Special Events – Page 12 – Where Vivid Narratives Live

Half a Century Later…

Some people dread birthdays. Not me. Not even during a pandemic. After all, being blessed to spend five decades on this wondrous planet is truly the gift.

Last year, one of my sisters had the bright idea to celebrate the “milestone” Virgo birthdays in 2020 since her youngest child would be 20, I’d turn 50 and Mom would be 80–all within two weeks of one another. Fortunately, none of us had started researching any destination birthday plans since 2020 had ideas of its own.

Even though our birthdays were later in the year, the way The States handled the onset of the plague, cautioned us not to plan anything involving travel. As the weeks ticked by, we jumped on the ever-growing Zoom birthday celebration bandwagon.

Normally, my sister would have bugged me about brainstorming, researching, and planning out such an endeavor, but since I was one of the birthday celebrants, I got off the hook–for the most part. She called me a couple of times to ask technical questions about Power Point.

My only task was make a list of people who I wanted to invite and send an invitation.

In the past, for birthdays that ended in either a zero or five, I’d email an itinerary for at least a 3-day celebration, doing various activities.

That way, people chose which birthday activity they wanted to do. This whole pandemic thing made my milestone celebration MUCH easier to plan, mostly because my sister did the bulk of that heavy lifting.

And yet, I still wanted to celebrate my own individual birthday, especially since it fell on Labor Day like it had when I was born back in 1970 in Okinawa, Japan. My predicted birthday was the 17th instead of the 7th. Let’s just say that Mom ate and drank just like she wanted to since I’d already gestated nine months. On the one day Americans celebrate “labor,” Mom birthed me. Now there’s a Virgo mother for you!

Since the quarantine, I’ve ordered take out from a different restaurant every Saturday. For the Saturday before my birthday, I made reservations for my roommate and I at an upscale sushi restaurant. Even though we were technically still in a pandemic, I felt that people weren’t being as stupid as the months before when there was a rush to reopen without precautions in place.

Two things I hadn’t counted on leading up to my birthday: a trip to the chiropractor and another installment of the leasing office fucking with me.

My 49.9 year old spine had led an adventurous life and needed a little more than daily yoga, CBD and rest. I’d seen this chiropractor for nearly ten years, so the only thing that had kept me away had been the plague. As soon as he adjusted me, my spine smiled.

Another thing I’d done for nearly a decade was reside at my current apartment complex. In that time, the complex name had changed twice, the color scheme had changed more often than that, but even accounting for the pandemic and the revolving door of office employees, this latest iteration of “leasing agents” took the prize.

Out of nowhere, the corporate office emailed, stating that they’d recently audited my renter’s insurance on file. Under the “additional interested party” section, it stated “none,” but should’ve listed the corporate office address, which they provided.

Yet, the part that had me cursing as if I were possessed by demons was this:

“This will need to be updated and sent to us by 9/7/2020 to avoid a lapse fee of $50.00. Please let us know if you have any questions.”

Do I have any questions? On my ACTUAL fucking 50th birthday, I’m going to owe you motherfuckers a $50 fee if I don’t take care of this task, which has NEVER, in the 10 years I’ve lived at this property been required of me? Why the hell would the deadline be on a federal holiday? Did you know that in some cultures, people gift a newly 50 year old $50, not charge them some $50 bullshit fee?

I called the insurer to update the policy. The next day, I called the leasing office. Of course the least competent among them answered. I asked for the most competent, but he told me that she was already talking to someone else. When he gave me the option to wait on hold or discuss my issue with him, I repressed the urge to tell him that he was the reason I had to send a copy of the renter’s insurance policy the second time. I’ll be damned if he fucks this up.

Once on the phone with me, the most competent empathized with my situation. I pressed “send,” so she could open the email that contained my third effort of “sending a copy of my renter’s insurance” to the leasing office since July. She assured me I could enjoy my actual birthday on Monday without worrying about a fee.

“As long as ya’ll don’t turn off the water at the last minute,” I quipped. For some reason, there’s always an emergency water leak that can only be remedied by shutting off the water with very little notice. She agreed barring that, which was beyond her control, I should have a good day. So when, minutes after waking up on my birthday, the electricity blinked out for 30 seconds, I knew the universe had winked at me.

My birthday dinner went over without a hitch.

I only put on lip gloss for this picture, then wiped all of it off before putting on my mask once I parked at the restaurant.

I’m still not sure how to take pictures while wearing a mask.

I know it’s useless to smile, but at the same time, I don’t know how to smile with only my eyes, so I do this weird thing instead. Too much thinking. I should just smile as I normally do, which will reflect in my eyes.

Not that I did much better in this surprise picture my roommate took.

Trust me, by this point, I was still in the throes of a food-gasm. We’d ordered the six course tasting, but as a birthday gift, the chef threw in an extra course.

For dessert, we received what tasted like a luscious Heath candy bar with a dollop of vanilla ice cream rolled in crumbled chocolate along with a glass of champagne.

