Three Years of Madness, Has the Learning Stopped?

 Two years ago, I posted about the lessons I learned in the first year of the pandemic. Quickly two years flew by, two years of vaccinations and folks railing against the vaccines, two years of death and two years of anxiety, stress, and "are we there yet?"  Sure, I marked last year's anniversary as well, noting the anger and frustration, so I am now struggling to figure out what I have learned as people start talking "post-pandemic"as if covid is gone.

More than a few relatives have been hit by Covid twice.  The only exception to all of this is my mother, who has been entirely covid-free.  Good thing given she is now over 90.  There is significant variation among my friends and family now.  Before, they all vaxxed and they all masked and most avoided most travel.  Now?  All are still getting boosted, but the mask and travel thing is now much more of a mix.  I just came back from a big family event in that hotspot of hotspots--Florida.  I saw a fair amount of masking, but very little at the big party.  

My own approach: damned if I know.  I tend to mask up when I am shopping, going to the movies (I keep on making mine Marvel!), teaching.  But receptions? Not so much because it is hard to do that networking/conversing thing behind masks.  So, I did duck out of one massive reception in Ottawa a few weeks ago.  For me, it is about risk mitigation.  I am going to a rock concert next week--which could be a superspreader event, so I am wearing a mask.  For less risky stuff, for outdoors stuff, I don't sweat it as much.  I am guessing that the vaccines have worked most of the time I have been exposed to covid, with that one exception from last summer.  

 I have been and will keep on skiing.  It is really the best anti-covid sport--distances between people outdoors, wearing stuff on one's face--with the only risky part the travel and the apres-ski.  

 My baking has slowed down, but when the occasion calls for it, I still bake up a storm.  I will be making cookies and/or brownies for next week's ISA convention in Montreal.   I have been adding new recipes at a slower rate.  Much of my time now is on planning the big kitchen renovation, which I wish we had done before the pandemic.  

Anyhow, back to the lessons of the past year.  I think the learning curve has flattened.  Most of the lessons were in the first two years of this thing.  Some of those have deepened--that leadership or its absence matters a great deal; that most politicians are craven as they are unwilling to impose any restrictions during new waves because of resistance they experienced before; that the anti-vaxxers who scream about freedom are mostly interested in dominating others; that people really are social so the mild lockdowns North America faced did leave some scars; that elections, yes, have consequences; that as long as the deaths are not so visible, they can be tolerated by the political system; that prevention remains much harder to get folks to support than response; and so on.

The biggest lesson I mentioned before remains: that COVID reveals not just pre-existing conditions in the bodies of its victims, but it reveals the flaws in our political and social systems.  It did not have to be this way--it did not have to be so partisan, that vaccines did not have to become so politicized and become an identity thing, that provinces and states could have spent money on improving health care, but many chose not to because they were led by people who want government to fail.  

Not only did this ultimately kill and disable more people than could have been the case, but it means that we are all less likely to be prepared for the next pandemic AND that we are unlikely to have politicians take the necessary steps next time.  So, yeah, either the learning has stopped or the unlearning has begun.  Damn.

Two Years of Anger and Frustration: Happy Anniversary!

 Yesterday was the cotton anniversary of the pandemic in Canada.  I missed marking it as I was busy conferencing.  That and I am exhausted.  I look at last year's posts on the high's and low's of the first year, the lessons learned, and the feelings, and I marvel that I could write three separate posts on this.  I just don't have the energy this year to discuss this stuff all the time.  So, instead, let me just consider those three posts and what has changed, and then rank the years of the pandemic, because ranking is an old Spew theme.

I learned a lot in the first year of the pandemic.  Did I learn more in year two? Not really.... it was mostly more of the same.  Either that or I don't have the energy to figure this out (a recurring theme).

I charted the high's and lows after year 1.  Year two did have more highs and less lows, although it may not have felt like it:

• 
  More losses in poli sci (three big figures from my time at UCSD plus a few gods of IR), but no close friends or family this year.  We did lose Bob, our cat, who became super friendly in his last months with us. 
  
  
  
• More covid in the family--all the nieces and nephews have had one bout, I believe.  My daughter has dodged it entirely--her discipline and enthusiasm for testing are marvels to behold.  One niece has had a series of injuries on the mountains--bike and ski--which absolutely sucks, but no serious cases of covid.
• Vaxxed--everyone in my family is vaxxed, and only one side of the family is short of boosters.
• 
  Last year, I missed most not seeing my daughter.  I got to see her at the summer vacation, Thanksgiving, and Winterfest this year.  Much, much better.  And I got to see the rest of my family multiple times.  My sister crashed the 30th anniversary celebration as she joined me on the slopes of Whistler! Definitely a highlight.
  
• Did I mention I got to ski Lake Louise, Whistler, and Fernie in the same winter?  I was definitely willing to fork out a heap of $ to make this work after a year of denial.  
• Most regretted pandemic decision of the second year: probably the VR headset as I, well, suck at VR games too and haven't made the time to play.  
• 
  Furthest I traveled: Copenhagen.  For a civil-military relations conference that pissed off the Danish military.  It was a great trip--I learned a lot, got to hangout with some civ-mil scholars who are sharp and silly, meet new people, and enjoy a terrific city (I even dared to bike!)
• Average pants-wearing: went up a bit as I started teach in person a few weeks ago, but probably only 1.3 days a week as I stayed home most of the time, except for grocery shopping.  My wife was shocked to see me wear my pj's as I would go get the mail at the community mailbox.  
• Until classes started, I had gone to campus only three or four times--to deliver baked products to thank the Dean for travel permission, to get a shot, to swap out books for the new terms.  Only in the past few weeks have I been on campus for more than a few minutes at a time.
  
• Ultimate!  I played last summer until my body said nay, nay.  And then I started again this winter and have been able to stay on the field!
• The fave recipes remains mostly the same although the NYT gnocchi/cheese/burst tomatoes recipe rocks mightily and is super easy.  I did make another batch of CCCPD's to celebrate the pandemic anniversary.
  
• Not much snowshoeing or cross country skiing this year--it was often too cold and then travel (downhill skiing!) got in the way.  
• Favorite mask is now the Costco KN-95.... so much for style as the focus is now on efficiency.
• Less re-watching this year as we got a heap of great new stuff with the faves being Hawkeye, Free Guy, Invincible, Mitchells vs the Machines, We Are Lady Parts, Only Murders in the Building, Yellow Jackets, and now the Adam Project.
  
