

April 6: I went out to eat, outside, with three of my oldest friends, Carol and Karen and Bill, plus Karen’s old friend Michael. Besides being happy seeing them, this was incredibly liberating.

May 1: our daughter tossed her parents out of the house so she could clean the room. So her parents saw the tulips in Albany’s Washington Park, hung out at Peebles Park, saw the waterfalls at Cohoes, which despite it being in Albany County, I hadn’t seen in 30 years and my wife had never been there. Then we went to a small Lebanese restaurant and ate… INDOORS. There was only one other party there, but still. Radical stuff.

June 21: First day of IN-PERSON church worship! Hallelujah! Masks in church, but the coffee hour in the parking lot.

But then…

Just as I thought we were coming out of it, the country, and indeed my county, was experiencing upticks in the infection rates. So it felt as though every other plan that I was involved with was being altered.

I know I’m hardly the only one. Massive Science noted last month. “The past six months in the US provides a clear example of how vaccine complacency works, showing how over-optimistic assumptions about vaccines can lead to the elimination of other precautions too quickly. “

So, for instance, “Saturday, October 16 was supposed to be Young@Heart’s triumphant return to the stage in our hometown. And then came the Delta variant. Suddenly, it was – once again – no longer safe for us to rehearse together and perform live in person.” they’re doing the virtual thing.

The Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library has changed its Literary Legends gala plans from about 150 people indoors and unmasked to 75 people, vaccinated and masked, a more difficult task.

I had hoped that, after a year and a half of not singing in the church choir, surely we’d be back together. Alas, no. And there are myriad other examples, from performances limited to funerals still postponed. And we’re in the situation in large part because… well, you know why.

Not so funny

I know that there are “Funny Vaccine Memes To Get You Through The Rest Of The Pandemic.” They are so NOT working for me. (And to be honest, some of them I just don’t get.)

So I’ve become angry, even enraged, by the situation. Now, anger doesn’t last in me. But sadness does. After railing against the inanity, I’ve felt melancholy at best, or likely depressed.

I’m trying to discover remedies. Reading books won’t help, because I can’t focus on them presently. No video of more than about seven minutes can hold my attention. I read the lifestyle tips ad nauseum, which are just not attainable at present. I’m not sure of the solution; I’ve opted against medicating with alcohol.

A few months ago, I sought the service of a psychologist. It was remote, and it didn’t “take” for me. I’ll probably seek that route again.

Car lights and cloudy days

A calling

gray car My wife and I were going to meet a couple of friends on Labor Day for ice cream at a local emporium. But her hybrid vehicle’s car failed to start. Why it didn’t is a bit of a mystery. If she had left the car lights on or failed to turn off the vehicle – much easier to do than with the cars I grew up with – the car would have “told” her.

In any case, our friends came to our house, armed with cups of frozen desserts. We sat and watched the AAA fellow recharge the vehicle. I keep forgetting that they now carry portable chargers rather than having to jump it using another car.

My wife with one of our friends drove off to make sure the car’s charge held. The other friend and I sat on the porch. The situation reminded me of something I used to do in Binghamton, NY growing up in the 1960s.

Binghamton is cloudy and sometimes rainy. So a lot of people would accidentally leave their car lights when they parked. I took it upon myself to open the driver’s side door and turn off the lights. I must have done this over a thousand times in my life. One day coming home from high school, I turned off at least a dozen lights.

The open-door policy

Obviously, all of these cars were unlocked because that was the norm at the time. The number of cars I could not open because the door was locked was at most one in 20.

I don’t know what possessed me to do this. It was a calling, a mission. I’d cross the street to do it. Maybe my parents left their car lights on. But I have no specific memory of that. I even tried to do this in Jamaica, Queens in 1977, but the guy came back and thought I was trying to steal his car. Only rarely have I tried that since mostly because almost no one keeps their cars unlocked.

BTW, my friend had never done this. Have any of you?

Speaking of car lights, one of the things my wife and I agree upon is visibility. When it’s gray and overcast or raining, cars without their lights are difficult to see. But the ones that are silver/gray are the worst.

Information: Ask Roger Anything

Always look for the duck

I received a letter from my former employer. It indicated that their information may have been hacked. That is to say, MY name and Social Security number likely had been compromised.

To rectify the situation, I had to sign up for something called Experian ID Works. I’ve lost track; this is the fifth or maybe the seventh time that my data has been breached.

Meanwhile, my wife was Googling for information about our house. She found these mysterious random sites such as Rehold. This has information that indicates the previous owner from 2000 still lives at the property. And Gwen Powell has never lived at this address, though we used to get mail for her. The Ellenbogens, who died in 2005, are listened as our neighbors.

Nuwber wants us to cough up money for more data. But the free stuff indicates an Annette Green as a relative, who doesn’t exist. It says I have lived in Schuylerville, NY; that is incorrect.