The last time I had an actual birthday cake was 20 years ago. Yet, my sister wanted me to have a cake with candles because it was part of her “Milestone Birthdays” program. She sent me a link to choose my cake. After looking at all the options, I chose the most beautiful chocolate cake available. When I texted her my choice, she told me that she should’ve set a price limit of $50.

Given the fact that I hadn’t wanted a birthday cake in the first place, this still felt shitty. Nonetheless, I chose a less attractive chocolate cake and kept the grumbling to myself.

Days later, the cake arrived.

My apartment complex had wisely installed a package hub in order to prevent theft. Since the deliverer jammed the package into a compartment that was barely taller than the box, I had to strong arm maneuver it out. Had the deliverer placed the box in the taller adjacent compartment to right, I wouldn’t have had any problem whatsoever. So there I was fighting to get a birthday cake that I hadn’t wanted in the first place, but then had to settle for the second choice and because it was packed in dry ice, appeared to be sweating as if it was doing a lot of work.

After all that, my sister had got me good.

Before I even laid eyes on the actual cake, I’d read the packing list: Red Rose Chocolate cake! I used gloves to place the dry ice into the kitchen sink, which created an eerie effect. Then I took the frozen cake out of its box. Following the instructions, I removed the plastic wrapping, replaced the cake in its box and allowed it to thaw out in the refrigerator for two days until the party.

I called my sister. I’d spoken to her a couple of times between choosing a cake and receiving it.

She was relieved the secret was out. Before ordering anything, she’d found a $15 off coupon. With the cheaper cake, she’d have to pay $35 for shipping, but shipping was free with the more expensive cake. The bottom line: my first choice was only $5 more than my second choice.

Another wonderful surprise: Mom wore a tiara during the Zoom celebration.

We had a pretty good Zoom turn out with around 40 participants although none of my nephew’s friends were on the call.

I properly dressed my cake for the occasion.

Since my nephew had gone to Virginia Beach with his older sisters,

he actually left his birthday cake at home and blew out a candle on a cupcake instead.

One of my candles destroyed itself before I had a chance to blew it out.

Good thing I’m not usually superstitious.

Mom, who’d opted for an ice cream cake, didn’t want to blow out candles,

so she just held hers up as everyone sang three different versions of “Happy Birthday” to us.

This cake was just as sweet and luscious as it looks.

As a child, I loved sweets. As much as I appreciated this cake, I now find it strange to celebrate a birthday with something that may lead to diabetes. Now that’s the half century talking!

Special Election in July 2020

We’ve had runoff elections in the past, but never during a pandemic. The common sense thing to do would be vote online or by mail-in ballot, but as Trump pointed out, if voting became easier to do, no Republican would ever be elected again. Of course, anytime he tells the truth, many rush in to “correct” him. He later regurgitated the party li(n)e: voting via mail-in ballots would increase voter fraud.

There are a few states which allow mail-in ballots without much hassle, but since everything’s bigger in Texas….A lot of confusing legal back and forth ensued as to whether voting by mail out of fear of catching the plague is legal.

In Texas, only three categories of people can vote by mail: voters 65+, voters with disabilities and absentee voters. The second category has caused all the court battles. One side declared that fear of catching the coronavirus if you have pre-existing health conditions or live with someone who does counted as a disability. The other side stated that people couldn’t claim fear of catching the plague a disability–to do so would be committing a fraud. But wait! no one has to prove their disability, so no fraud would be committed.

I took the usual precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask in order to vote. Black women before me endured far more to exercise their right to vote, therefore I carried on the torch. I even brought an umbrella, just in case it was too sunny or raining.

I actually dreaded what I may find at my normal polling place during this unnormal time.

Yet, this was the best outcome.

As I approached, I saw a woman returning from the direction of the main door.

I asked if they’d redirected her to the side door to vote. After confirming my question, I entered after her. At a safe distance, of course.

The volunteer who checked my ID sat behind plexiglass, but I was more interested in the other things on the table.

To the right were popsicle sticks. Yet the real eye-catching items were the finger condoms on the left. The volunteers didn’t call them “condoms,” but I can’t remember the sanitized word they used.

I made my selections quickly since I’d studied before hand.

Yet, the main thing I wanted to do was rush outside and take a picture of my finger condom. One of the volunteers delayed my mad dash to the exit and reminded me to get an “I Voted” sticker. I left the polling place, proudly strutting with the sticker, which promptly blew off my chest into the wind. Hope that wasn’t symbolic of what just happened to my vote.

I’d originally overcropped the picture because after more than 4 months of no manicure,

I couldn’t stand how my hand looked, especially the cuticles. So, I texted the above picture to my family to show off my finger condom–even calling it by that name–and still some family members thought I’d texted them a penis.

Mom thought I was wearing it to “play doctor.” One of my nieces thought it looked strange. And for the family members who thought it was a penis….I assured them that a) I hadn’t had a sex change; b) even if I had, I wouldn’t have whipped it out just to vote with.