  
• Movies in the theater: Shang-Shi and No Way Home!!  Black Widow was fun, too.  The Batman was ok. 
• Podcast of the year: Dead Eyes, about an actor who got fired by Tom Hanks from a small role in Band of Brothers.  It finished beautifully.
• Biggest Surprise: that 2022 would be worse than 2021.
• and the highlight of the year was the silliest poker game at Chez Saideman
  

Are the feelings the same at the end of year two as in year one?  I think I am even more angry.  That the availability of vaccines should have made things much better, but we had people and parties push back hard against something that could have saved even more lives.  The wasted lives, the wasted time, the unnecessarily stressed health care workers, the fucking idiots who occupied Ottawa, all of this is so enraging.  That everyone is reopening now even though rates of vaccines in the US and boosters in Canada are below where they should be, that there will be a new wave even without a new variant simply because governments are opening too soon does indeed trigger this lib.  Frustration? Hell yeah for the same reasons. The learning curves seem to be so flat.  The ups and downs can be most frustrating--that we thought last summer that we had this thing beat and the Delta kicked our ass and then things got better and then Omicron was all over the place. The second year was less lonely as we did start to go out and do things again.  I had an awesome poker game at my house in between waves (just barely).  I have traveled a bit to go to a Copenhagen conference that might have done damage to their civil-military relations, to three, yes, three ski trips to hang out with friends and family and celebrate 30 years of Mr. and Mrs. Spew! So, year two was less lonely, although not as good as pre-pandemic life certainly.  Fear?  Having three shots has mostly reduced the fears.  Relatives and friends have gotten very mild bouts of covid, but travel still is a bit unnerving with the need for tests and the concern of being a vector. Grief?  Jeez, the casualties from this thing have mounted--that year 2 was far more deadly than year 1 and mostly unnecessarily so.  Still lucky that no immediate kin or friends paid the highest price for this, but I am mourning the loss of yet another year in the life of younger folks and older folks, for which one year is such a big thing.  Relief? Damn, I don't know any more.  Things are better, but I worry about more waves and less willingness by people and politicians to do the right thing.  Which means, yes, the second year did diminish my hope.  Vaccines had so much promise and yet here we are.  The treatments are better, the promise of even better vaccines is around the corner, and all that, but, damn, so many people seem determined to value their political identity more than their health, their families, their friends, or their communities.  So, perhaps less acceptance than last year?  Definitely more exhaustion even though I am baking less.  Maybe I need to bake more?

2020 seemed to be the worst year of this thing because of the uncertainty and the change in how we lived our lives.  But more people died in 2021, and year 2 of the pandemic had more toxic politics even if Trump was no longer in power.  That we have vaccines is great, that many folks aren't getting them because their political identity gets in the way or because they are in parts of the world that we have failed is awful.  So, I'd have to rank the second year of the pandemic as being worse than the first even though I got to see more of my family in the second year. Year three starts with a tragic war in Europe, so.... yeah.

Best of luck to you and yours as we keep working our way through this thing.

Distressed, Depressed, and Down: Where To From Here?

Despite being relentlessly critical of stuff, I have always tended to focus on the arc of progress--that things will get better even amid the bumps of today.  This weekend?  Damn.  An entire country mostly disappears beneath a volcano (any idea of how the Tongans are doing?), the Supreme Court continues to reveal itself to be not just partisan but enthusiastically so, gutting reasonable policies and putting much of the progress of the past fifty years in doubt, a "good" hostage crisis causing us to experience relief or just more anxiety, Trump amping the white supremacy with insufficient outrage aimed against him, stories of African-American voters unlikely to turnout since Sinema/Manchin have blocked any progress on voting rights, the likelihood that the GOP's bet to ally with the pandemic so that Biden would pay for the continued pandemic will pay off, etc.  

I can go on.  This is definitely the winter of my discontent.  I was hoping pre-omicron that we'd have a bit of return to normalcy--return to classes, in-person events, more skiing, actually going to an ISA conference after missing the last two of those.  And now all we have is uncertainty.  I haven't felt like blogging because I didn't want to just whine and complain, but I also wanted to mark, as I indicated in my first quarantine post way back when, my descent into madness.  And I am just so mad these days.  So much so that I am crapping on the joy to my friends that is wordle.

It is definitely getting in the way of my work as I so easily distracted these days.  I tend not to get depressed, but I kind of feel that way now.  I am one of the lucky ones--I haven't lost any immediate relatives to COVID, my relatives have managed through this economically ok, the next generation is mostly in pretty good shape even though most of them have had covid (LA Spew continues to dodge the disease better than I can dodge a wrench).  And damn, not must my younger relatives but all the folks I meet in my classes and I see out in the world are so impressive.  I hate that we are giving them a shitty present and a very uncertain future, but I have more faith in them, in their tolerance, in their creativity, than I do in those that came before us.  I guess that is the reed upon which I am placing my hope these days.  

That and endless tv/movies streamed to my house help keep me from descending too far.  I hope you can find ways to get through this awful time.  As they say, the only way out is through.

Quarantine 2: Electric Bugaloo

JC & me, Lake Louise

The Civ-Mil crew in Copenhagen

I stopped doing quarantine reports last summer after Mrs. Spew and I had two shots plus two weeks.  Shortly afterwards, we drove to Philly to see my mother and the rest of my family.  I went to a movie when we got back, and we would occasionally go to restaurants (almost always outdoors).  I went to Copenhagen for a conference, we held a hybrid event (the Year Ahead 2022), I gave a talk in Calgary and, yes, went skiing afterwards, I had a fun poker game with folks who were in town for another conference, and, then we get super anxious about going to see my in-laws over the holidays.

Great Falls park

It was not the usual winterfest, as we only went to one restaurant and very reluctantly so.  Otherwise, it was take-out.  No metro trip to the Mall.  Instead, my daughter (Hollywood Spew) and I went to see a river and a canal.  We worried much about whether we would get our PCR tests back in time for us--before we were to cross the border back to Canada.  And we got them while we were driving back north.  We also worried much about whether my daughter could get back to LA as her first flight was cancelled, but she persevered and got a flight back.  She went back sooner than planned because she was unable to stay over with her besties from college as they were all exposed to covid and some tested positive. 

And then we returned to old habits with modifications.  I only leave the house now for groceries and to rehab my knee (I mentioned above I went skiing, right?).  No dining out.  I did make one exception--I went to see the new Spidey movie just before provincial regulations changed to close the movie theaters.  I haven't started the winter exercise ritual of last year--snowshoeing and cross-country skiing as we don't have enough snow yet (unlike my pals to the south).  

