Pandemic Spring Friday Round-Up

If I tell people that Outlander and rum got me through the pandemic, they think I’m shallow. So, right away, I have to back up to make sure that the world knows that it was my dear husband and the power of prayer that were my bridges over troubled water. Truth be told, we need to use whatever anchors we can find whether they’re from the fancy boating store or Goodwill. So, Jamie and Claire and Young Ian, they’ve been my friends through the terrifying winter nights when I thought the glitch in my throat signaled impending doom. My daughter gets it and sent me these presents for my birthday.

Getting old is a bitch in many ways but not in all ways. So, there is the clock ticking. It’s impossible to be 73 and think that you have ‘all the time in the world’ which is what I used to think when I was 33 or 53. But on the plus side is this: if you play your cards right, when you get old, you get yourself some gravitas. I got that – gravitas – and I wear it like a mink coat. It’s luscious.

Made-up games are the best. Last Sunday, on my birthday, I spent a half hour blowing on a milk bottle cap to get it to do special moves and then cross the finish line (marked by a soda can). My opponent, 7-year old Alex, beat me but a case could be made that I let him, me being the superior blower, full of hot air, as they say. Still, he developed great finesse in his blowing, nearly making figure eights. Put a bottle cap on its side on a level surface and try it out.

There’s training and then there’s culture. If the police culture rewards Big Bad Boy behavior, no amount of crisis intervention or deescalation training will matter. The minute a young recruit walks out of the training session, with messages delivered by the world’s most sincere and earnest trainers, and an older cop puts their arm around their shoulders and tells them what’s what, it’s all over. So the calls for more training? Nope. Not going to do it. Culture change is rooted in the mentors, the role models, the people all the young recruits want to be like. Those tough street-smart veterans hold the police culture in their hands — like a gun.

My younger son got his first COVID shot today. This, after I sent enough texts and forwarded news articles to get me written up for harassment. He sent me photos of the vaccination site and then his vaccination card labeled “Fake News.” Your kids might get older but they can still drive you crazy. I was never able to make him or any of the others do what I wanted – this may have been the closest I’ve come. Good.