The day’s amusement wasn’t all about finger condoms. Since I had just 5 candidate races to vote in, I gave myself more than just the reward of exercising my civic duty. I wanted gifts, based on how many out of the 5 candidates I voted for actually won. So here’s the breakdown of what I’m going to gift myself to celebrate:

Box of ice cream sandwiches
Bottle of Cabernero
Bottle of 1800 tequila
A Plantronics CS520 XD Wireless Headset
BARWING 4D Vibration Platform

For the near-impossible 5 out of 5 winning candidates, I’m going for the first piece of exercise equipment I’ll ever purchase. Since I’m exercising at home every day anyway, I might as well go for something that’ll make my joints feel amazing and is lauded for toning muscles.

Since I saved so much time at the polling place, I went grocery shopping afterwards.

I didn’t realize there was another shortage brewing until I got into the checkout line.

Good grief. Can these crises choose another year?

Here’s to the Black Men Who Breath Freely

Memorial Day commemorates the men and women of the Armed Forces who have died in the defense of the United States.

Yet, like every other thing existing with the COVID-19 pandemic in the background, even this celebration morphed into the latest wave of international protest.

On Memorial Day 2020, two black men, one in New York City and the other in Minneapolis, both going about their lives in the great pursuit of happiness, entered the most dangerous space known to black people: the mind of a racist.

Avid bird watcher and Harvard grad, Christian Cooper, merely wanted a woman to leash her dog, so it would stop trampling all over the plants–or “plantings” as he called them. (Let the record show that I thought of him as a nerd long before I knew he was a Harvard grad when I heard him talking about “plantings”!)

When the woman didn’t comply with his reasonable request, he took a treat out of his pocket for the dog. His reasoning: most people didn’t like strangers feeding their dog, so they would leash them. At least that was the usual response, but thank goodness he videotaped her response.

Amy Cooper (no relation) reached into her arsenal of white privilege and told Christian that if he didn’t leave her and her dog alone, she’d call the police. She calmly voiced her threat to weaponize the police against an African American man who’d done nothing more than ask her to put her dog on a leash and then offer the dog a snack.

(Side note: I italicized “African American” because Amy made a point to use the politically correct phrase while doing something racist. To which I say, don’t bother calling a black person an “African American” if you’re just going to treat them like a nigger.)

Christian told her to go ahead and call the police.

See, when black people stand our ground, we usually don’t have a gun aimed at the other person. We stand our ground by daring to show our courage and bravely staring down our threats.

With her bluff called, Amy called 911. Her demeanor changed as she displayed her voice-acting skills. She shrieked into her cellphone about how an African American man was threatening her and her dog–all the while Christian was obviously more than the acceptable 6ft of social distance away from her.

The police arrived and, thank God, saw through the sham. After all, both Amy and Christian were still there. No tickets, no arrests, no shooting, no death. The police concluded that two people merely had had a verbal altercation.

Afterwards, Christian reached into his arsenal of social media and uploaded the video. It was the ultimate clapback. Of course the video went viral. Millions of people, especially black people, witnessed the how a white woman, who was fully aware of the potential police brutality against a black man, proceeded all because she could.

The backlash was swift. She lost her job because her employer said they didn’t tolerate racism. She lost her dog. Yes, the same one that she’d rather weaponize the police over than to put a leash on.

The animal shelter insisted on her surrendering the dog so they could place it in a safe home. You see, despite Amy’s insistence that an African American man was threatening her dog, all Christian really did was offer the dog a treat. Amy, on the other hand, had dragged the dog around by hooking her fingers into its collar.

In the aftermath, Amy did two predictable things: she offered a self-serving apology and she declared she wasn’t racist.

Let’s hope her apology indeed made her feel better. So much better that it leads her to read up on systemic racism. And while she’s at it, perhaps she’ll learn that racism isn’t like pregnancy: either you are or you aren’t. No, racism has degrees.

Picture, if you will, a racism continuum. At one end are microagressions such as when a white co-ed during my freshman year in college paid me the insulting compliment, “Teresa, you don’t talk like a black person!” At the other end is first degree murder like when a white gunman carried out his plan to mass murder black people at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In between is every other racially-biased action such as when Amy voice-acted her 911 call to weaponize the police against a black man.

She, like many white people, don’t view seemingly nonviolent actions as racist. What she fails to see is the “death by 1000 cuts” aspect of her actions. She contributed to Christian’s everyday stress of living while being black. This violence is slow-moving, collective and deadly over time. This constant racial stress has been shown to shorten the life expectancy of black people.

An example of the racism most white people acknowledge as racism occurred on the same day in Minneapolis when George Floyd encountered weaponized police. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck as he agonized about not being able to breathe. With his dying breath, Floyd called out for his deceased mother.

For all who watched this viral video, it was the last straw. Firing the four officers involved was not enough. Even Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated in a press conference that if anyone else had done what former Officer Chauvin had done, they would’ve been arrested.