Instead of shopping for funky looking masks, I focus on the monthly Costco trip, hoping they have KN-95s.  And when I went this week, I bought three boxes, which felt very much like hoarding.  But I did so anyway because I have no idea if there will be any next month.  I haven't put away my cloth masks that Omicron has made obsolete.  Maybe the next variant will be less transmissible?

Which gets to the feelings of the moment--exhaustion and frustration.  It may be the most "mild" of variants, but its greater transmissiblity has had a huge impact.  Carleton has pushed the first three weeks (and probably more) online.  Which is not a huge deal to me as I am teaching a course that has online components from last year--so I checked and the material is quite recyclable.  But damn, when I said that online, the parents of kids were most upset that I was not as angry as they were.  I am angry and frustrated, but my stakes are much smaller than theirs.  There is no good way to deal with this new wave for schools as McSweeney's illustrated quite nicely.  One thing that has remained most consistent has been the Ontario government screwing this up.  The plans for the winter are being upended.  The big anniversary trip to Morocco Spain Hawaii Vancouver next month is now in doubt.  The CDSN Capstone Seminar and Civ-Mil Workshop were going to be in Calgary in the beginning of March, but that is now uncertain.  ISA in Nashville at the end of March?  ¯\(°_o)/¯  

Despite being vaxxed and boosted, we are anxious as we quarantine.  I don't worry about getting seriously sick (although Mrs. Spew does), but I do worry about becoming a vector that endangers someone else.  Once again, we thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and then found out that this thing is going on and on.  I think that, along with the fact that we all know far more people with COVID this time around (we are up to four nieces and one nephew since this thing started, with only two nieces and one daughter still dodging covid successfully), has worn us down, frazzled our nerves, and genearted much fear, which ain't good:

We, alas, are not in this together.  As I keep saying, COVID does to societies and political systems what it does to the human body: reveal and exacerbate pre-existing conditions. The politics of this is making all of this costlier, more stressful, and just worse all the way around.  

I am placing a lot of hope on two things: that mild really means mild and that the bending of the curve is going to be fast, like it has been in South Africa.  I know that rebellions are built on hope.  I am hoping that recoveries are, too. 

 

What I Still Don't Get (Ok, I kind of do)

 Exactly a year ago, I posted this, which enumerated much of what was going wrong with the pandemic response.  I didn't get why bars/restaurants being open was more important than figuring out schools and other parts of the economy. I didn't get why testing was so poor.  I didn't get why schools weren't prepared for the fall.  I didn't get why people couldn't wear masks over their noses.  A year later, there are lots of things that remain similar except I am not so confused.

• I get why some places have been so slow to develop vaccine mandates.
• I get why Ontario continues to screw up the schools.
• I get why Ontario's testing is just as screwed as last year, and they have given up on tracing.   
  

 If you had a kid with symptoms today (I don't—knock wood—just keep checking this in anticipatory horror) right now you could not get a testing appointment in Ottawa until Wednesday afternoon. Minimum four days out of school. Same demand as this time last year. pic.twitter.com/iMrAPmyZUm

— Shannon Proudfoot (@sproudfoot) September 20, 2021

 It turns out that there is a common answer to much of this: governance matters, and when one is governed by people who hate government, you get bad governance.  Jason Kenney and Doug Ford have stood out in Canada as the worst of the #incompetentmurderclowns.  I do think for Kenney it is probably more about pandering to the right wing of his party.  Ford?  I think it is less about ideology and more about laziness, hostility to experts, and to government.  I mean, Ontario has not spent the $2.7billion (in Canada, billion is a shit-ton of money) it got from the feds for pandemic response.  Ford wouldn't want to spend it on hiring contact tracers, on improving accessibility to vaccines, certainly not on sick pay for hourly workers, and not even on improving ventilation schools.  That testing still sucks is now deliberate negligence.  Last year, it could be written off as stupidity or the challenges of pandemic realities.  But we have had plenty of reports of unused tests.  It is not about supply chain problems, but that Ford simply doesn't want to do stuff.  

My friends who have kids are outraged, and they should be.  Delta is more dangerous to kids, and thanks to vaccination of adults, kids are now a primary vector of the pandemic.  So, there should have been much more effort to create better conditions for the kids.  Nope, not here and I guess not in Alberta.  

As I keep saying, it didn't have to be this way.  Yet, I fear that there are enough resentful voters who will keep voting for people who are hostile to government.  Why?  Because they want their services but they resent when government helps "others."  It certainly is not really about freedom since better responses earlier would have meant we would have more latitude now.  

Oh, and like my friend with kids, I am outraged.

 

 

The Real End to the Quarantine: Seeing a Heap of Family and Eating Way Too Much

 For the eighteen months or so, my monthly email from google maps told me that my furthest trips were to the edges of Ottawa and not much beyond.  And for that same period, I had not seen any family, other than Mrs. Spew, in person at all.  Both of those trends ended this past week, as we drove to Philly to spend a week with almost all of the family on my side (we still haven't seen my wife's family since December 2019).  Facebook memories has been reminding me all week long about all the other trips over the years as this time of year has been Saideman-fest--on the beaches of the east coast, Lake George, a cruise to Alaska (the last trip with my father for his 90th birthday), and Disney/San Diego way back when.  The last few have been in Philly--because my mother can't travel.  

So, what did I do and learn while hanging out in my hometown?  I learned that my favorite place for a steak sandwich, milkshake, and fries is still on top of its game as I met up with friends from high school.

The giant's skeleton
was featured inside where
we were not allowed
to take pics

I learned that there is a museum I had never heard of--the Mütter--which is a medical museum featuring heaps of really gross specimens of body parts and skeletons.  It also had a 1918 flu exhibition that was planned before the current pandemic with notes tying the two together--the name of this exhibition was "Spit Spreads Death" using the slogan and visuals of the time.  And, yes, Philly handed the 1918 flu worse than damn near every place else.  This time?  They handed the vaccinations over at first to some 23 year old with no experience.  Oy.  Now, the city is pretty well vaccinated and doing ok.  Mask wearing was mixed although better than what we observed in upper state NY on the way down and back.  Rural vs. urban remains the most salient divide on pretty much everything these days.

