D's Notebook

Tag: Covid (Page 1 of 5)

D’s Notes

December 23, 2021 /

KU Hoops

Well, I was hoping to post another Jayhawk Talk entry this week. I was looking forward to seeing how KU played three days after struggling to put away a Stephen F. Austin team that exposed some of their deficiencies. Alas, Colorado had some players test positive, the game got wiped from the schedule, and the Christmas break begins early for the Jayhawks.

Which leaves the big KU hoops news of the week the announcement that KU will play Indiana the next two years. It took 19 years but it’s finally happening: the Jayhawks vs. the Hoosiers on campus!1 What timing, too. KU will come to Bloomington in December 2023, when I just might have a freshman on campus. Wacky, wild stuff!

The 1990s series between the schools was great. Well, for KU fans it was, since the Jayhawks went 5–1 against the Hoosiers, including two wins in the NCAA tournament. The game in Lawrence in December 1993 – the Jacque Vaughn game – was the best game I’ve ever attended.

Covid and Sports

All sports leagues are struggling at the moment, as both the protection offered by vaccines begins to waver for those who got their shots last spring and the Omicron variant takes hold. Once again we are seeing how well-meaning policies and guidance have often been short-sighted. Protocols that were put in place over the summer now seem hopelessly outdated and ineffective because, to go back to a favorite phrase from the spring of 2020, the situation is fluid. Leagues, rightly, are reluctant to move too quickly in making adjustments as they wait on advice from government and health officials and a better idea of exactly how dangerous Omicron is.

I’m not sure what the right answer is. Allowing fully vaccinated players who test positive but show no symptoms to continue to compete seems like the right move at first consideration. But aren’t those players still able to spread the virus even if they have avoided its worst effects? So do we start limiting crowds again? Or only letting in fully-vaccinated fans to prevent the spread if we let those players on the court?

Or should leagues hit the pause button, as the NHL has done? Would stopping games for 10–14 days allow this rapidly spreading wave to subside a bit, give officials a better idea of exactly what we’re facing, and perhaps prevent a longer delay after the holidays pass?

While their policies may be frustrating, at least professional sports are controlled by a central body that keeps everyone on the same set of rules. In college sports it’s totally different, with each conference having slightly different standards. College sports, subject to the political whims of all 50 states and the various priorities of dozens of different conferences, are a mess. The NCAA has provided all kinds of guidance, and is working closely with the CDC to adjust that guidance as needed. But the fact remains that an organization that is quick to jump in and control what schools/conferences do when there is money to be made (and take their large cut in the process) is largely toothless when it comes to protecting players, coaches, and fans.

BTW, S and I are boosted. M gets her third shot next week. We did have a scare in the house a couple weeks back, but the Covid test was negative and we think the kid in question had either the regular flu or just a terrible cold. Fortunately it never hit the rest of us.

Tiger

We had a fairly busy weekend so I wasn’t able to watch any of the PNC Father/Son golf tournament. Which bummed me out because my Twitter feed was electric about Tiger and Charlie Woods putting on a show all weekend. I don’t know what people were more amazed by: the fact that Tiger was upright and playing good golf, or how freaking good his kid is.

Who knows how healthy Tiger actually is and if his efforts are repeatable. He rode in a cart all week; doing so in a regular tour event will require approval from the PGA. I imagine they would jump at giving him one, ironic given how hard they fought to keep Casey Martin out of one 20-some years ago. Whether Tiger’s body can hold up to 72 holes of high-level golf is another matter. Regardless of his future, it is stunning that he had been able to recover to this level.

Pacers

The Pacers are kind of a mess. Which is unusual. Aside from the mid–2000s, post-Brawl era, the franchise is usually pretty boring and steady. They are always solid, occasionally great. They never get a high lottery draft pick. They don’t make much news that draws attention nationally.

This year has been different. There seems to be a lot of discontent in the locker room. There are players who don’t like their roles, some who are frustrated by not winning, and others who have issues with the front office.

It reached the point where owner Herb Simon had to meet with select media last week to ensure them he loved this team and that he thought they were fully capable of getting their shit together and winning some games. This came just as there were reports that he might finally relent from his long-held policy of refusing to tank for a high draft pick. He has said he would rather be mediocre and sell as many tickets as possible than tell the fans the team is going to suck for a few years and deal with a huge attendance loss.

The chatter is he may be wavering because the Pacers’ attendance this year has been near the bottom of the entire league. I think there’s also finally some acceptance that while they have a lot of nice players, they have the wrong mix of nice players. Too many guys who do the same thing and no true stars. There’s no Jermaine O’Neal, Danny Granger, or Paul George on this roster: a young, talented player who can blossom into a top 20 player if the team is patient enough.