Waves of local protests grew into national protests, which spread into international protests. By that Friday, former Officer Chauvin had been charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Former Officer Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to second degree murder while the other former officers who had stood by watching him kill an unarmed, handcuffed black man, where arrested and charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Even when opportunistic looting erupted, the protests continued. Even when some police were brutal with peaceful protesters against police brutality, the protests continued. Even when some police took a knee and marched with protesters, the protests continued.

(Side note: Once I witnessed cops taking a knee against police brutality, the situation had come full circle for me. I instantly thought out loud, “So when is Kap getting is job back?” Lest anyone forget, Colin Kapernick started the nonviolent taking of a knee to protest police brutality.)

Protesters declared that black lives matter even when there were next to no black people in the protest. Around this time, corporations and city councils, those uneasy bedfellows, starting saying that black lives mattered.

Many questioned how a cop could choke a man in broad daylight, with 3 other cops around, and witnesses and videos. The short answer is systemic racism curated over 400 years. Everything in former officer Chauvin’s past experience, what he knew to be true, told him that he’d not receive any serious consequences. He figured he’d not be charged for months if at all.

What he hadn’t counted on was the waterless flood known as COVID-19. What once was, was no longer. The pandemic had already changed the contour of our existence. Anyone under the illusion of things set in stone need only to look at how the Colorado River shapes the Grand Canyon.

The biggest difference, the coronavirus didn’t need millennia to fundamentally change our environment. Infrastructure vulnerabilities revealed. Food and product chains disrupted. Healthcare professionals swamped. Essential workers exposed.

Systemic racism depended on hiding in plain sight. The constant, distracting rat race of existence provided an excellent cover. Lots of stimuli to draw focus in several different directions all at once.

Then–POOF–the frenzy stopped. Without the blurring fog of activity, systemic racism no longer had shadows to hide behind. No denial plausibility of something else actually going on.

So the real debate: what to do when there’s a glaring problem?

Nostalgists long for things to return to “normal.” Realists embrace “the new normal.” Optimists dream of a future better than before. Pessimists dread that the best days are behind us. Conservationists seek new ways to preserve old structures. Revolutionists want to tear this motherfucker down to rebuild with equity.

While all the “-ists” jostle for position, Mother Nature rages on.

Cleansing the Air

While watching a horror movie, I texted a friend, who had grown up in a home where indigenous medicine was practiced,

about one of the scenes where people were cleansing themselves with smoke from an herb bundle. Sage perhaps? She confirmed my conclusion.

She told me the practice was called “smudging.” People smudged to cleanse the energy when they moved into a new place, or when something bad has happened, or to eliminate negative energy or serious problems. She had me at “cleanse the energy.” Since my roommate and I’ve been sheltering in place, the energy had become stale and emotionally strained.

My friend volunteered to bring me some of her sage the following day. She arrived wearing a mask and I opened the door while wearing mine. Although we avoided embracing one another, it was such a joy to see a friend in the flesh rather than virtually.

She handed me a plastic ziplock bag, which enclosed a short bundle of sage sticks. Even though that was the point of the visit, she stood just outside the doorway and I’d backed up at least 6 ft away and we talked for a while. I would’ve offered to set a chair out on the porch for her to sit, but she was en route to visit another friend who was recovering from surgery.

Following what I’d read about smudging, I lit the bundle of sage sticks and cleansed myself, then I walked around all the rooms in the apartment. Before cleansing my roommate’s room, I asked her if she wanted to be cleansed first.

I believe in prayer and even the power of positive thinking. It’s more challenging when the whole world is undergoing a prolonged trauma though. Every little bit helps. Smudging once a week, daily yoga, daily microdosing CBD & CBG, sleeping 7-8 hours a night. Just as important as the preceding list of self-care, I’m still working from home.

In the past, underemployment has been a source of my insomnia. Despite all my big plans for multiple streams of income, my day job has been my Steady Eddie. I’ve not abandoned hope in those other pursuits. I’ve just slowed down my frenetic pace. I’ve read that being under prolonged trauma, such as this pandemic, drains one’s energy. Instead of being full of untapped energy due to the lack of a schedule, people are zapped of energy. I calmed down and dedicated myself to doing a little at a time until a project is done.

Especially the 156 illustrations I must complete for my third book. Initially, I tried to whip out an illustration a day. Then, I reframed the whole process and considered it a part of self care since I enjoy coloring and painting. Once I scaled back my ambitions, I began truly embracing my shortfalls and mistakes as another creative way to do things. After all, I wouldn’t want every illustration to hit the same note.

With my recent illustrations, I’ve become more efficient with some techniques and have learned some new tricks, especially with shading and highlighting. Cannot say that’s directly related to burning sage. Yet, the atmosphere in my little creative cave hasn’t been unconducive to progress.

Social Distance Happy Hours

I’d drank during virtual book club meetings, writers’ meetings, and other social events.

Yet getting together with other people across the States who I work with was a bit different since I’d never met most of them previously. We’re all customer service reps, called guides, who work from home and set our own hours.

Normally, the supervisors fly into a big city and invite nearby guides and guides who were willingly to fly into town, to work at a makeshift call center. They’d provide special training on the latest system update, but also test it out, so the supervisors could see in real time how it works with a few guides before unleashing it to the rest of the team.

With everyone in self-quarantine, all guides who wanted to participate in this latest virtual guide happy hour, just registered for the Zoom link and for an hour, we all politely chatted like the strangers we mostly were. I purposely set up in front of my rough draft paintings because they are an instant conversation piece. Who can resist what appears to be a quilt of naked people?

I explained that the paintings were rough drafts for my third novel, which of course led to the inevitable question about my first two books. One guide even questioned whether there were two previous books. I happily dashed into my bedroom, retrieved Tribe of One and The Adventures of Infinity & Negativa. I held the books up to the camera. I told the other guides that once this third book was done, I’d change the profile picture on Slack, holding my newest book.

Although I’m not a bourbon drinker, I bought this particular brand because Matthew McConaughey and his wife donated PPE to first responders.

I figured I could put some money in their pocket for that. Plus, I wanted to expand my happy hour selection.

I first tried it over ice with a splash of tonic water and margarita mix.

After going to the grocery store, I filled a goblet with fresh fruit: blueberries, strawberries, and mandarin slices. Then I poured the bourbon over it and let that marinate for about 20 minutes as I prepared dinner. Next I added a splash of margarita mix and tonic water. I called it a bourbon fruit cocktail. Leagues better than my first attempt, but still wasn’t quite a go-to drink.

Then, my roommate hit upon a classic idea: jello shots!

Both a nostalgic and delightful dessert drink. Previously, I’d only used my Korean celadon tea cups for tea, a shot of Baileys, and a midnight snack size portion of trail mix. Yet they were the perfect serving size for jello shots.

The first batch of jello shots were made with dark cherry.

I shared the above picture with one of my friends who summed up her thoughts with two quotes: 1) “Whisky is liquid sunshine.” ~George Bernard Shaw; and 2) “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” ~Unknown. Although I’d always heard the expression as “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” which is an old folk saying and references the 1929 novel, The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of a Negro Life by Wallace Thurman. The second batch of bourbon jello shots were raspberry flavor and still delicious.

The bourbon laced dessert I didn’t like too much was the Godiva dark chocolate pudding.

The strong bourbon taste overpowered the chocolaty goodness. Perhaps I hadn’t waited long enough for it to set. Or too much alcohol was used. The texture wasn’t pudding-like. And then there were coconut flakes. I normally love coconut, even with dark chocolate, but with all other things being “off,” the coconut flakes seemed like an out-of-place texture.

I stuck with the jello shots.

At one point, I looked up at the calendar and realized I hadn’t had a happy hour with the “insurance ladies” in over a month. At one point, all of us were insurance agents, but currently only one of us was. Nonetheless, I sent a group text that we were about due for another virtual HH. None of them responded.

Well, fuck me.

Reminded me of the time I was a preschool teacher. At the end of the day, there were about five 3-year olds sitting at the table with me, waiting for their parents to pick them up. I got the bright idea to start a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” I didn’t get past the first line of the song. No child joined in singing with me and none of them clapped.

At least I laughed at being rebuked by those preschoolers. This felt far more personal.

I calmed myself down and promised not to send another text although I double and triple checked that the message had been delivered. I took several deep breaths and acknowledged that everyone was becoming edgier due to being self-quarantined for over two months.

Then I remembered those preschoolers.

Maybe it wasn’t the request to hang out virtually, talk and drink that was problematic, but the implied obligation to be “happy.” What other catchy phrase can we call it? Discussion Drinking–no. Wine Whining–not quite. Thirsty Thoughts–oh, wait, I hear it now–and no.

The following morning, I DM’d one of my friends who I’d texted, using our workplace messaging system. She told me that she had missed the message since her son had been using her phone to make movies. Yet, she later replied to the group text, stating she’d prefer Saturday, so her hubby could watch the kids.

This prompted another friend to reply that she’s been battling poison ivy–yes, I thought of the Batman villain first–and requested we meet the following Saturday or the one after that.

I’m so happy that I’d calmed myself down and gave my friends the benefit of the doubt for not responding sooner. Not only did I spare myself and my friends a lot of drama that none of us needed, but I struck a wonderful compromise: I had a zoom call with one friend and we’re still working on scheduling a bigger HH.

Saturday Lunches

Prior to many Americans taking the impending pandemic seriously, but just in time to be racist, the mob-mentality overcame some people, who in turn blamed Chinese people for the coronavirus. In practice, racists targeted any nearby Asians. To the point of shunning them on social media, in public and committing acts of violence against them.

Whenever I feel angry about something, I try to respond in a positive manner that is within my reach. No matter how small. So after my Saturday Ashtanga class, I hopped in my car, and ordered Vietnamese takeout, Het Say. If some were being hostile to Asians, then I’d do the opposite. Besides, I genuinely enjoyed that mom and pop restaurant, which was so near to my apartment, my roommate and I would occasionally walk there to eat.