Not incidentally, this is why I get grumpy with people who think they can just Google the answer to all of life’s questions. Search for a restaurant and you get the GrubHub page for the said eatery.

You know the drill

I’d suggest if you really want to know more about me, just Ask Roger Anything. Don’t take that second-hand nonsense. And I’ll give it to you for free!

I’ll answer your questions, probably within 30 days. You are requested to leave your questions, suggestions, and interpolations in the comments section of the blog. OR you can also contact me on Facebook or Twitter. On Twitter, my name is ersie. Why ersie? Why not? Always look for the duck.

You may remain anonymous, or preferably pseudonymous, but you need to tell me that. E-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com, or send me an IM on FB and note that you want to be unnamed. Otherwise, I’ll attribute the queries to you.

SeeClickFix the neighborhood

Sidewalk obstruction

I haven’t complained about some of my neighbors lately. So I was actually thrilled that someone else took on the challenge.

Like many other locales, the city of Albany uses the SeeClickFix system. The site claims it “is the best 311 request service for increasing citizen engagement, ensuring that every voice is heard and nothing gets lost or overlooked.”

It takes complaints about sidewalk repairs, signs missing, overgrown trees, noise complaints, and the like, and they get reported in Albany to the Office of General Services. I reported a WALK sign that somehow was skewed 90 degrees from the way it should have been, and it was eventually fixed.

Someone, not me, reported one of my immediate neighbors – this one. Under the category Property Maintenance (Overgrowth/Grass and Weed Mowing), the notice: “Hedges consuming half the sidewalk forcing Parents/Elementary students onto the grass.” Very true. I’ll note that this has been a problem for most of the past decade. I’ve been tempted to take my clippers and cut them myself.

A few days, ANOTHER complaint of that same neighbor; Illegal Trash, specifically “Broken glass piles on sidewalk and grass.” Yup.

Incidentally, the residents had a party there recently, which was fine. But then they threw a bunch of trash, but also tree branches, and returnable soda cans into OUR garbage can. I had to sort through the rubbish.

Foghorn

Then there’s the across-the-street neighbor – this one. She was screaming at a man of her acquaintance. She said she wasn’t mad at him for making another woman pregnant, because she blamed the other woman. But she was so loud that two of our neighbors, from their respective houses on both sides of the street, told her to shut up. Her response in each case was obscenity.

The man goes into the house, then gets into a car and leaves. Shortly thereafter, the police show up. She talks with them, very calmly for her. And she files a report that the man has stolen her car.

Understand that I can hear and observe this across the street and two houses down, sitting on my front porch. It’s almost like watching theater, but the script really needs work.

Time on the telephone

People occasionally ask me what I do with my time, now that I’m retired. The more correct question is how did I get through the week when I was working?

I spend a lot of time on the telephone because I’m “free”. So if my daughter is getting a vaccine for school, but we don’t remember the time of the appointment, I call her doctor. The initial message says there are 24 people in the queue. It also says I’ll get to speak to a human being in “three minutes, and fifty-four minutes.” So the countdown begins every 30 seconds: 22 minutes in the line, 21, 19, 17, et al. Do I want to press 1 and have them call back? I did that with Amtrak, but I knew the wait would be over an hour. I stayed for 16 minutes, as it turned out.

The cable box from Spectrum is not working properly. Before I call, I always reboot the system. Then the auto-voice character does the same thing. When I call back, I eventually get a human. I’m told that I have a “known problem.” So I can set shows to record, they do record, but they don’t show on the menu is a “known problem”? The only solution is to switch out the box.

Overpriced Rx

I received an amazingly mangled folded-over postcard. It was regarding a “$345 million dollar epinephrine (Epipen) class action settlement with Pzifer.” To file a “consumer claim,” I did not “need to provide any documentation at this time. However, the Settlement Administrator may ask for additional proof supporting your claim.” BTW, the lawsuit is regarding the price of the Epi-Pen, not its efficacy.

So if we could have come up with a reasonable guesstimate, I would have submitted it. But I thought it was about 25 packets, but my wife thought it was at least twice that.

I contacted my local CVS, where most, if not all of the prescriptions were filled. But they only had the records for the past two years. I needed to call 800-SHOP-CVS. After being on hold forever, I got someone who didn’t really understand my ask initially.

Eventually, I was transferred to someone who knew what I wanted. I needed the records department, and they’re on;ly open between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Time, and by then it was 4:45.

A few days later, I called earlier. Still a lengthy wait, but when I got to the records department, the person I spoke to knew I needed purchases between August 24, 2011, and November 1, 2020. She was trouble finding my daughter’s records, but we figured out that the records were under MY name as the insurance holder.

The records took less than a week to arrive by mail.