Category: Personal

Exposed.

Did you know the CDC has a calculator that tells you what steps to take when you’re
exposed to COVID?  Now you do.

And so do I. One of my cubemates tested positive this morning. He thinks he picked it up over the weekend, but in my opinion, he probably picked it up sooner. It really depends on the variant, but a lot of them don’t show up on a test that quickly. It’s usually five days.

Well, we were both in on Friday and talked a bit, so I consider myself exposed. I feel fine and have had five COVID vaccines, including the bivalent in September, but I went to the CDC website to figure out what I should do because people, have you ever Googled “exposed to covid what to do no symptoms?” So much conflicting guidance. I’m not talking about woo-mongering antivax sites, either. I’m talking about university medical center sites, health systems sites, WebMD (hey, don’t knock it, I used to freelance for them and can tell you the citations requirements are onerous, to say the least), and mainstream media.

I’m following the CDC guidance, which says I should get tested on Thursday, and then again on Saturday. It also says I should mask up in public through Sunday, but as I am sick to death of masking and the weather is largely going to be lousy until Monday, I am staying home barring grocery/CVS/testing runs until then. (“Oh, no! Not the briar patch!” cried the introvert.)

This does throw a wrench into a bunch of plans, but I really don’t want to spread this around and ruin anyone’s holidays should I be infected.

At the risk of tempting fate, as I mentioned in another entry, I have managed to avoid getting it so far. Or, I have managed to avoid it as far as I know, as any time I’ve had even the slightest symptoms, I’ve tested negative. It’s strange, given that I take public transportation and Metro is a Petri dish, but there it is. There are studies to suggest that people who eat a plant-based diet are less likely to contract the virus and less likely to get severe symptoms if they do contract it, regardless of vaccination status. I’d been a pescatarian since 2009, until about a month ago when I went largely vegan, barring mistakes, ignorance, and oddball circumstances. (Never would have thought some brands of plain ol’ vegetable soup use eggs or milk?) I hope I can keep my streak going.

I will say this, because it’s my blog and I can, but no one will ever convince me that this whole pandemic isn’t a direct result of humanity’s exploitation of animals as commodities. I sincerely believe that there would be a LOT more vegetarians and vegans if people only saw the absolutely filthy and abhorrent conditions the animals they eat are born into, live short miserable lives in, and die in. Hint: You wouldn’t be too healthy if you had to stand in one place all day long, shoulder-to-shoulder with your neighbor, sleep on feces- and urine-covere concrete or wire, and eat food with feces, urine, blood, dirt, feathers, and other debris in it, all while being shot up with hormones and fed a diet designed to make you as huge as possible, right? Well, that’s what factory farming is. Never mind cruelty and the environment. Animal farming is just plain dirty and gross, and pathogens love dirty and gross, like the obscenely filthy wet market where the coronavirus that gave us COVID jumped from animal to humans. Hard pass.

Plus, when your baking is vegan, you can lick the spoon and not have to worry about salmonella. It’s the little things.

 

Celebrating (the end of) 2022.

Today Holidailies asks “What do you actually celebrate during the holidays, if anything?”

I’m an atheist, so nothing religious. I celebrate friendship, the achievements of the year, the wonder of winter, and the festive spirit around me. I haven’t put up a tree in 9 years, but when I did, it was a Memory Tree, not a Christmas tree: The ornaments were given to me by my parents or friends, or I bought them on my travels, while out with friends, or as a collector’s item.

This year I’m also celebrating the forthcoming end of 2022, as this was not a particularly fabulous year. It was great up until about April, and then I got hammered with a bunch of health issues, starting with a root canal retreatment after a dentist missed an entire canal a few years ago. But hey, I still haven’t gotten You-Know-What-19, knock on wood and let’s not tempt fate.

The biggest thing is that I’m officially a heart patient, after a scan revealed a 40-60% blockage in a coronary artery. So now I have a cardiologist. He put me on rosuvastatin (Crestor) and wow, my LDL and triglycerides fell into the basement and my HDL is at pre-menopausal levels. The only real side effect I’ve gotten is that if I don’t stay hydrated my spit gets kind of bubbly and frothy, you’re welcome for the image. It also makes me a bit tired, but it’s actually a good thing because when my head hits the pillow, I’m out. Me, a lifelong insomniac. I mean, while the lights are on I’m awake, but once I flip the switch, I get sleepy very quickly. Weird but true.