By the following week, no restaurants allowed a dine-in option. Yet, I’d set a precedent the previous Saturday. I easily convinced my roommate to hop aboard to support another local restaurant. Besides, this gave us a reason to leave the apartment. We ordered from Hank’s, a restaurant that had such a welcoming ambience that the consolation was ordering from them to keep them in business. As the employee handed us our to-go orders through the drive-thru window, I joked that it was too bad that we couldn’t order a cocktail as well. He corrected me. Yet, I pointed out that I hadn’t seen cocktails on the online take-out menu. Nonetheless, we got two cocktails to go.

The next Saturday, my roommate chose the restaurant, Salvation Pizza. They allowed us to walk in the restaurant to pick up our orders, but we were very aware to stay 6 ft away from the other customers. I enjoyed talking to everyone more than usual when speaking to total strangers.

Neither my roommate nor I had ever eaten at TenTen’s Nova Kitchen, but since all the proceeds would go to the employees, we supported them that Saturday. My roommate hopped out of the car to get our orders. They politely asked her to return to the car and text them our names for curbside service. Apparently the unlocked front door was only for their use: drivers and curbside food runners.

As more businesses shuttered and a shelter in place order was issued, people weren’t merely losing their jobs, but for some, their health care since it had been a job benefit. There were businesses that were still open, but had not provided health care prior to the pandemic. Now those businesses were in the spotlight. Essentially any business that would put their employees in harm’s way, but not provide at least sick leave, were incentivizing their employees to come to work sick for as long as they could.

Since moving to Austin 11 years ago, I hardly ever ate at a national chain restaurant, but I made an exception for Olive Garden, which was one of the first to announce they were offering sick leave to their employees. They had the most user-friendly websites for to-go orders, offered buy one get one free entrees and when we drove to pick up our orders, they had trays in every other parking space so that no two customers were close to one another. Several employees approached the cars and ran orders to customers. Things looked very well orchestrated.

We put another local favorite in the rotation, Colleen’s Kitchen.

I was so happy that they still operated. By good fortune, this restaurant already had a pickup window prior to the pandemic. I’d been going to Colleen’s ever since they opened. Given their southern cuisine and down home decorations, I’d asked them why they didn’t offer chicken and waffles, which seemed like the only thing missing from their menu. Well, not any more!

Of course I had to order that along with an individually wrapped roll of toilet paper. Like many restaurants, Colleen’s had a supply of toilet paper for its own business use, but without any dine-in customers, they did the next best thing and offered TP on their to-go menu.

Not only that, but I also ordered one of their cocktail kits, which came with chopped fruit,

fresh fruit juice and bottle of sparking wine as well as 4 promotional plastic stemless wine glasses. I’m saving those glasses for an after-the-pandemic celebration out in a park somewhere.

The following Saturday, we ordered from a restaurant that we’d discovered on one of our prepandemic walks. 1618 Asian Fusion, which I’ve blogged about before due to my roommate’s and my long-winded, but hilarious conversation about the origins of the number “1618”. Turned out to be the address. (forehead slap)

By the time we ordered from the black-owned soul food restaurant, Hoover’s Cooking,

the Texas governor had officially opened up some businesses, including dine-in options for restaurants. Hoover’s was still in curbside and delivery mode, which suited us just fine since we were very willing to allow others to test the waters with dining in.

Earlier in the week, a major meat-packing place had closed due to coronavirus infection among the employees. There was a mild panic that we’d go meatless. I normally cook poultry at home, which was why I made a point to order sausage and ribs from Hoover’s. I am an omnivore after all, even though I rarely eat red meat these days. I made an exception this weekend.

And if my lunch plate looked a little light, it’s because I saved room for a slice of heavy cherry cobbler that I’d ordered.

There was a time when I could’ve eaten the entire thing in one setting. Nowadays, I have to limit my sugar intake to a couple of tastes. At least I get to have cherry cobbler for a few desserts.

For the next Saturday, we went to another part of the world: Argentina.

I’d spent my 46th birthday and some other special meals at the Buenos Aires Cafe. Of course, I ordered empanadas, but I still had some other options that I hadn’t tried before such as the grilled chicken and polenta. This restaurant had two sets of doors. As soon as we opened the second set, a small table blocked anyone from entering. Yet, our orders were already bagged up and waiting for us. Now THAT’s service!

Not sure when I’ll feel comfortable with dining in again, but I’ll continue to support one local restaurant every Saturday through my to-go orders.

Coronavirus Yoga Challenge

My yoga studio was one of the last nonessential businesses to shut down. As a matter of fact, they made several accommodations prior to the city’s demand that nonessential businesses shut down.

They sanitized surfaces such as door handles and counters more often. We stopped exhaling through our mouths. They marked the floor so we could place our mats 6ft away from one another. We no longer signed our names on the clipboard, but only swiped our cards, which a few days later became making a reservation online for classes to make the whole process completely contactless.