The Colts are the far more important franchise around town these days, and have been since Peyton arrived. But I’ve talked to a few guys who have been big Pacers fans their entire lives who are pissed about where the team is. When you have such a small, loyal fan base and they begin to turn on the team, it seems like ownership has to do something drastic to keep their interest and to have any hopes of grabbing the attention of the rest of the city.

NFL

My attention given to the Colts this year has been waaaaay less than last year. I’m not sure why. I’ve watched way less of the NFL in general this year. Again, I’m not sure why.

The Colts seem to be rolling, though. And my limited viewing tells me that this may be the widest open playoffs in recent memory. So perhaps the Colts can overcome that brutal opening stretch of the season and make some noise in the playoffs.

Ha! Very funny! You can’t trust Carson Wentz in the playoffs!

Forget Covid and who may/may not be available: is there a single team you really trust to win 3–4 games in January? I would assume the Chiefs are, once again, the favorite as they’ve righted the ship from their mid-season swoon. But each time a team seems poised to stake a claim as the clear best team in the league, they lay a big fat egg. So maybe that means the Chiefs play a Wild Card in both the AFC title game and Super Bowl? I don’t know; I haven’t watched enough to have any idea what to expect.

1. The only time the schools have played since I moved to Indy was in Hawaii in November 2016 with the Hoosiers winning in overtime.

When It Is Hard To Watch

September 22, 2021 /

There are constant reminders that we live in crazy-ass times. Times where simple differences of opinion aren’t allowed and every debate has to be A Whole Thing. Times where civility has disappeared from discourse and it rapidly transitions into vitriol.

Some of you know my wife has a second job, taken to support my blogging career. Not really. Taken, truthfully, because she’s good at making decisions and would rather help to form and implement policy than be told what the new policies are going to be.

As part of her second job she’s been asked to speak with the media at various times. Which she hates. H-A-T-E-S. Four years ago she appeared in a recurring segment on a noontime news program which caused her so much stress she bailed after four attempts.

Her requests have gone up a lot in the past few months. She does her best to duck them. Often the requests go out to a small pool of similarly qualified physicians and someone else is usually willing to take them. But in the past two weeks she’s been unable to avoid two requests: one from the local paper, another from TV.

In each case the subject of discussion was kids and Covid. The newspaper request was providing a physician’s perspective on mask policies at schools. She did a ten-or-so minute call with a reporter and then it was something like four or five days before her words appeared in a story.

This week she was asked to get on a Zoom call to talk to a TV reporter for a feature about the latest vaccine news for kids. This was a little more stressful because our internet crashed about five minutes before she had to join the call. She does not do well with technology hiccups, less well when she’s already stressing about something else she dreads. Fortunately it happened here at home while I was available and I helped her scramble to join the call on time.

The call went well and a few hours later we tuned into the late local news to see the segment. It was pretty good. She critiqued herself for over-using a particular phrase, but otherwise she came across as coherent and knowledgable. When she preps for these interviews I always tell her to relax and speak to the reporter like she would speak to a parent in an exam room. But I know if I had to be on TV I would probably trip over every-other-word and totally lose my train of thought at least once. She does really well for someone who is crazy nervous about these conversations.

What does any of that have to do with the lack of civil discourse I mentioned at the beginning of this piece?

Well, I refused to find the archived story on the TV station’s website to share with family and friends because I did not want to see any negative comments from the Covid Crazies. Or open up either S’s or my Facebook pages for the Crazies to directly connect with us.

She didn’t say anything super controversial or that you haven’t probably heard in countless other mediums already. She expressed sympathy for parents who are having a hard time deciding whether or not to get their kids vaccinated. She politely shot down some myths about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. We had found an op-ed from the Washington Times written by a pediatric hospitalist about how she attempts to remain calm and empathetic to vaccine-resistant families, and I think that helped S model her statements.

But I know that didn’t matter to the Crazies, and there were likely dozens of people with no medical education or training; who haven’t sat on countless calls discussing the development, testing, and effectiveness of the vaccines; and who haven’t sent Covid positive kids to the emergency department poised to chime in with their dissenting opinions and call S’s training and motives into question.

I don’t have thick enough skin to laugh those comments off. It was easier for me to just avoid them.

Maybe I would have been pleasantly surprised. Perhaps a huge majority of comments would have been in support of S and any attacks would have either been filtered out by the station or beaten down by her supporters. It wasn’t a battle I was interested in getting into the details of, though.

So, anyway, S was on TV Monday night. If you know her name you can probably find it. If you watch, I have no interest in hearing about the mood in the comment section, good or bad.

Current Status: Vaccinated

April 12, 2021 /

I received my second Pfizer vaccine shot on Friday. WHOOOO-HOOOOO!!!!!

No issues, other than a sore arm. I’ve heard wildly varying stories from others who have already been through both shots. S and several other friends got wiped out by shot #2. In her case, she felt achy and sore and lethargic for about 24 hours. Another friend was out for two days with similar symptoms. However several other folks have reported no issues.

The arm soreness woke me up Friday night when I tried to lay on my left side, but otherwise was noticeable but less intense than the soreness after my first shot.

I don’t know if it made a difference, but I did get the shot in the opposite arm from my first. A friend of a friend who is a virologist suggested that doing so would reduce the arm pain. Just an FYI for those of you who are still waiting to get your second (or in some cases first) shot.

We also got M her first shot last Monday. Indiana opened up eligibility to everyone over 16 two weeks ago. Initially we had her scheduled to get her first shot on May 3 through the state. But a co-worker of S said to check the websites of places like CVS as they were rapidly opening up their schedules. We did and got M moved up by three weeks. She had no issues, not even soreness, with the first shot. I hope she has my luck on #2 as well, because she is scheduled for a Monday and I’d hate her to lose a day or two of school because of a reaction to the vaccine.[1]

As with the first shot, I was filled with happiness as I left the vaccine facility Friday. From the reading I’ve done the experts think the first Pfizer shot provides pretty good protection. The second shot plus a couple weeks means a much more normal life is rapidly approaching.

Along those lines, I re-started my gym membership last week. I talked to a couple friends who had still been going regularly for the past eight months. They said the Y does a good job of keeping things clean, spreading people out, etc. I figured if these ladies have been going multiple times a week for eight months, without a vaccine, and have stayed healthy, it was probably safe for me to go back.

I worked out twice last week. The gym is definitely way less crowded than it was when I last went 56 weeks ago. I was worried about getting access to machines because so much of the cardio equipment is blocked off for distancing measures, but both times I walked in and stepped right onto an elliptical and got to work. It looks like a lot of people are still staying away.

We’ve also made our first plans to go out to dinner with friends in two weeks.

I will continue to wear a mask when out for the time being. Indiana dropped the mask mandate last week, although it is still in place in Indianapolis. I took L to Dick’s in Carmel to go shoe shopping yesterday, and there were quite a few people already walking around without masks. Despite the big signs when you walk in that the store still requires masks.

I try not to mask shame. Who knows, everyone I saw without a mask may have had their second shot two weeks ago, right?

It saddens me how selfish we are as a country. “You can’t make me wear a mask, it violates my personal freedom!” No one likes wearing a mask, but is it really that big of an inconvenience? I wear glasses and have to deal with them fogging up every time I wear a mask. It is annoying as hell, but it’s a temporary hassle towards the greater good. I don’t get why so many people can only look out for themselves and fail to understand that a little personal pain means we save lives plus get back to that normal quicker.

That said, I think this is a time for potentially great joy. Hopefully the reluctant idiots don’t counter the power of the vaccines and keep us in a lengthy cycle of flare-ups and mini-shut downs. We should be in awe of how quickly the vaccines were developed, tested, produced in mass quantities, and then rolled out. There were plenty of errors along the way. Yet here we are, 14 months after America began to shut down, and we are racing toward a majority of the country carrying a defense mechanism against Covid–19.

Along the way we made rapid changes to our lives, many of which were extremely difficult. But most of us bought in because we care about more than ourselves, and realize that all 350 million of us are in this together, whether we like it or not. If I was still young and idealistic I would start dreaming that this could be a jumping-off point for us to do other great things. Alas…

  1. Mondays remain virtual days at CHS, so she’ll just take a long lunch that day.  ↩

Whoa, We’re Halfway There…

March 17, 2021 /

One shot down, one to go.

That’s right, I am 50% of the way to being fully vaccinated against Covid 19!

Indiana dropped the age limit to 45 yesterday. A friend, who also turns 50 this June, told me Monday night he heard rumors the state would be dropping the requirement below 50 Tuesday morning. He got up early, checked the state health department’s website, and just before 8:00 it updated to say Hoosiers 45 and up were now eligible. He and his wife signed up, then texted me the news.

While most of the vaccine sites on our side of town are booked out for weeks, the big facility on the IU-Methodist medical campus downtown had plenty of times that day. I immediately grabbed one at the same time they were headed down. Seconds after I booked my time I got a notification from the Indy Star saying the age limit had dropped. About an hour later the health system S works in sent me a text saying I could sign up. I felt like I had gotten one over on the world!