When I spoke to my cardiologist, I said, “So, what, about 75?” Meaning my lifespan. Hey, next year, when I hit 57, I will have outlived everyone on my father’s side of the family except my father. People on his side all had lousy tickers and died in their early to mid 50s, which is why my internist sent me to a cardiologist in the first place.

Anyway, the cardiologist said, “NINETY-five.”

“I’ll compromise and say 85.”

“No, NINETY-five.”

“Doc, I don’t want to be 95 years old in the United States, for all kinds of reasons.”

And it’s true. I don’t. For one thing, I’m a Gen-Xer. I don’t suffer from the delusion that I’ll ever be able to fully retire. For another, with the American politics, health care system, and treatment of senior seniors being what they are, no. And there is some Alzheimer’s in my family and I want my body to go before my mind.

But let’s not dwell on all of that. Point is, I’m SUPER glad that 2022 is drawing down because I’ve had better years.

And it started so WELL, too, with a fun New Year’s Eve party, some great city-hikes, a day-trip to Richmond, and plans to go to Poland to see my favorite band, Poets of the Fall (which got canceled for a few reasons).

Moving on, as this is a HAPPY occasion…

I did enjoy one thing all year, though: My apartment. After a major misfire with my last place, I’m happy to report that the place I moved into a year ago is PERFECT for me. It’s big, I love the layout, I have two full bathrooms (one of which is pretty much Inigo’s, heh), a separate office, and a spare room that I use as a home gym. I’m near everything—restaurants, nightlife, groceries, drugstore, some retail, most of my health care team, parks, trails, the county library, and a Metro station–but my place isn’t on a main drag. I told the landlord I’m not leaving unless I relocate, retire, expatriate, or expire. It’s perfect for aging in place.

Bonus: There is a great tree right in front of my living room window and all sorts of birds come by. Blue Jays, Sparrows, Chickadees, Northern Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves, American Robins, American Crows, and Fish Crows are the main visitors, but this fall a White-Breasted Nuthatch stopped by, and a Downy Woodpecker spent a few days woodpecking.

Squirrels of assorted hues, including black, also scamper around, and I like to think one of the black ones is the son or daughter of Amica, the black squirrel who used to sit in the tree and watch my TV through the window when I put cartoons on for Inigo. Unfortunately, she died. I found her curled around a fencepost last winter, not long after she passed as her tummy was still warm. Her back legs and hips were broken, so she probably got clipped by a car. I cried for a week and miss her still.

Here she is, as seen through the window, welcoming me when I took measurements of the apartment before I moved in. Whenever I put cartoons on, she would sit in the tree just like that and watch them.

 

I often put peanuts on the balcony railing. In the spring the Crows come for them, but lately the Blue Jays seem to have claimed the territory. I think they know my face and see me from afar because when I went out there today to put the peanuts out, I could have sworn there were no birds in any of the trees nearby, and suddenly a Blue Jay landed in the tree, looked at me, and let out a low series of whistles and soft chirps that sounded a little bit like R2-D2 gargling. Then it let out a few of the more customary and ear-splitting Blue Jay calls and boom, three more flew in. So I said, “Peanuts here! Get yer peanuts here!” and went inside to watch them from the living room. I’ll try to get some photos of them, but they are still a little skittish.

This entry is getting long, so I’ll end it here.

Emmie

One of my little rules is that I don’t work on Friday nights. Not job work, not house work, not errands. But I have a pretty busy weekend planned, and I knew I wouldn’t get up early tomorrow to do grocery shopping, so I set out to do so tonight. I really didn’t want to go, and I put it off, knowing, and dreading, that I was going to have to walk through the nightlife part of town. There would be a lot of people out, it would be noisy, and leftovers from happy hour would be stumbling around like revenants looking for a second life. I mumbled. I grumbled. I took the trash out. Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.

I gathered my things and got to the elevator before I realized I didn’t have any tissues with me. I carry them not so much for myself, although there’s that, but also because sometimes I find dead birds. I cannot bear to leave them on the sidewalk or street, where people will step around them with a look of disgust and maybe kick them aside, kids will poke them with sticks, and dogs will chew them up, so I pick them up with a tissue and lay them to rest under trees or shrubs. My mood darkening yet further, I went back to my apartment and stuffed a few tissues in my bag.