 

 

Some of us went to the Philly Art Museum, which remains as huge as ever.  I walked around a bit before folks got there, and a guy took a few pics of me with Rocky.  We spent most of our time in the American art section--1700s and 1800s--and the modern art sections.  And the cafeteria there had great food.  The last time I was here, I hung out with Brooke Shields.... ok, I was a valet and parked cars for a big event where she walked near me.

 

 

 

Speaking of great food, we aimed to eat outdoors as much as we could--my mother loves to make reservations--but we also had more meals at my mom's place than usual to minimize our exposure to folks.  

 

 

 

 

My brother demonstrated his prowess as a professionally trained chef.

 

I had to rely on my year of skill development to compete. Which meant I got to cook one night, focusing on Nigella and King Arthur--chicken shawarma, pitas, chocolate chip cookie dough pots (in a muffin pan), and veggies.  The oven had a glitch halfway through the pita making process, which scared me--I didn't think we would end up with everything getting cooked.  But it worked out.  My sister's curse (she has had repeated crises on Thanksgiving--broken oven, power failure, plumbing issues) hit me, I guess.  Anyhow, the folks liked it and ate it up, so my job was done. 

Heaps of pita, Chicken Shawarma, two sauces,
some falafel from the Market for those who don't
eat chicken, two veggie dishes, red onions and also
sauteed onions and peppers to top the pitas.

 

Our last breakfast together with everyone was a bagel picnic.   

Perhaps the second biggest highlight of the trip was meeting up with my cousin and his family at the Jersey shore.  His kids are young and cute and full of energy, so they dragged me repeatedly in to the cold water, and chased their own bad throws as we played frisbee in the sand.  The only downside is that the combo of not stretching, running in the sand, and plunging into the cold water did not help rehab my calf strain.  I may be able to play next week, but it will be a risk. 

The highlight?  Seeing my daughter in person for the first time in a long, long time.  She is now an amazing adult with a cool new job. I can't wait to go to the west coast to meet her cat and see new apartment and meet roommates and all that.  Some day... as travel across the border is easier but not easy.

We had to spend $ to get a fast set of tests, we had to download and fill out the ArriveCan app (should be CanArrive), sweep our own nostrils at the border, and so on.  All good, but lots of uncertainty remain about flying.  

It was definitely strange to move from seeing no one and traveling nowhere to a few small meetups to a massive gathering and heaps of travel and much going out.  We were careful most of the time with our indoors eating in large but uncrowded places like the Reading Terminal Market.  It was very much worth it.  And I sure as hell hope it won't be so long until I see these folks again.  Indeed, our Thanksgiving planning has already started.

 

Congrats, Canada But Let's Not Get Too Smug

 This weekend, Canada surpassed the US in vaccinating the public!

Today's the day that Canada exceeded the US for fully vaccinated. Congratulations 🇨🇦
And 15% points ahead in 1st dose.
Your belief in the evidence and support of the science is abundantly clear 👋👋 https://t.co/q8OQprzEYu pic.twitter.com/6Pfdc1UKX1

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 17, 2021

This is good news for Canada, bad news for the US, and I want to explain why Canada shouldn't get too cocky.  Sure, Canadians like to define themselves by how they are better than the US, but that often blinds them to how they can could be better.

First, how did Canada do this after being so far behind the US?  Well, it takes two to play so first what Canada did right, then the US's problems.

• Canada invested in a wide portfolio of vaccines.  Trying to work with the Chinese didn't work out, but they had contracts with Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, India's AZ, J&J, and who knows what else.  
• Conservative politicians in Canada supported vaccination, including publicly getting vaccinated.
• Less public distrust of government in Canada because government had been doing national health care for a while.  Tis deceptive since it is really a series provincial health care programs but more on that below.
• Canadian vax hesitancy dropped as the rollout gained momentum and as delta scared everyone.
• The American problems start with Fox and the GOP.  In the same spirit as fighting Obama and to deny him successes in 2009 in the midst of a severe financial crisis, these actors seem compelled to undermine the vax effort so that Biden and the Dems don't look good for 2022 and 2024.  There is no equivalent to Fox in Canada despite the efforts of Rebel and other far right platforms.  The biggest anti-vax voices in Canada are Americans--Rand Paul, Naomi Wolf, Alex Berenson, etc.  And while they penetrate, they are not as loud in Canada as they are in the US.
• Americans also have greater skepticism about the government and about public health, so Fox and its ilk had something to play with.  

So, Canada is getting vaccinated..  But it could have gone better and there is more left to do.

• Canada is more federal than the US so the feds don't really have good data on who has been vaxxed, making the development of vax passports much harder.
• The communications was mostly awful as conflicting messages about Astra Zeneca and the branding of Pfizer meant some expiration of shots and lots more anxiety.
  
• A more targeted rollout at first may have prevented more deaths by vaccinating those most likely to spread rather than those most likely to die: young and working rather than old and retired.  We have a forthcoming podcast at BattleRhythm with a modeler who has good math to prove this.
• The kids still aren't vaccinated and approval is now likely to be in the winter?  So, how prepared are the schools?   Why aren't teachers and faculty and medical personnel required to get vaccines?  Why aren't students above 12 years old?  The provinces could do far more to give schools cover.  Indeed, the feds should ask the Supreme Court for advice on this--can there be requirements to be vaxxed?  Let's clarify what is required and move on.  
  

Anyhow, things are going better in Canada. But much of the world needs far more help.  So, as always:

 

 

Quarantine Report, Week 69: The End of the Quarantine for Some of Us

"Filthy Belgian" courtesy of NeXT

 My elder sister asked this week what will happen to the quarantine report now that I am double vaxxed plus two weeks.  The answer is that I will try to keep writing at least weekly, but that it will no longer be a regular status report on being cooped up.  Mrs. Spew and I reached two doses plus two weeks a couple of days ago and marked it by eating out for the first time since last summer.  Last summer, we did take out in various small towns in the Ottawa region, but we did not patio.  So, this week was our first patio/eating at a restaurant since March of 2020.  Even though it rained, we went out to a restaurant we like quite a bit.  A very nice change of pace.

The second major normalization was the start of the summer ultimate season, about six weeks later than usual.  My Monday team is the same I have been playing with since I moved here.  My Wednesday team is almost completely new to me with one teammate someone I have played against regularly in the Grandmaster League (40 and over).  Tomorrow, I play in a Sunday Master/Grandmaster pickup game--we didn't get enough players for several teams, so we will just be switching things up from week to week.   So far, I am not too sore, my throws have mostly been on, I have actually made a decent defensive play or two, laid out for a few disks, and even outsky-ed a, um, shorter person (watching instagram stories of the professional ultimate league may have inspired me to jump up more rather than the usually jumping sideways/down).  So, it has been a heap of fun, great to finally be in groups larger than two as well.  