M had not left for school yet, and when I told her she got super excited, which was nice.

I texted S, telling her that I had an appointment and her response was “Today?” You might wonder if she had given me some inside dope on when the age limit would drop, but being in the pediatric world she has no idea what’s going on in adult medicine. She, too, was happy when I confirmed that I indeed had an appointment later in the day.

Around noon I headed downtown, got in line, waited about 20 minutes to get checked in, got my shot, then waited with my friends in the auditorium until our 15 minute buffer period had passed to make sure we didn’t have reactions.

My arm was sore last night, and again this morning. More sore than from any recent flu shot, to be honest. Worth it, though.

S had no issues after her first shot in December, but the second knocked her out for a day. I scheduled my second shot for a Friday just in case I have issues, too. I’d rather waste a weekend day on the couch than have to navigate a day filled with pickups and drop-offs while feeling like shit.

The lady who was checking my insurance information asked if I was excited. I told her that I was. In fact I was a little surprised at how excited I was. The past year has had its struggles, but no one in our immediate family has been sick. I like to read and watch movies and hang out in our home/yard, so being home hasn’t been a huge burden on me.

I have, though, been worried about catching Covid. Odds are high that I would be fine, or maybe suffer for a few days and then bounce right back. I know it’s not just a “strong flu,” though, and was not interested in putting myself or my family through a situation where my body could not fight the infection and it became a problem. Our family, like most of you, have done some things that probably aren’t super safe. We’ve flown to Florida once and are about to do it again, for example. We’ve let our girls go to small sleepovers and birthday parties or just hang out with friends. But we have generally done a very good job of minimizing situations where we put ourselves at risk. A lot of that has been my insistence.

What has bothered me has been our inability to eat out, our lack of face-to-face socialization with friends, and not being able to go to the gym. Especially the gym. I’ve worked out at home but it’s not the same, especially on the cardio side of things. I can’t run much anymore, so not being able to use an elliptical machine has taken away my one way to really burn some calories. Throw in vertigo, which has prevented me doing from much cardio at all the past four months, and I’m pushing the most I’ve ever weighed. It’s nice to be tall and be able to hide it a bit, but I’m not sure I’ll go shirtless on the beach much next week.

The first thing I thought of when I scheduled my second shot was that I can start going back to the gym the following week. Hopefully my vertigo will continue to get better over that span. That, combined with three weeks of vaccine in me, will make me feel comfortable enough to un-pause my Y membership. I have several friends who have continued to work out, and they say the Y does a really good job of keeping equipment clean and the people inside safe. That just seemed like too much risk to me, though, so I’ve not been inside the gym in 53 weeks.

I’m excited that after another three weeks I can end that streak.

Also, hooray science!

A (Gradual) New Start

January 4, 2021 /

Families in Indianapolis got an early Christmas present about two weeks ago when the county health commissioner said that schools could return to in-person classes beginning today, rather than waiting until Jan. 19.

St P’s normally starts the Tuesday after New Year’s Day, so today is a mini-virtual day with the kids having a few light assignments but no actual classes. Then they will be back the classroom tomorrow.

CHS will begin virtual classes tomorrow and return in person next Tuesday. They have an extra week’s buffer knowing high school kids were probably together on New Year’s Eve (M hung out with four friends who all come from families that seem to be keeping safe, although five girls spending the night together is probably not strictly a super-safe event…)

I think the girls are all happy with the change. I certainly am, although my fear is that this will be a short-term routine and schools will return to eLearning sometime between now and spring break.

This has certainly felt like the longest Christmas break ever, since the girls have all been home since before Thanksgiving. Not being able to do normal Christmas break stuff made it feel even longer. There were some friend hang-outs, but they were much more sporadic than they were a year ago. We didn’t go out to eat at all. Other than one car trip to look at Christmas lights with a couple nephews, we didn’t go to any holiday events. Family events were obviously much more scaled back. Fingers crossed that being in school is safe, but we all needed a change in routine after seven weeks home together.

Lots of content in the queue for this week. There are sports to discuss and a metric ton of media I consumed over the past month to review. My Friday Playlist pool is overflowing.

Hope all of you had good New Year celebrations, your families are healthy, and your homes are starting to return to some normal rhythms.

Good Riddance

December 31, 2020 /

Welp, it’s almost over. The worst year ever has but a few hours left. And then everything will magically get better at midnight, right?

If only…

2021 has to be better. Vaccines are being administered and research continues to find more ways to fight Covid–19. It may take months, but the tide is turning.