Despite all of those efforts, they still had to comply with the city of Austin’s declared shelter in place order. They devised a virtual workaround after a week. All I have to do is register for the classes I want to attend, then click on the link they send 15 minutes prior to class.

Every day at noon, I take either a 60-minute Bikram class, a 60-minute Inferno Hot Pilates class, a 90-minute Ashtanga class, or a 90-minute Intermediate Bikram class. This has been the easiest yoga challenge ever. Absolutely amazing how easily one can attend a daily yoga class in one own’s living room when there’s next to no social life–only prolonged social distancing.

Having a midday mediative activity has truly helped me stay focused and not drown in time. My days are divided into “before yoga class” and “after yoga class.” And thanks to working from home Monday through Friday, I still have a sense of the weekends.

Nonetheless, walking outside, even if it’s merely taking the long route to and from checking the mail, has become far more precious than it’s ever been. I know the air is cleaner these days, but seeing new things in 3D, rather than on a 2D screen has been wonderful.

For Earth 2.0, or however one’s keeping track, daily meditation will continue long after the shelter in place. As a matter of fact, all the fanciful illusion that smokescreens reality will be confined in fictional works. Let’s see if the rest of my fellow Americans will follow suit.

Backpack Full of Cash Panel Discussion

The League of Women Voters’ latest sponsored documentary was “Backpack Full of Cash.” Even though I no longer teach, I still support public schools. This particular documentary essentially showed how big business has made an enormous effort to privatize education through charters and kill public schools.

After the documentary, there was a panelist discussion,

where a moderator rifled through the collection of audience questions and three experts responded: a charter school administrator, a researcher who knew local Texas public school statistics and another expert who knew Texas statewide statistics.

Although the charter school panelist (CSP) was brave to appear, she seemed physically uncomfortable and always allowed the other two panelists to answer the questions first, ensuring that she’d be set up to give a defensive response. Not only did the documentary make charter schools look horrible, but so did two out of three panelists.

Since the movie theatre we were in served food and drink, where moviegoers could write down orders on conveniently located pieces of paper with the provided pens, I took notes (in bold) on some points that stood out to me during the movie and the panel discussion.

One part of the documentary showed a charter school where they teach creationism as the truth, evolution as a myth and that dinosaurs coexisted with humans. They also believed in corporal punishment, but the only one who should have been paddled was the white principal and not any of his black students who’re learning about fucking creationism as if they don’t have enough challenges being poor and black. As I reflect on this note, the only one I took during the documentary, I recall how neatly dressed and well behaved the all-black student body were as they were being intellectually set back. I can only hope that being literate will lead them to read the truth at some point. I also wondered where were the poor white students. Would creationism be taught as the truth if they were present?
I knew my question, which wasn’t really a question, wouldn’t be read since it was too heavy a topic, but glaringly obvious: “Please respond to the following comment: Equitable funding in education will never occur until we get rid of the concept of ‘race,’ which is a social construction that severely limits resources for people of color.” Yet I shared that with the one panelist whose answers resonated with me the most. She totally agreed and said she’d talk about race all day long. Too bad the moderator merely stuck with the topic of lack of funding without asking a single question about race. Throughout the documentary, people of color were shown reacting to and protesting against public school funding being reduced while the most enthusiastic people about establishing more charter schools were wealthy white people, including Jeb Bush. Yet not one mention of race during the panelist discussion.
One local charter school used to expel students if they didn’t come to school “prepared and ready to learn.” Imagine how many “undesirable” students could be eliminated with such a nebulous policy. Those would be the students who consumed many resources, either through the need for specialists or more contact time due to behavior. Those are the students who may lower the prestige of the charter since they may not score as well on the almighty standardized tests. Those are the students most in need of innovative teaching.
Charters are not locally accountable since their boards are private. Essentially, charters can do whatever they want without consulting with the public even though they are funded by public money.
SPEDs (Special Education students) cost districts twice as much, which is part of the reason charter schools get rid of them. It’s amazing how the public still hasn’t made the connection between underserving a special needs population through education, then incarcerating them later on. The community should protest with outrage every time special education funding is reduced.
Charter schools don’t have to admit students with discipline problems. This is also known as “cherry picking.” One would think that charter schools produced spectacular results as much as they cherry pick. Only about a third of them perform better than regular public schools, which accepts all students.
Charter schools don’t “backfill,” so if students want to join in the upper grades, they cannot. Lower grades have far more students and the senior class is very small. Charter schools only want students who have a proven track record at their school. Once a charter school weeds out the undesirables, they don’t want to spend additional resources on unknowns.
CSP looked physically ill throughout the entire conversation and wanted everyone to stop pitting charters against traditional public schools. How ironic that she wanted us to stop saying negative things about charter schools when the presence of charter schools drains money from public schools, and concentrates students who need the most resources in public schools.
CSP wanted to throw magnet schools under the bus as well if charter schools won’t be allowed to turn students away. Classic misery enjoys company.
Charter schools can simply fill out a short amendment form, which allows them to open a charter anywhere without any local notice or input although local tax payers fund them 100% and have no say in the matter.
CSP stated that in DC, when charter schools opened, both the traditional and charters thrived academically, but she couldn’t give a local example of such a phenomenon and the other two panelists looked dubious when they heard the claim.
A Yale study looked at how charter school graduates had a harder time adapting to open-ended situations more than graduates of traditional schools.
A more productive use of charter schools would be to teach the hardest student population. I could’ve leapt out of my seat when my favorite panelist said this. Yet, unfortunately, I believe the probability of charter schools going in this direction is as likely as the United States resigning its concept of “race.”
Charters should have a 10-yr wind down where the lab shuts down and the experimental charter school shares their best practices with traditional schools as the founders of charter schools originally intended. Again, my favorite panelist suggested another dream that has yet to come true–charter schools functioning as they were originally intended, as centers of educational innovation.