The third bit of returning semi-normalcy is that I finally got a haircut.  I developed much sympathy for women with long hair as my glasses and mask combo got harder and harder to keep on my face with more and more hair on the sides of my head.  The final straw was that it was getting harder to tie my bandana with all of the hair in the back.  

I have written before about the lessons of the lockdown, but as the quarantine winds down for me (at least for now, and, yes, just for us lucky North American folks), I am wondering what else to take away from all of this.  Again, I found the desperate need to connect.  I also found it hard not to have changes of pace--just the same stuff day and day out for 18 months or so.  I know I got on Mrs. Spew's nerves--she is used to getting breaks from me as I gallivant around the world.  But I also found that we can persist and endure and even thrive a bit.  Hollywood Exec Assistant Spew has been looking for a new position on the creative side of Hollywood, and she has persevered, making it past the first round at a number of places.  The CDSN has managed to keep going, with the transition to online opening up a variety of possibilities for the future, even as we move back to in-person events.

 It has been a very stressful year although not as stressful as the first year or two of baby Spew's life.  I didn't sleep great this year, but I got far more sleep this year than I did 25 years ago.  My job was pretty stable although moving online for classes created more work.  Staying at home day after day got monotonous but not very stressful.  I lost some friends and that hurt--definitely the worst year of my life for losing people.  Plus we lost our cat who spent the last part his life being far more cuddly than the previous 17 years.  So, it was definitely the saddest year of my life, but, again, being a new parent was far more stressful.

Anyhow, when I started doing these Q reports, I did suggest that the pandemic and quarantine could cause me to lose it. 

 

Well, did I descend into madness?  You be the judge:

 

Quarantine Report, Week 68: Compartmentalizing The Disasters

 Man, even as we get towards the downslope of the pandemic in North America, the hits keep on coming.  The brutal heat out west sparked a fire thunderstorm, something that I did not know could happen.  No rain, just lightning sparking fire.  It wiped out a town that had just set the Canadian record for high temperature.  And climate change is only going to get worse--with droughts out west, a real water crisis is emerging, there will be more fires, and people are dying just due to the heat.  At the same time, the bill has come due for GOP domination of court selection.  This week's decision to further gut the Voting Rights Act will let stand all kinds of shenanigans by the GOP to suppress the vote AND change who decides elections--Republican legislators, not voters.  Yet, the Dems still can't get their act together--Sinema and Manchin (along with Feinstein and some others) are entirely too willing to let this happen.  It drives me crazy that the crisis alarm is blaring, and these politicians are letting this all happen.  Of course, even if they were to pass a new Voting Rights Act, Alito and pals are likely to gut it.  Up here, in Canada, it was a very sad Canada Day, as what Canadians should have known has become obvious to all--that the Residential Schools were concentration camps for Indigenous kids, complete with disease-ridden housing and abusive guards priests.

And yet more death.  Mat McCubbins was a prof at UCSD when I was there.  I didn't take any classes from him as I was avoiding all American Politics stuff.  Too bad as the approach he helped to develop and promote--principal-agency theory--has become one that I have been leaning on quite a bit the past decade or so.  Mat was a powerful force in the department.  He helped shape it, and he definitely made a huge impact on his students.  I remember him doing a great deal of pitching to get his students jobs.  My only real experience with him was the football games we played a couple of years around the Super Bowl--grad students versus Mat and his bigger, more physical friends.  But I got a lot through osmosis at the time as his students gave me much feedback on my work, and I learned from what Mat had to say at job talks and the like.  He moved from UCSD, but he made a lasting impression.  My condolence to his family and to his students.

The Canadian civ-mil story got messier.  The Acting Chief of Defence Staff announced he was going to keep the head of the navy on despite the latter's poor judgment in playing golf with the disgraced and currently being investigated former CDS.  The A/CDS, General Eyre, explained that we can't fire everyone and that we need to have some proportionality.  I see the challenge here--that there needs to be consequences but also there needs to be an environment where people who make mistakes can learn and improve.  Zero tolerance, no discretion is a dumb, cowardly way to go that often causes much more harm.  When asked, both Deputy Minister Freeland and Prime Minister Trudeau criticized the decision as if Eyre was off on his own, making shit up.  I can guarantee that Eyre consulted widely including with the Minister of National Defence.  So, if Freeland and Trudeau have a problem with this, they should talk to MND Sajjan.  Sajjan hasn't said he was consulted but that he stands by Eyre.  Which is pretty weak.  He should make clear he owns this decision, but perhaps Sajjan still does not understand what his job entails.

So, how do we manage to get through this?  Focusing on the positive, I guess.  Thinking about the things one can control.  Taking some solace in the silly stuff.  The best news on the home front is that on Thursday Mrs. Spew and I will be "fully vaxxed" meaning that we had two doses (AZ and Moderna) and two weeks.  Which will then mean arranging long-deferred dentistry, a haircut, movies for me (my wife will wait on that a bit longer), and more outings including some patio dining.  The number of new cases in Ottawa has been in the single digits this week.  So, I look forward to some drinks with friends soon.

Also, ultimate!  With Ontario moving to stage 2, we can now return to the fields.  I may have overextended myself by signing up for three leagues--playing three games a week--but I was not sure whether any of the three were going to work out.  The Sunday late morning league will be a small affair with two dozen or so players, all "Master" or "Grandmaster".  To be qualified for the former, men have to be over 33 and women over 30 and for the latter, men over 40 and women over 37 (the idea is not that women age faster than men but they tend to be fewer of them, I am guessing).  Yes, there is such a thing as Great Grandmaster--for guys over 50 and women over 47--but we had a hard enough time getting 26 people together this summer with the lower age cutoff.  I know more of the older players so that makes it more fun.  Many are still quite fast, but not quite as many rabbits.  And generally a high skill level.  The two other leagues are open, so I will be playing against men and women of all ages.  My wife is wondering if I will make it through the summer with my hamstrings and achilles still attached.  We shall see, but it will be a short summer session as we are starting late.  Expect more frisbee talk and pics in the weeks ahead.