While Covid is our biggest issue, there are plenty of other issues for which there are no vaccines. And even if there were vaccines for racism and hate and greed and lack of empathy and people focused on obtaining/maintaining power by finding ways to divide us, well, let’s be honest, most of those fools wouldn’t take it.

There are lots of reasons to be pessimistic about the future. Rolling the calendar over to a new year won’t fix that. That doesn’t mean we can’t take a moment to celebrate putting 2020 in our rearview mirrors.

Happy New Year, be safe.

And fuck you, 2020.

A Christmas Unlike Any Other

December 28, 2020 /

Christmas, 2020.

Like most folks, we were trying to have a semi-normal Christmas in the safest manner possible. Most years we end up having several big family gatherings of varying sizes. Last year was a banner year: four get-togethers greatly aided by temperatures in the 60s most of the week. Two days we were in the front yard hitting golf balls.

We could have used that weather this year. Christmas Eve, the windchill was down in the low teens. I made a quick run to the grocery store first thing and did not enjoy the 30 seconds I had to be outside. There would be no hitting golf balls this year! Or eating outside, as we did back on Thanksgiving.

We hosted the single family gathering of the week, a dinner on Christmas Eve. We kept it fairly brief, and a couple households dropped out because of sick kids. Still, I won’t lie and say I wasn’t nervous about bringing 15 folks together for a couple hours.

Christmas morning was just us and the in-laws. S had to round on babies for the first time in several years, so I actually got to sleep in a little. Well, I heard her leave and got up at 7:00 to have a few moments of peace and quiet. It had snowed overnight – less than an inch – but the ground was white for the first time in three Christmases. I started waking the girls up at 8:15 which might be a new Christmas morning record.

Each girl had a theme to their gifts this year. M asked for clothes. C, things to decorate her room. L, stuff for her gaming.

M got those clothes and some pink Chuck Taylors. C got a mirror, floating shelves, and some wall organizing stuff from Ikea. L got new headphones, a microphone stand, and a macro control deck. They all seemed pleased.

No Christmas morning brunch or afternoon dessert gathering for the entire family. I still made two breakfast casseroles but with only us, my in-laws, and my mother-in-law’s two daughters eating them I’m still working on leftovers Monday morning.

From there it was a quiet Christmas weekend. I watched several movies and finished a good book. S and her step-mother watched most of Bridgerton. The girls chilled in their rooms with their own devices.

It was kind of boring, to be honest. Although there is a part of me that dreads all the Christmas gatherings and all the stresses and inevitable sibling bickering that comes with them,[1] this Christmas felt a little empty without them. Once the presents were opened and the breakfast eaten, it was just another cold, winter weekend. I’m already wishing for April and the early warmth of spring.

Hopefully this is a one-year diversion from the standards of the season, and when the 2021 holidays roll around, we can get back to normal.

  1. From siblings young and old.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

November 30, 2020 /

Well, today begins a new phase in our home’s daily rhythms. C and L are now eLearning through at least mid-January, joining M who has been home for two weeks. Hopefully the expensive Internet access we pay for holds up; our signal likes to drop in the middle of the day which should make for interesting moments when three girls are all in virtual classes.

When I picked C and L up from their final day of classes last Tuesday, L said it felt like the beginning of Christmas vacation. In a way I guess it is. Seems like things have gone fairly well with M’s eLearning. We are hoping that St P’s has used the past five or six months to have a good plan in place and the next five-ish weeks of class can be fairly normal.

It was a long holiday weekend. Let’s get caught up.

Smart devices

I’ve long been intrigued by smart hubs, plugs, lights, etc. But I always held off because I both didn’t see their utility beyond the fun factor, and with a wife who isn’t super tech-savvy, I feared the moments when the devices didn’t work properly and I wasn’t around to troubleshoot.

I knew the new Amazon Echo devices would get a price cut last week, and the moment they dropped, I ordered both an Echo with premium sound and an Echo Dot.

The Dot came first, on Tuesday, and I got it working in the office. I also ordered some smart plugs and got my reading lamp working via Alexa voice controls. The Echo came on Wednesday and…was a royal pain in the ass to get working. While the Dot connected to our home network easily, the Echo struggled. I spent a few hours Wednesday resetting things, moving them around, trying to tweak our network, etc to get it to work. Finally I was successful but it seems like it doesn’t love its network connection.

So I now have the Echo in the office for better sound and to control the lamp. I have our Christmas tree on a smart plug that we use Alexa to turn on and off. And I have the Dot in storage for future use.

Thanksgiving

Our Turkey Day was normal, but different.

The past several years we’ve participated in a huge Drumstick Dash, walking as a family with about 10,000 other people.[1] We had no interest in doing that this year, so instead joined some of S’s high school friends and their families as the walked through their neighborhood. It was a nice way to socially distantly see some friends and burn a few calories.

After that we hosted most of our in-town family, 15 in total. We lucked out with the weather. It was dreary and occasionally a little misty, but it was also about 50 with little-to-no wind. We had our outdoor fireplace and a fire pit lit, with seating areas for all. As our guests arrived we opened all the windows in the main floor of the house to keep the air moving. Between the ovens and stove and the people, our house stayed very toasty. And it was just warm enough outside so we could all eat al fresco without our food getting cold.

Now I guess we wait and see if anyone gets sick over the next two weeks to see if this was a success or a disaster.

I’ll tell you what was a success, though: my bird. I cooked the hell out of it this year. I was on the verge of overcooking but got it out at the perfect moment when it smelled and tasted awesome. Between that and the fires outside, it smelled like I had cooked it on the grill. Really, all credit goes to Whole Foods, where I got this year’s bird. It was the first time I got a brined turkey and I think that will become my routine.

High School Football

We made it through a full season of high school football in Indiana. The state title games were on Friday and Saturday. Saturday were the more important ones to us. BCHS played for the 3A title game in the afternoon, with several St P’s kids playing important roles. M laughed when she saw several of her classmates on the sidelines and getting their championship medals after the game.

The last game of the year was the one we cared about most: Cathedral vs 7–5 ZHS, a school that got hot at the right time and ripped through the top half of the north bracket. CHS had been beating the snot out of people all year. They only had one loss, by four points, to the undefeated team that won the 6A title Friday. Their only close win was a three-point victory over the team that won the Ohio large class title game 44–3. We figured the championship game would be another blowout.

It was, then it wasn’t, then it was.

CHS got up 22–0 without looking very good, but then ZHS worked their way back into it. They cut it to seven and had the ball a couple times but could never get the tying score. In the third quarter the Irish got a 75 yard touchdown pass, a stop, then another quick score and put the game away, winning their 13th state title 46–28.

M chose not to go; none of her friends were going and fans were limited to sitting in small groups of reserved seats, so there wouldn’t have been a proper student section. Instead she sat on the couch and watched with us, telling us which players were nice and which ones were quiet and which ones were dating which girls. That was almost an entertaining as the game.

C did go with a friend. The highlight for her was seeing two freshman girls get in a fight over a boy. She and her friend got bored and left early. She walked in our door just as the game was ending, which was kind of funny.

M was excited that she gets to buy some state champions shirts now, so she understands the true meaning of being a sports fan. She was also bummed that it happened in a year when she was only able to to go two games. Most of the fall she sat in her room while I listened to the games and texted her scoring updates. Another thing Covid has ruined.

Still, good ending to a great year. Last fall I went to almost every game, driving M and her friends around the metro area. This fall my routine was to listen to the games on the radio as I hit golf balls in the yard or dicked around on the Internet. I guess I need to find a new Friday pastime now.

Decorating

As is our tradition, all the holiday decorations went up Thursday. The girls did most of the tree decorating, which was a nice change of pace.

S and I had put the lights on our outdoor trees three weeks ago, on a Sunday when it was nearly 80. With the little nephews around on Thanksgiving, we decided to turn those on Thursday. The four-year-olds did a countdown and I flipped the switch, much to their delight.

KU Hoops

The KU-Gonzaga game was right during our meal prep and eating time, so I recorded it to watch later. When I saw the final score and read a summary I decided not to just delete it. But I was encouraged by what I read later in the evening. Everyone said that while KU struggled on defense, their offense showed some signs of real potential. Lots of parts that would likely fit together better after several weeks of games. Oh, and Gonzaga is really freaking good. Their game with Baylor Saturday is going to be a must-watch.

I did watch the St. Joe’s game Friday. And I was super-frustrated through the first 30 minutes. As you would expect from a team that has so many newcomers and no true point guard, KU just could not get into a flow on offense. And defensively the looked totally lost.

Until Bill Self put in redshirt freshman Dajuan Harris for the first time midway through the second half. He’s skinny, not super tall, and hardly a burner bringing the ball up. But the moment he stepped on the court, the game changed. He made a couple great defensive plays. He made a couple terrific passes. He got Marcus Garrett off the ball. Everything was smoother with him in the game. It went from a frustrating, one-possession game to a blowout in about five minutes.

KU plays Kentucky here in Indy tomorrow night. Well, they are scheduled to play. Both Gonzaga and St. Joe’s have reported positive Covid tests since they played KU. So we’ll see. More KU hoops thoughts later in the week.

That’s about it for our holiday weekend. It is spitting snow this morning and the windchill is supposed to be in the 20s all day. The girls are all in front of their devices getting educated. It’s not the worst day to stay inside.

Hope all of you were able to celebrate the holiday in a safe and healthy manner.

  1. This year’s race was first broken up into smaller waves that left at hour-intervals and eventually cancelled.  ↩

A Different Kind of Season

November 23, 2020 /

Usually I’m giddy right about now. Thanksgiving is a few days away. We’ll bust out the holiday decorations, crank up the Christmas music, and put the tree up Friday. The most wonderful time of year has arrived!

But it’s fucking 2020, which means we can’t have nice things. Yes, we’ll be eating turkey Thursday and the tree will go up on Friday, but so many other things that make this time of year the best are either being cancelled or greatly modified.

I’m fine with all of that. I can deal with a muted holiday season because the point of that is to get us to 2021 and to the time when most of the general population can get a Covid vaccination and only then can we start thinking about life getting somewhat back to where it was a year ago. I. Can. Deal.

What is going to make this season tough is that it’s going to be really fucking tough. Our current infection rate is frightening, and it’s going to get worse. Our current death rate is staggering, and it’s going to get much worse. I’m starting to get nervous about interactions that have become routine since we emerged from our shelter-in-place orders back in May. I’m worried about S, who is seeing more and more positive patients and families in her practice. I worry about our girls and their ability to get through this time if we have to lock them in the house for a couple months. A couple cold, dark months when they can’t go outside and get a break from their rooms.

I’m worried about our collective mental health, too. I don’t think you could call us a mentally healthy country to begin with. I fear we’re could soon begin a spiral to an even worse place, and I’m genuinely concerned about what kind of country this is going to be in a year, or five, or ten because of all the damage we are doing to it right now. I worry that between the strain of the pandemic and the emotion of the election, we are on the verge of a very dangerous time. Maybe that just means government at the highest levels ceases to function normally. Maybe it means we sink into an era of politically motivated violence. Maybe folks who suffered great economic pain during the pandemic start taking things away from those who did not.

I hope I’m wrong and we find a way to regain at least some of our national sanity by next spring/summer. When I look around, though, I see lots of warning signs that just because we might be get Covid under control as vaccines roll out does not mean people won’t still find reasons to hate total strangers.

Weekend Notes

November 16, 2020 /

Several significant events in our house over the past few days. Let’s get caught up.

School

When I picked M up from school last Wednesday she had a weird look on her face. “Everyone says school is shutting down after this week,” she exclaimed. Apparently each day a few more kids were not showing up to class either because they were Covid positive or were quarantining because of close contact with a positive person. At least one teacher had tested positive as well.

Thursday the mayor and county health commissioner had their weekly Covid press conference. Numbers were rising at an alarming rate. What was most concerning was that the age group with the highest positivity rate was high schoolers. Because of that, all Marion County schools, public and private, were being ordered to move to virtual schooling no later than November 30 and to remain virtual until at least January 15. This makes sense given the numbers, although pretty much everyone agrees kids aren’t getting sick because of what is going on at school, but what they are doing outside of school.

S is home on Thursdays and we speculated how long each school would last.

St P’s answered first: they are going to try to make it to November 24. However, since that announcement two of our basketball teams have had to drop out of the city tournament because a fifth grade player and her dad that coaches the eighth graders were both positive. Luckily C wasn’t deemed to have close contact with the girls on the 8th grade team so she can remain in school. We’ve heard of several other St P’s students and a teacher who have tested positive since then. Not sure the odds are great we make it to Nov. 24.

CHS was quicker. Right after dismissal Thursday they announced that Friday would be their last day of in-person classes.

Our girls have mixed feelings about this. M was the most bummed, primarily because she is the most social and has a need to see her friends face-to-face. I think C and L are kind of excited about getting out of school for awhile and a little fearful about getting sick, so they were generally ok with it. Until they realized this wipes out all the in-school Christmas traditions. I didn’t mention to C that I’m starting to worry about whether her class will be able to take their trip to Washington, D.C. in the spring, too.

Strangely some of the schools in surrounding counties with much higher positive rates than Marion County are staying in session for the time being. I figured the freshly re-elected governor would start cranking down restrictions and guidelines again, especially since this outbreak seems much more widespread than the first two. It’s not just big, urban counties that are struggling this time, but counties all over the state. He seems to have caved, though, to the nut jobs on the right who think that asking people to wear masks is some massive intrusion on their rights. He has yet to announce any new guidelines for schools outside of Marion County.