If These Walls Could Talk

As part of my MLK weekend celebration, I visited the Neill-Cochran House Museum.

Here’s how I know I’m not a journalist: of all the pictures I took on the inside of this house museum, I took nary a picture of the outside of the museum.

Throughout the museum, there were porcelain art pieces.

Had I actually read the signs that I took pictures of throughout the house, I would’ve made sure to take more than a mental picture of all the objects mentioned.

Hiding a gun in a Bible? How Texan.

Of course, this was my favorite room.

I figured I could’ve used the materials to add to the word wall installation.

Yet I felt more in the mood to take pictures than anything else.

Without really saying, “Build a wall,” this decorative wall of words repurposed that chant.

The following was my favorite construction:

How serendipitous that two girls entered this room when I did.

Throughout my tour, I made sure not to include other people in my shots. I felt these young ladies were appropriate to the photo composition.

This porcelain piece, which represented the doll Topsy Turvey, stimulated so many thoughts:

the black doll following a European standard of beauty with blue eyes; the capitalist’s pursuit of money covering their bases with a black and a white doll; how black and white people fates are invariably intertwined; how these dolls represented the enslaver’s half daughters.

Too bad every trip to a museum doesn’t conclude with a live performance like this one.

The contemporary griot entertained us with a humorous and lively narrative, detailing the history of the house. Mainly how the whites who owned it and the architect who designed it are known, but the nameless faceless slave labor will only be known by creating such a long-lasting work of beauty.

Mad Hatter BD Party

This is how I know I’m fostering my circle of friends well:

one of them planned a Mad Hatter party for her 40th birthday. Not only did I dash into my closet, which is half costumes, to retrieve my Mad Hatter attire, but I rummaged through my boxes of creative fodder to Mad Hatterly wrap a gift for her.

Although she’d messaged me pictures of her costume and wig,

seeing the whole thing all put together in the flesh was fabulous. Look how that wrapped gift looks at home in her hands!

Once The Austin Writers Roulette closed in December 2019,

I didn’t think I’d have an opportunity to dress up so soon at the start of 2020.

I’m so happy I’m not the only middle aged adult who still nourishes her inner child.

Even the birthday cake, made of moist dark chocolate, set the scene.

Yet I avoided the cupcake tree.

Although my inner child would have loved it, my outer middle ager acknowledged she could no longer consume vast amounts of sugar in one setting.

The funniest thing about the tea party was we sipped a variety of beverages, and not one of them were actually tea!

The teapot was full of adult punch and the ceramic teacups were full of drink snacks.

These two were truly belles of the ball: the birthday girl’s aunt and mother.

These ladies had so much fun, they changed outfits and hats several times throughout the evening.

Technically, this wasn’t part of the Mad Hatter decor, but I have a soft spot for bathroom poetry.

By far the most intriguing drink snack was the lemon shots.

Not only were they delicious, they were environmentally sound.

Everyone dug out all their fun clothes for the evening.

The youngest partygoer definitely brought the cuteness.

As other decked out partygoers arrived, party aunt did her brand of photobombing.

Notice how cleverly this couple’s costume concept was brought together with adult punch.

The inner princess came out while playing a drinking game.

Since we were mostly experienced adults,

no one objected to the rule of sipping one’s beverage instead of taking a full shot.

Periodically, hats changed since there was a large bag of them to parade around in.

I managed to get one picture of the princess by herself.

Followed by her aunt and mother, who never seemed to wear the same outfit or hat in any given picture.

At my direction, all the men were rounded up for their group picture.

Here was the first attempt at the all women’s picture.

Then again.

And another because I wanted to make sure my leggings were in the shot.

The two birthday women assumed the position to blow out the candles.

Superstitious or not, I hope their wishes come true.

So many hats. I placed a nearby hat on the decorative skull.

Only when I reviewed the pictures later on did I actually see the cigarettes and lighter. What an intriguing story this picture tells.

Again, at my direction,

the music changed to reflect something the birthday girl would actually dance to despite the fact she doesn’t really like to dance. But of course, the true dancing queen was the aunt.