The other bit of good news was that it was a good writing week. One co-author finished off our revisions of a paper, so that is now in the hands of the reviewers.  I met with Dave and Phil for the big project, and we figured out our July division of labor.  This meant me revising our paper with the two of them working on the first two chapters of the book.  I made a lot of progress swapping out the case studies that had been in the paper and putting in two others.  The advantage of having 15 or so case studies with most nearly or fully written up is that is not hard to plug and play.  The aim is to get the article out this month and to have a draft of the book by the end of the summer.  Alas, summer is now about half over (for those of us who stop teaching in early April).

Time to write a promotion to full letter, so enjoy your weekend.  May the Fourth be fire-free.

 

Quarantine Report, Week 67: Carleton Rocks

 The week started with Father's Day and ended with mild side effects from the second shot, so a better week than most.  My daughter has not been with me the last several Father's Days, but I get to see her soon, so that is a good enough present.  My wife helpfully bought a few silly presents for the day--aprons given the past year of cooking and baking.  

And, yes, I went overboard on the baking this week to celebrate Father's Day and then the vax day.  First was the Irish Cream Pound case, which had, yes, a heap of Bailey's.  It was pretty terrific.

And then I made this after I got vaxxed.  To thank Dolly Parton for the miracle that is Moderna.  It was a funfetti cake with more sugar in a cake than Mrs. Spew has had since ... she was a kid?  Super sweet just like Dolly and the prospect of breaking quarantine.

 

 

 

So, yeah, we went to Carleton, got in line, the nurse at the front was cheerful and super-organized, and then it was easy peasy from there to the end.  The only hard part was finding our way out of the building since we were directed through the a back way so that we didn't encounter the un-vaxxed.  It was smart, but kind of reminded me of that scene from Spinal Tap where the band could not find the stage.

The big question is: what next?  The Canadian health folks put out the rules or guidelines yesterday, which are not nearly as wide open as those the CDC put out.  In terms of my own behavior, in two weeks, once the vaccine has been processed by my bod, I will continue to wear masks inside in stores and such.  Partly because I don't want to send confusing signals, partly because that seems to be the rule for being among the unvaxxed, and partly because catching an non-fatal, non-hospitalized case of COVID is still not pleasant.  And we don't know enough about the long term effects of mild cases of COVID in those who are fully vaxxed.  It will also depend on the local rate of infection.

I will get a haircut (floofy no more?), I will go to the movies (without Mrs. Spew since she is a bit more nervous than I), we will start going to patios and then eventually inside restaurants.  And, yes, I will go to the US to see my family in August.  That is the big one--seeing my mother, my siblings, and, yes, Hollywood Spew!  I will probably call my weekly reports something else in two weeks, as I will no longer be "in quarantine."  Of course, breakthroughs, new variants, another virus may cause us to return to this state of being.  And that would suck, so I am not throwing away the masks (which I will wear now when I have a cold, Asia-Pacific style) or the sanitizer stuff.  I do hope that stores can stop practicing hygiene theory--wiping everything down after every client--and I hope schools focus on improving ventilation.

This week was busy in both expected and unexpected ways.  The CDSN Personnel Team held a workshop on the Power of Diversity on Friday/Saturday.  It was really interesting, with most of the focus on the status of immigrants (previous workshops had focused more on women and on historically excluded people).  I chaired on session and served as a breakout room moderator as well despite not knowing much about this stuff.  The upside, of course, is that I learn a lot. 

The unexpected busy-ness involved a bunch of media hits as there was much attention by the journalists on the end of this term of parliament.  The timing was perfect for me as I had a meeting with Dave and Phil for our project on legislatures and oversight over the armed forces.  So, that stuff was fresh in my mind as I was observing that our initial stance that the Canadian House of Commons Defence Committee is less relevant than most was perhaps an understatement.  What I learned this week is that a minority government still controls the agenda of the committee, so, yeah, the committee didn't issue a report about the Vance/Sajjan mess.  This video has most of my rants in one place as Dale Smith, fellow fan of Nigella Lawson, asked good, triggering questions. I did dodge some media hits by recommending people who have far more expertise on the stuff, such as maritime disputes.  I was asked by Matt Gurney, a radio host, whether there will be any real change in the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence with the media soon to be distracted by the possibility of an election.  I suggested that post-election, there will be a new Defence Minister, so they will likely be attentive to that choice (please no more senior military types), and the report by retired Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour will serve to energize the media.  I do think there are many folks in the CAF now are motivated and interested--but the old boys network remains powerful, and culture is hard to change.  So, no easy, instant fixes.

The meeting with Dave and Phil led to a surprising division of labor with me focusing on the short term article and the two of them focusing on writing the start of the book.  It is late in the summer (it is nearly half gone!), so my teammates are skeptical we can finish the book by the end of the summer.  However, I think we will have a bad draft of a good book by then.  While we are doing that, Phil and I are finally working on the Canadian case, so I interviewed the Conservative Defence Critic, James Bezan.  He was struck that the questions we wrote were written six years ago as he thought they were most relevant now.  So, woot for us!  

In the big picture, things are getting much better in Canada and the US and much worse in much of the rest of the world.  We have to keep that in mind--that the planet needs to be vaccinated, not just our immediate neighbors.  We also have take seriously what our countries have done.  The finding of perhaps 750 Indigenous kids' graves at a second residential school (kiddie concentration camps may be offputting, but it should be) is just a start of Canada coming to grips with its history.  Having an Indigenous Secretary of Interior in the US, Deb Haaland, will mean that the US may look at its own legacy of similar policies of stealing kids from their families and putting them into awful circumstances.  One of the bright spots of Canada's pandemic response has been that the First Nations have been in the front of the line for vaccines, and there has been much effort to help them deal with ... damn ... crappy health care infrastructure.  So much more to do.  

As we turn to the big national holidays--Canada Day and Independence Day--we need to reflect what the values of our countries are, how we have fallen short, and how we can do better.  We sure as hell need some Critical Race Theory, precisely because the party of bad faith and of white supremacy is pushing against it.  

Be well and get your vaccines!

