Category: covid-19

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 53

Two stir crazy posts in one day?

It’s lunch time. I’m looking in the fridge. There’s a package of hot dogs. I could go for a hot dog for lunch. Do we have any hot dog rolls?

We do have some hot dog rolls, but they’ve been on the shelf for a while. Are they still good? I inspected them through the bag and I didn’t see any mold. I think they are still good! Hot dogs for lunch, it is!

I cooked the hot dogs. When I opened the bag full of rolls I saw a little spec of mold that I missed. Crud. It’s just one though, there are other rolls that still look okay.

Or do they?

Next time you inspect an older package of bread, make sure you look between the pieces, not just around the edges. Holy science experiment, Batman!

Denied.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 51

This one can be subtitled: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.

Or, it can be subtitled: Mouse Day.

Or, alternative to the alternative, it could be subtitled: Ewww, Gross!

Jen and I both took vacation days today. At first the plan was for me to do music and her to do… work. I know, it doesn’t seem logical, but when you’re as high up on the management food chain as she is, sometimes telling people you’re on vacation is the best way to get a lot of work done.

That plan didn’t last long though. As I was finishing up the mix on the song in the previous post, Jen asked if we could just take a drive to get out of the house. That sounded like a great idea to me so we loaded up the car with face masks and rubber gloves and hand sanitizer and off we went.

Something in the Kia smelled funny. I smelled it last week when I was doing car music, but despite the gigantic honker on the end of my face, my sense of smell is pretty wimpy. I smelled something when I got in the car, but by the time I started the engine it was gone.

Jen does not suffer from my weak sense of smell. She’s the opposite. Nothing gets past her. She smells it all. When she got into the car it turned her stomach a little. Something back there smelled bad. I got out and started investigating. I found some old juice boxes in the trunk. Was that it? Probably not. There were some candy wrappers and some empty drink bottles AND A DEAD MOUSE!

Yup, that was the problem. A little dead mouse in the back seat, passenger side foot well. Just lying there all dead like. I removed the poor bastard and gave him a proper burial. After that the smell was gone. I didn’t actually touch the corpse but let’s just say that a significant chunk of that little bottle of hand sanitizer was put to emphatic use.

The question everyone is asking now is, why does this rate as a stir crazy file?

Simple. The reason that mouse was allowed to somehow crawl into the back seat of our car and die is because we never use the cars anymore. Well, let’s say rarely instead of never. There’s no way this would have happened if we were driving to work and back each day. Mickey wouldn’t have had the time to find a way into the cabin and probably would have been killed by the motor somewhere or other while trying.

So when push comes to shove, COVID-19 killed that mouse. We need to add one to the count for today. Bastard.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 50

I had Friday off last week for the holiday.

My wife took Monday through Wednesday off this week to make the 4th of July into a super long weekend. I couldn’t do it. I had meetings I needed to go to on both Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday though…

I took Wednesday (tomorrow) off.

These two events have confirmed something that I think I knew all along but was trying to avoid acknowledging…..

I need a vacation.

I need to go away.

I need to pack up the Mrs and the Step Kids and go find a mountain or something. I want to go to New York and have an adventure. I want to go into Boston and hear some live music. I want to go to Faneuil Hall and surf through the massive crowd. I wanna ride a god damn duck boat.

I miss everything right now. I miss people. I am a total introvert and I miss people. What the hell?

We’re coming up on Four Months. Four Months.

Please don’t think I’m going into quarantine fatigue. I’m not going to start being stupid like all those fucking meat heads going out to parties and bars and restaurants without wearing god damned masks. I’m not an asshole and I’m not stupid and I don’t have a death wish for myself of for those around me.

I just want to go out.

Fuck.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 49

Today’s stir crazy file actually happened yesterday. Something was said or done or whatever and I thought, that’s episode #49 right there!

10 minutes later I had completely forgotten it.

If that’s not a Stir Crazy File, I don’t know what is.

1.2% on Day #1

Yesterday I posted a little blurb about Major League Baseball coming back. All players were tested for COVID-19 on the report day. We got the results of those tests yesterday. 31 players and 7 staff members are already positive. That’s 1.2% of the reporting players and it’s only day one.

What will the percentage of infections be after a week? After two weeks?

Like I said yesterday, I am really glad to have baseball back. Unfortunately, I know it’s not going to be back for long.

Source

Happy Second First Day of Spring Summer Training

Baseball is back, sort of. Players who agreed to make themselves available for a 60 game season reported to their team’s facilities on July 1st. They were all tested for the coronavirus. They then got yesterday off for some reason which I assume had to do with getting all the testing results. Now today is the first day of the second attempt at Spring Training only it happens during the Summer so it’s not exactly Spring Training anymore, is it.

