Blog – Top of JC’s Mind

One-Liner Wednesday: Norman Lear

It seems to me that the bulk of what we’ve done is a celebration of family. They’re all families that hang together, they all love one another, they go through the ordeal of life, but they come out on the other side of that ordeal connected. Together.

Norman Lear, who died yesterday at the age of 101, on his work which included television series All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Sanford and Son, and One Day at a Time.

Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/12/06/one-liner-wednesday-why-is-it/

SoCS: concert update

Just back from a long day that featured the first of Madrigal Choir’s Lessons and Carols performances. It was in a small church to our north. Our audience was small but appreciative. It gives me confidence in our performance in our home county tomorrow, which will draw a larger number of listeners.

Now, I need to get some rest…
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This short and sweet post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday series. The prompt this week is “confidence.” You can find out more about SoCS here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/12/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-2-2023/

One-Liner Wednesday: Lessons & Carols invitation

For those in the Binghamton/Norwich NY area, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols this weekend!

This concert promotion message is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/29/one-liner-wednesday-sometimes-2/

a belated Thanksgiving

Because spouse B had contracted COVID and needed to isolate at home and daughter T and I were masking around each other in case one of us was infected, we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving last Thursday – or, I should say, we celebrated with a nice, but not fancy, dinner of roast pork with roasted vegetables with T and I eating in the dining room and B at the kitchen table where we could talk to each other at a safe distance. Instead of the traditional pie, we had (the also-traditional) Aunt Gert’s Indian pudding for dessert.

That Thursday was Day 12 of B’s COVID experience and the first day he had tested negative. On average, Omicron infections last for eight days, so B was on the long side of the spectrum but someone has to be to balance out those who have a short infectious phase. Because he needed to have two negative tests 48 hours apart for us to be unmasked around each other, he decided that our fancier Thanksgiving dinner should be on Sunday.

While, for many years, I did the bulk of the cooking at our house, I don’t especially enjoy it. B, on the other hand, likes cooking and baking, so he chose the menu and made the meal. We enjoyed a delicious dinner of individual beef Wellington with roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and a Braeburn and Cortland apple pie for dessert.

One of the things for which we are most thankful is that B’s bout with COVID was relatively mild, even if his infectious period did hang on longer than expected. We are also thankful that T and I remained uninfected. The pool of people I know who have never had COVID has dwindled to just a few, so I know it’s likely we will contract it someday, but, for now, we are all happy to be able to spend time together at home unmasked in the same room, whether or not there is a fancy late-Thanksgiving meal on the table.

Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash

plans for a second Trump administration

The Trump presidency featured a wide range of cruel and immoral speech and actions, including separation of children from their parents/guardians who came to the US seeking asylum in violation of national and international law, then not keeping the records to reunite them; suppressing scientific COVID information while spreading misinformation that contributed to higher rates of death and illness in the US than in other nations with comparable medical systems; speaking approvingly of authoritarian governments while criticizing our allies; bullying and firing government officials he deemed insufficiently loyal to him personally; and lying about his election loss, filing baseless legal challenges, and fomenting an insurrection.

It was a difficult, dark time for the country that laid bare and worsened existing divisions along racial/ethnic, religious, partisan, gender, and geographic lines. The Republican party has devolved into a party driven by grievance rather than one dedicated to governing for the common good of all the people.

Donald Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 while under indictment on 91 federal and state felony counts. There is a planning operation underway for a second term, dubbed Project 2025, through a group of right-wing think tanks that seeks to politicize the Justice Department to seek revenge for political views, to deport millions of immigrants and refugees, to invoke the Insurrection Act to allow the US military to operate domestically, and to give the president additional powers that are not subject to checks by the courts or Congress. Trump’s rhetoric during the primary campaign includes him talking about seeking revenge and retribution against members of the Biden family and administration and against Republicans who don’t agree with him, including former members of his administration. He has raised the possibility of the death penalty for former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. He is using overtly fascist language, such as calling his perceived enemies “vermin.” Trump’s verbal attacks, both via social media and in person at campaign rallies and interviews, seem to be increasing threats of violence against those Trump targets, such as Judge Engoron and his law clerk in the New York civil fraud trial.

What is most alarming is that many Republicans in government and many Trump supporters are openly embracing anti-democractic, unconstitutional, and illegal actions, such as doing away with birthright citizenship, limiting voting rights for people who disagree with them, using the military against the public, and outlawing abortion and birth control. I am appalled that there are those characterizing the United States as a white Christian nation, when it is, in reality, a pluralistic society made up of people of many races and ancestral heritages with a wide range of personal beliefs.