Quarantine Report, Week 66: Damn, This Road Is Long With Many Curves

 Sixty-six weeks of this madness with yet another week of ups and big downs.  Everyone has experienced much loss over the course of the pandemic.  We have been lucky that no immediate family has died unless one counts our cat or a pseudo-uncle.  Bob went to that upstate farm, as he stopped eating and the treatments for his various pains were working for shorter and shorter periods of time.  I have reported here and elsewhere how he changed from being a very feisty cat with sharp claws to being the cuddliest of pandemic pets.  I started taking many pictures of him this winter/spring because I knew time was running out and because he was so damned cute on my lap.  He had never been a lap pet--he would sit next to my wife, but he was not the cuddly cat my daughter demanded way back when.  This year, however, he found solace and he gave solace by insisting a few times each day to be lifted into my lap when I was at my computer and then he would hang out under my desk.  Now we are furless for the first time since 1992.  It will take some getting used to.

Our second major loss was of someone who was not family but was family--Stanley Lavin.  He and my father were best friends, so our families vacationed together until I was old enough to

remember them.  So, all I have are vague memories and mostly memories of people telling me about the stuff that happened.  I do remember some of our last trip--to Mexico--when I was five.  I remember Uncle Stanley making me laugh a lot and him laughing a lot.  I am pretty sure he influenced my sense of humor the most, although his favorite bit, singing Home on the Range at all kinds of events, was far beyond me.  I only saw him at big events since we stopped vacationing with a few exceptions.  I wish I had sought him and his spectacular wife more when traveling through NYC.  Stanley was not a Covid statistic as he had been declining for years.  I did get to see him at my father's funeral a couple of years ago, and I did make him laugh a bit, which I will always treasure, as giving back to one who gave me so much.  I watched his funeral via the internet because that is what we do these days.  His kids told stories about him, and I learned stuff that I didn't know.  I did remember his fondness for gin and tonics so I will be shopping for some tonic this afternoon so I can raise the appropriately filled glass to him.  As I have said before, connect with folks--this pandemic reminds us of that more than ever.

Everything else pales in comparison, but there was some good news this week.  Ontario changed the interval between shots, so all of GenX-AZ in Ontario were on their computers at 8:01am on Monday.  The slots got filled up fast, and then folks on twitter let us know that there were new slots.  So, we first had appointments on the other side of town on Canada Day, but we managed an alternative approach that will get us our shots a week earlier.  Woot!   And, yes, we are going for the cocktail--mixing the first AZ dose with Moderna.  And then a couple of weeks later, we will be able to move about the cabin and beyond.  

Meanwhile, the Canadian defence politics beat got hot this week because the Conservatives pushed through a motion censuring the Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.  I explained how that motion both hit and missed the target here.  I got asked to do an early Saturday morning radio hit to talk about the NATO summit, which, alas, the host of the radio program used to segue to focus on China.  Not my area of expertise, but live radio so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  I did email the producer to complain, but I expect memories to be short.

More fun was having my name and tweets and those of friends (Steph Carvin, Thomas Juneau) tossed around in the House of Commons during Question Period:

The context was that the Conservatives pulled out of a national security advisory review panel to demonstrate their, um, China-phobic bona fides, I think.  So, the three of us were not pleased and said so on twitter.  I think it might have been the first time my name was bandied about in Question Period.  Funny that my more strident stuff about the Defence Minister didn't come up instead.  Anyhow, the Minister of Health kind of knows whom I am, so there's that.  Canada is such a small pond!

Ontario and other provinces are starting loosen things up with the percentage of semi vaxed (one shot) surpassing 70% of those eligible and fully vaxxed (2 shots plus 2 weeks) approaching 20%.  I am worried as that still means 80% are vulnerable to the Delta variant, and the wastewater trends, a leading indicator, are not good even as the lagging indicators (hospitalization/death) are looking good.  So, we will remain cautious on the indoor stuff until we are 2+2.  On the outdoor stuff, it looks like Ultimate may start in early July, and that would be wonderful.  Thanks to the daily stress-exercise--biking or treadmilling--I am in better shape now than a year ago despite my best stress-baking efforts.  Will that make me speedier on the ultimate field?  Probably not.  

Tomorrow is Father's Day, so I am using that as an excuse to make something truly decadent--Irish pound cake--which involves Baileys.  As always, I tend to focus on the single mothers out there who are both mother and father, including my sister-in-law, Liz, who has raised to amazing young women despite incredibly difficult circumstances.  The best Father's Day present I am getting this year is the knowledge that I will finally be seeing my daughter at the end of July at the Saideman family summer gathering.  It has been too damned long.  I am just so proud of the social justice warrior that she has become.  

Be well! 

Quarantine Report, Week 65: Phased 1

 Ontario is loosening up.  Woot?  Um, not so woot.  Long lines yesterday at clothing stores which have been closed for a few months, the full extent of Costco is now open, and, yes, patios at restaurants.  It is not enough and too much.  It is not enough because the schools remain closed, and the kids could really use just a few weeks of hanging out together.  It is not enough for me because ultimate frisbee can only start in phase 2 in three weeks even though we know that outdoor stuff is really safe.  It is too much in that people are going to let their guards down even as there are variants that are pretty harmful to those who have only had one shot.  Ottawa and Ontario are at about 70% for one shot but only 10% for two.  That latter number will accelerate, but we aren't there yet.  

My basic approach is to be pessimistic in the short run and optimistic in the long run.  I am not confident that Canada will change the travel restrictions soon.  Indeed, last night, I had an epiphany--that there was no way they would change the restrictions until after Trudeau comes back from the G7.  This government cares mostly about optics (except when it comes to having a defence minister who does not know what the job entails) so they would not want to reduce the restrictions at a time where it would make things very easy for PMJT to come back.  So, the "logic" of early July makes more sense in that context.  That and Doug Ford blaming foreigners for his own failed responses makes the Liberals more cautious.

 In a mostly meeting-less week (not a trend, alas), we made much progress on planning a series of CDSN events.  The summer institute's speaker lineup is nearly complete, the Year Ahead in December is getting there, our 9-11 event is 2/3s set, and we have started to go through the many applications for a new Project Coordinator.  I am taking my time on this hire, as I have learned that rushing it does not work out so well.  We have one podcast to record this week before we take a pause.  Our wonderful podcast producer, Melissa Jennings, is traveling and could use a break.  So, after the upcoming week, the next #BattleRhythm will be around Bastille Day, which is actually when I am slated for my next shot.

The baking continues.  I mentioned the s'more brownies I was going to make last weekend.  They were as gooey and as tasty as I had hoped for.  I distributed to our neighbors as I didn't want to cause Mrs. Spew and I to go into sugar shock. The next recipes?  Not sure, but the pressure is on as my family has informed me that I will be cooking and baking at least one night of the Saideman reunion in August.  I am going to have to figure out what worked best over the past year .... that is besides chocolate chip cookie dough pots which are, of course, required.