I’m wearing a Red Sox t-shirt to celebrate.

I think it’s probably a safe bet that 2-3 weeks from now the whole righteous endeavor will come crashing to a halt as about 70% of the players on every team are out sick with COVID-19. I applaud baseball for making something happen and taking their shot, but let’s be real. Once the players start dropping like flies this is all going to come to an inglorious, yet fitting end.

I hope you prove me wrong, MLB, but I don’t think you will.

COVID-19 Numbers

Here’s what I have for today:

  • Methuen, MA
    • Total Cases: 990 (up 1 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 57
    • Death Rate: 5.76%
  • Massachusetts
    • Total Cases: 107,611 (up 172 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 7,938
    • Death Rate: 7.38%
  • United States
    • Total Cases: 2,366,961 (up 37,324 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 121,746
    • Death Rate: 5.14%

There are two numbers that jump out at me here. One good, one unbelievably awful. First, the good.

Methuen has not had a COVID-19 death since June 15th. That’s nine days. That is incredible. We’ve had 16 new cases in that time but no fatalities. Excellent!

Now the terrible news. You’ve probably worked this one out for yourself. The United States had 37,324 new cases yesterday. We had been doing well enough for the daily increases to occasionally dip below 20,000, but now with states opening up like morons, we’ve topped 30k on four of the last six days. The level of stupidity in my country is utterly astounding.

It should also be noted that through most of the pandemic, Massachusetts has been the state with the forth highest case count. We got hit hard. Reports are now saying that we are the state with the lowest infection rate. That’s good news. In the last few days we’ve dropped to the sixth highest case count, as Texas and Florida have been skyrocketing. Jen and I were looking at the numbers by state a few days ago and we estimated at that time that it would probably take Florida another week to catch us. Nope, they blew past us today. It only took a few days.

….and yet… we’re still opening up for business. Their money is more important to the nation than your health, and even your life. Way to go, USA.

Mondays Suck

Hello and welcome to the start of Quarantine Work Week #15. I have been working from home for roughly 27.4% of a calendar year and I still for the life of me cannot keep my damn glasses clean.

(Pause to clean glasses, once again)

I’m tired, both literally and figuratively. I had two excellent nights sleep in a row followed by a less than stellar night last night. I’m probably going to need to pack it in early tonight. I’m starting to really feel like I need a get away. In a normal, non-COVID universe, I would pack up the wife and the kids and go spend a day or two in New York, or hiding in the mountains, or something. That’s not happening now. We tried driving over to the ocean this weekend but didn’t make it. We got detoured. We weren’t planning to get out of the car, but at least we were going to see it, you know? It was still great to go for a drive with all four of us.

Massachusetts is supposed to be opening up restaurants today. What phase is that? Two? Three? Whatever. New Hampshire was already there so it’s not a big change to those of us who live on the state line. We talked about it yesterday. None of us feel comfortable going out to eat. We don’t even feel comfortable picking up take out. Even ice cream stands are out. This sucks.

Yesterday was Fathers Day. I have a tough time with that. I find it uncomfortable celebrating a day like that when the kids I’m celebrating with are some other guy’s kids. I feel like I am stealing from him. I know that’s not really how it works, but in my gut that’s how it feels. I did better than most years though. I called my dad in the morning and after that felt really depressed. Like… I just laid down on the bed and didn’t want to get up. Patches came over to see if I was okay, but all she did was show me her butt and smack me with her tail. It didn’t help.

Then my wife and the kids made me breakfast and that helped. I did spend some time alone bashing on the guitar and that helps, but not quite in the same way. That’s therapy for something else, and I can’t even put my finger on what. I checked with the kids to make sure they wished their father a happy Fathers Day. They did. That made me feel better too. They are really excellent people, those step kids of mine. I don’t think I screwed them up too much. At least whatever ways I screwed them up they were able to outgrow it and recover.

For the record, Step Parents Day is September 16th. I’m all in favor of celebrating that one, even though I share it with their step mother. That’s 100% A-Okay with me.

For the first few months of lock down we did a really good job not blowing money. It seemed very important to be ridiculously frugal. In the last week and a half, Jen and I both bought something. Neither was too expensive, but still expensive enough to take note of. It was easy. Too easy. It made us both temporarily feel good. Again, it was too easy. We need to get back to being frugal. I should be able to distract myself with the new guitar amplifier that is being delivered today. See what I mean? Way too easy.

It’s Monday. The first day of week #15. Wash your hands. Wear your mask. Black Lives Matter. Keep your head down and do the right thing.

Good luck.