So, M is home today and will be for at least two months. Hopefully C and L can get through seven more days before they are stuck at home with me through the holidays.

Automobiles

After last week’s car shopping catastrophe, S spent the week looking online for a new Jeep Cherokee. She did some back-and-forth with a sales guy all week before she locked in on the one she wanted Saturday. A few more emails back-and-forth and we went over at 4:30 that afternoon to pick up her new ride.

It was, by far, our easiest car buying experience ever. Neither one of us likes all the rigamarole that goes into purchasing a car, but she has even less tolerance for all that BS than I do. Saturday we walked into the dealership, waited about 30 seconds, were escorted back to the office, she signed paperwork for five minutes, and we walked out with the keys. Since she has had two Jeeps in the past they didn’t even have to show us how the car worked. They just waved goodbye and sent us on our way.

Perfect!

So now we have three cars. I guess since M won’t leave the house to go to school for two months we don’t have to worry about a school parking pass just yet.

Kid Hoops

Sunday L’s team played their opening game in the city basketball tournament. We were playing the team with the giant that beat us two weeks ago by 16. We spent an entire practice Tuesday working on a special defense to counter a press-break play they used against us the first time. At practice Thursday we had our tallest girls guard me so we could teach them how to deny the post on the 6-footer. We worked on shots that would be open in their zone. We felt prepared and ready.

Then about an hour before the game we found out on of our three tall girls would miss the game because her brother was sick.

Great. None of our girls are anywhere near as big as the giant, but losing a body hurt.

We started out down 7–0 and the head coach and I were both muttering under our breath on the bench. We started down 12–0 the first time and sure seemed to be on that track again.

But our girls got their shit together and clawed back into it. We were down three at halftime. We cut it to one twice in the third quarter, but St L kept stretching it out to +5.

As we began the fourth quarter we told the girls that they were playing great and made a small adjustment on defense. We preached to them that if they kept being aggressive we could win the game.

Our girls played their best quarter of the year. They were flying around on defense. We were actually making smart, quick passes on offense. We were looking to take shots even when the big girl was blocking them. We even hit a few of them. We made it a one-point game three times but could not get over the hump.

We were down three with about forty-five seconds left and had our best player going to the line for two shots. We called a time out because she looked wiped out. We made another change to our defense and our head coach did the perfect thing. She said, “After M makes both free throws, here’s how we’re going to guard them…” This was HUGE because W was something like 1–12 from the line up to that point. No exaggeration: she had missed at least 10 free throws.

After the time out she went out and knocked them both down and we were down one.

They broke our press and we realized we needed to start fouling and fouling often, because we only had three team fouls. As we were yelling at our girls to foul, St L threw a bad pass, our best player grabbed it, went full court, and actually made a freaking lay-up to give us our first lead. The greatly reduced crowd was going nuts. L was on the bench – because we had sat her to rest and everyone was playing awesome – and she was going nuts.

St L called a timeout with 15 seconds left, inbounding in front of their bench. We told our girls to stay back, force them to shoot jumpers, do not let the big girl roll to the basket. Naturally in the crush of bodies the big girl got a little daylight, they tossed the ball to her, and she banked one in with 10 seconds left. We got the ball up court but lost it out of bounds. We couldn’t get a steal on the inbound pass and the game was over.

So close!

Our girl who missed all the free throws was in tears. But the rest of the team all had excited looks on their faces. They knew they had played their asses off and played really well. “If we had a seven footer, too,” yes, she said seven footer, “we would have won that game!” the head coach told them. They all laughed. We told them that was the best they had ever played and that we were super proud of them. Even though we lost, it was a highly satisfying end to a season in which we had played really poorly over our last three games.

One other funny note from the game.

We have a dad who is very loud. He is a real pain in the ass. He’s had a few issues in the past and is not allowed to coach at St P’s teams anymore. His voice stands out in a normal gym. In a lightly-filled Covid gym you hear everything he says.

During a timeout early in the fourth quarter one of the refs tapped me on the shoulder and motioned me away from our huddle. “Oh shit,” I thought, “he’s going to ask me to go tell Loud Dad to pipe down.” That’s the last thing I wanted to do in the closing moments of a tight game.

But he surprised me. “Hey, what kind of shoes are those?” He asked nodding toward my shoes. I was wearing Adidas spikeless golf shoes that are my every day shoes. I told him what they were and where I got them. “I wear these everywhere, they’re super comfortable.”

“All right, I’m going to check those out, thanks.”

I told him I thought he had heard me say something on the bench and was telling me to pipe down. We both laughed.

That, my friends, was a first.

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