 

 

 

 

The story at home of late is the aging of Bob.  My daughter insisted long ago that she wanted a cat, and so we got Bob from a shelter.  He turned out to be less cuddly than we hoped, the kind of cat who would take a good petting session and turn it into a good practice first aid session.  In the past few years, he has slowed down.  During the pandemic, he has gotten positively cuddly.  He now limps around the house as his back legs and back bother him.  So, we have moved from mutual suspicion and distrust to detente to pandemic pals.  I have never been a cat person and am a bit allergic (but my daughter suggesting at age 6 or 7 that we get divorced so she could have one house with mom and a cat and another with dad and the dogs causes me to drop the objection).  So, he now insists on being picked up and put on my lap a couple of times a day to hang out for a while, making it hard to type.  But since I regret not spending enough time in the latter days of the lives of dog 1 and dog 2, I figure I can do this for Bob.  We are nearing the stage where we have to start weighing how much pain he is in versus how much he still has a decent life.  We have been through this before, but it does not get easier.  

I will finish on a silly note.  The good news is that I am biking farther and farther, getting more exercise as the weather has been mostly terrific. The bad news that the southern end of my route has both a donut shop and an ice cream truck.  Last week, I had to try the bubble waffle cone.  Well, it was more waffle than cone as you can see.  I also ordered the cookie monster ice cream for complete decadence.  Because the only way through this pandemic is to grab and hold onto (and eat) the sweetest stuff one can find.  Even if it offsets the benefits of the bike ride.  

Good luck finding the sweet stuff while we make our way through the next phases of this thing.

 

Quarantine Report 64: Fluffier Than Before

 Yeah, I have let myself completely go during this pandemic.  Which means I have had the opportunity to notice how daily growth can produce notable changes every once in a while.  Like, when I was growing my beard out, it seemed the same for a while and then suddenly much bigger.  Now, tis my hair which seemed a bit long suddenly feels like I have wings on the sides of my head.  I am the fluffiest I have been since ... high school I guess.   I can feel my hair flop around as I go downstairs or as the breeze blows when I go outside to get the mail. It has been seven months since my last haircut, and the next one will happen after I get my second shot which is still a month or more away.

And, yes, we have both more and less certainty in Ontario.  The authorities now say we of GenX-AZ can mix if we want to, getting Moderna or Pfizer for our second shot or we can stick with AZ.  Of course, the problem with the latter is finding it, since there is not so much of it.  They say that we are eligible for our second shot 12 weeks after our first, but then there are some folks who are getting ahead of that pace.  The good news is that the Ontario authorities are calling all the folks over 80 who have not gotten a second shot.  The bad news is that this is necessary in part because the web-based system was down.  And, yeah, for those hunting shots, there are two paths--the govt locations which book up fast and the pharmacies which require tenacity to find one accepting appointments.  I did go on campus briefly and saw the line for vaccines, so I feel pretty good about getting my second dose (non-AZ, if I want that) as Carleton is only vaxxing students, faculty, and staff.  

It was my first time on campus since ..... October.  Last time, it was to get a flu shot.  This time, it was to pick up 25 copies of a book we are assigning and providing to the participants.  We have a nearly complete roster of participants--emerging scholars, junior military officers, junior policy officers, etc.  We have a nearly complete roster of presenters.  So, the event is in good shape.  A key part of it is to build bridges and foster networking across the traditional divides.  That was supposed to be facilitated by lunches/dinners/coffee/bar time.  So, the event will be online, which not only means less social time but also less time--there is no way I want folks to be on screens for entire days.  The bright side is that we don't have to arrange travel or the like, so it is an easier event to organize.  We have some stuff we have to do, but we are nearly there.

The CDSN and CSIDS are also organizing a couple of 20th anniversary of 9/11 events, so we are working on that as well.  We dropped the 50th anniversary of BattleRhythm this week, so that was a nice marker of how much progress we have made.  As we say on this episode, we really don't know who is listening, but we've had enough folks across town tell us that they listen that we believe we have some listeners and many of them are in or near government.  I am most grateful to Stéfanie von Hlatky for being such a great host, as this has added a heap of worktime to her very busy schedule.  She brings terrific insights, much humor, and great connections that make for great interviews.  Melissa Jennings, the CDSN's Director of Communications, produces each podcast with great care, diligence, and patience.  Paxon Mayer, our PhD RA, helps prep us with the research she does for us.  It is a terrific team, and I am lucky to have them.  Otherwise, we are in the middle of a transition as our previous project coordinator has moved on, and we are in the midst of hiring a new staffer.  If I didn't buy principal-agency theory before, I certainly do now.  

On the Canadian defence scene, there was not too much news this week--just one more senior officer losing his job, this time for uttering the N word apparently.  Two retired chiefs of the defence staff wrote a regrettable op-ed where they worried about the plight of senior officers.  Not a great look, given that this culture that they blame is one that they did little/nothing to change.  It happened on their watch, and now they want to say "hey, due process" at a time where it is clear intra-CAF processes are anything but due.  So, they didn't cover themselves in glory.  My take on that was:

When abuse of power is such a central part of the CAF story, two former CDS's complaining about how this has affected the senior officers reveals more than the authors intend.

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) June 4, 2021

On the personal front, it might best be summed up by this latest google map of where I traveled in May, quite a contrast to the average May where I have done fieldwork in Brazil, South Korea, and Europe.

The farthest north and west I went was to Costco.  The farthest south was biking to Manotick for exercise and for, um, ice cream.  Indeed, the trend of the week was combining exercise with bad eating as I tried out the donut shack and a new ice cream place.  I have lost weight during the pandemic, but most of that was in the first few months.  My plateau since has reflected a balancing of stress exercise, stress baking, and stress eating.  I am guessing next month's map will feature the trip to Carleton as my longest voyage of June.  I am looking forward to the family reunion at the end of July in Philly.  My daughter will make it from LA so I get to see her for the first time since Dec 2019, and it will be the first time seeing everyone else since Thanksgiving of 2019.  Zoom is helpful, but it just isn't the same.  Oh, and samplers of beers in Philly bars await me along with steak sandwiches and pretzels.  We shall see if I have to really quarantine when I get back, as that is what the Canadian border policy calls for.  Will it change by then?  I doubt it.

Time to make some s'mores brownies as the treat of the week--the aforementioned stress baking.  Be well and good luck in this uncertain time!