About ten minutes into my walk I hit the strip. Sure enough, there were what seemed like a million people out, and good on ’em. They were seeing friends, having dinner, window-shopping, getting ice cream…and stepping around a little round bird. She was tiny, barely the size of a golf ball, a fledgling. And she was trying over and over to fly, only to crash into storefront windows, parked cars, trash bins, and a tree. People were pausing, watching, saying “awwww,” moving along.

Normally, when you find a fledgling—a fully feathered, or nearly fully feathered, baby bird that is learning to fly—it is best to leave it where it is. Its parents are nearby and will continue to take care of their little one even if it’s grounded. I looked for the nest and couldn’t see one. I listened, and I didn’t see or hear any parents. Sometimes parent birds get frantic in situations like that.

Flutter, crash, flutter, crash.

The little one was exhausting herself. More people came. Some had dogs, and I got between them and the bird. She landed on a tree trunk and tried to climb, only to flutter to the ground.

I took out my phone and looked for local wildlife rehabilitators. I left a message with one and the recording said they would call back in 30 minutes.

Fifteen minutes went by.

Flutter, crash, flutter, crash.

Some guys came toward us with their dog. I asked them to stay back. When they saw her they said “sure” and “absolutely,” and asked me if she would be all right. I said I was trying to get her help. As they walked away one looked over his shoulder and said, “Thank you for doing that.”

I began to get out my phone to look for another wildlife rehabilitator. As I was digging through my purse, I looked down at the little one, told her I wouldn’t hurt her, and asked her if she was okay.

She looked at me, and then she flew up toward me, right at me, so help me, right toward my heart. I held out my hand and she landed in it. Just landed in it all by herself. She was cool to the touch—not a great sign—and she hunkered down into my palm to warm up, so I held her. Here she is:

I sat on a bench and another fifteen minutes went by. Baby birds need to eat every half hour, and I was getting worried. She seemed content nestled in my hand, and she gave me quite a fright when she closed her eyes and took a little nap because I thought for a moment that she had died.

So there I was, empty grocery bags strewn out beside me, my glasses askew on my head, trying to find a wildlife rehabilitator on my phone with one hand, holding a precious fledgling in the other, trying not to cry and failing. A mother and her daughter came out of the ice cream shop, asked me how the little one was doing—which was just enough interaction to force me to compose myself—and left. The only two wildlife rehabilitators I could find worked with mammals, so I called the first one on the list, who worked with opossums.

We spoke for about five minutes, and she said that the tragedy in these situations is that with so many people around, even if the parents were around, they wouldn’t have flown down to their baby. We both knew this little one would not have stood a chance, especially as there would soon be drunken revelers filling the sidewalks. Someone would have stepped on her, either accidentally or deliberately, so once she perked up and started getting squirmy in my hand, I put her in one of my reusable shopping bags, called an Uber, and took her to the lady’s house.

Once she saw the little one, she knew it was the right thing that I removed her from the area. She said this wee one was sufficiently developed that she would probably eat—any younger and they often won’t eat from anyone but the parents—and she would take care of her and eventually release her in a park behind her house.

Funny part is, after we got to talking for a few minutes, it turned out that this woman grew up in Manhattan and her mother’s best friend is from my hometown on Long Island, so she knew my hometown well. It is indeed a small world, and we’re all connected somehow.

I called another Uber and texted a few friends on the way home. It’s a running joke that I’m the one who talks to birds, not unlike how Linus Van Pelt in Peanuts used to pat Woodstock and other birds on the head. And I just had to share the story.

The ride home made me a little carsick, and by the time I got up to my apartment the evening had begun to catch up to me. I washed up and took care of my own bird, making sure to apologize for coming home without his nanners. After a few more texts, one of my friends said “your heart must be so full right now,” and it’s a good thing I had those tissues nearby.

Indeed my heart is full in a way it hasn’t been for a very long time. That this sweet, fragile little bird trusted me enough to fly to me for help is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. Holding her, watching her settle in, knowing that she knew I wouldn’t hurt her and that I would do my best to help her, sensing the gratitude coming from her even in her exhaustion—if I could share that feeling with the entire world, I would.

Little one, I don’t know what your parents named you, but to me you seemed like an Emmie, so I hope it’s okay that I think of you with that name. I hope you have a good night’s sleep, and that you will grow to have a happy, birdie life. Thank you for trusting me and allowing me to help you, and I hope that somehow your parents understand that you came to no harm in my hands and are now safe. Wherever you may fly, you will always be loved.