I know that I will not vote for Trump or any candidate for office at any level who supports him and his dangerous ideas. I will try to get the word out as best I can what those dangerous ideas are because some of the people who support Trump only hear his rhetoric and not the countervailing facts. For example, I encourage people to read the indictments against Trump, which lay out a lot of the underlying evidence. It’s also helpful to read the report of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, as well as the Mueller Report. I also am supporting voices and organizations that are working to uphold democracy, the rule of law, and the common good.

I’m also worried and scared about violence, oppression, and losing my free, if flawed, country to demagogues, authoritarians, and fascists.

This post was difficult to write, in part because I am so disturbed about what has been happening and in part because I know I’m just a small voice in a very large and loud media environment. But I had to try. The future envisioned by Trump and his acolytes is just too terrifying to silently ignore.

Photo credit: Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash

One-Liner Wednesday: five years ago

Our then one-year-old granddaughter ABC enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with her great-grandfather Paco in the background; I’m missing both of them today, one due to distance, the other to death.

Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/22/one-liner-wednesday-clownin-around-2/

still positive

Spouse B is still testing positive for COVID on Day 11, although the line on the test kit is fainter so maybe he is getting closer to the two negative tests 48 hours apart to be ready to be unmasked together without worry.

Not sure yet what we will do about Thanksgiving. It will just be the three of us and we were planning to do something other than the traditional turkey dinner. Maybe we will just postpone until we can all eat together in the same room. T and I have been eating in the dining room while B sequesters himself in his office at mealtimes.

We all remain grateful that his symptoms were relatively mild and short-lived but we are anxious to actually spend time together again. We are also grateful that T and I aren’t infected but we want to make sure we remain cautious. B would feel so badly if his case spread to us because we got tired of following protocol. Given the length of time that has passed, we all realize T and I dodged catching it when he was infectious before and in the early hours of the symptomatic phase.

So, at least, three more days of masking in our future.

I might need to order some more KF94 masks…

(COVID Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash)

One-Liner Wednesday: household COVID update

Spouse B seems to be through most of his symptoms on Day 5, but will continue to mask and isolate at home, while daughter T and I are continuing to be symptom free and are masking at home when we are with each other and when we have to go out in public. (COVID Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash)
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This update brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Join us in these brief (usually fun or inspirational) posts! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/15/one-liner-wednesday-worried-who-me/

YAG x 2

In April, I had cataract surgery on both eyes with fancy, extended depth of focus implanted lenses.

Things went well and I’m not wearing glasses full-time, which hadn’t happened since I was six. However, I have run into a couple of common aftereffects that I’ve been dealing with over these past months.

One is an aggravation of my existing problems with dry eye, which I whined about a bit here. We are treating it in several ways and it is improving.

The other was that I developed some filminess or cloudiness in my vision due to posterior capsule opacification, also known as secondary cataracts. The treatment is to use a YAG laser to make an opening in the capsule to allow light through and rectify the cloudiness. (YAG stands for yttrium aluminum garnet.)

I had YAG treatment in both eyes earlier this month and I’m happy to report that it worked well for me. The filminess is gone, which is great because we weren’t sure if part of that was due to the dry eye. I do have increased floaters in my eyes which will probably calm down over the next few months.

I’m able to read my computer without enlarging the text for the most part now and, for the first time ever, made it through a choral rehearsal on Sunday without glasses. I do have a pair of glasses that I can use for fine print and low light situations, as those will continue to be challenging even when all the healing is complete.

It’s been a joy to be able to see without devoting extra brain power to assist. Over these past months, I’ve been having to concentrate consciously on visual processing. It’s been tiring. I’m grateful to be able to look around and just be able to see what’s in front of me without extra effort.

One of these days, I might even get a new headshot taken without glasses, even if it takes a bit for me to recognize myself after 57 years of wearing glasses all the time…

out of luck

I’m sad to report that, despite our best efforts, we finally have a case of COVID-19 in the house.

My spouse B tested positive yesterday. We think he was exposed at an in-person work event on Wednesday.

We are taking precautions to isolate from each other but daughter T and I were both exposed to B before he developed symptoms when he was probably infectious, so it’s a waiting game at this point. We’ll be testing before going out in public and masking when we do to avoid infecting anyone else, in case we are pre-symptomatic.

So far, B has had fever and symptoms similar to a bad cold. Our primary care practice wants to hold off on prescribing Paxlovid but will if his condition worsens over the next couple of days.

I knew our luck would run out one day but I’m upset and worried to have COVID in the house. Because I’ve been reading about it and observing the twists and turns in its history since the beginning, I know that things sometimes go very badly, even in someone who is healthy and up-to-date on vaccines, so…

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash