The COVID-19 Crisis and Everyday Life
I've discussed some of my Navy friends in a
recent essay; one of them, a Navy buddy/fellow NPS instructor (BG), reached out to me on Facebook recently. I was mildly surprised, because we really hadn't been in touch since Joe and Lynn's wedding and my surname is difficult to write/remember. As I mentioned earlier, being in NPS was a limited-term gig, a 4-year appointment. I had been sucked up into organizational politics and was offered an honorable discharge several months into my service. My fellow math instructors and I made for a colorful group of characters I once toyed with converting into a sitcom. There were 2 unmarried couples in the group. JO was a big guy, often with a toothpick in his mouth, and his blond girlfriend I'll call Lorraine often mirrored his behavior in an amusing way, e.g, he might say, "Of course!", and she would echo it a split second later. Sally, BG's girlfriend, was a pretty blond young woman with glasses; I recall she was the first person I ever met who said I have bedroom eyes, which I took as a compliment. Sally and BG were annoyingly openly affectionate in front of the rest of us not in a relationship, especially my best friend Joe; I know I was jealous. Like I wrote earlier, most of the male instructors were single, and there weren't options to meet, say Navy nurses working on base.
There were comic aspects to working at NPS in the enlisted program. Being a math instructor wasn't a glamorous job, heavily scripted and designed to such an extent that a calculus concept we taught in one class might be used in a physics class later that day; if I called in sick, another instructor could easily substitute, covering the same material. (Thank God my 8 years of teaching MIS were not like that.) One comic incident I vividly remember was a time when I was auditing a fellow instructor's class, observing lecture technique, etc. I was seated at the back right corner, and as further context, my colleague had a hearing problem. So there was a square of 4 guys to my left, and they were whooping it up with Curly (Three Stooges) type sounds and literally bouncing their chair/desks around in rotation. My supervisor, WG, a no-nonsense type, must have spotted them passing by the room, came in and put an end to it.
A lot of us were looking at what would happen after our terms were up; could we transition into the regular Navy in a different role? I remember WG was obsessed with solar energy. I had a huge bundle of engineering study manuals I finally threw away during a recent move. I know my middle brother, a chemical engineer, and my 2 engineer nephews never understood why, with my math aptitude, I hadn't explored a more lucrative career option as an engineer. And the short answer is, I probably would have if I had stayed in the Navy longer. I stumbled into an IT career (initially as a programmer/analyst), when I sent in a job inquiry on a whim with my car insurance payment. I really hadn't collected enough education benefits to go back to college.
As I mentioned in the earlier essay, I had mostly lost touch with the rest of the gang after Joe and Lynn's wedding. I had kept in touch, mostly through Lynn, in annual holiday card exchanges. I think they moved to Maine, probably working in some capacity with a local shipyard, although I didn't know specifics; the last time I heard from them was years later. I know they had 2 daughters. One year Lynn's return address didn't reference Joe; I suspected separation or divorce. I don't think Lynn ever responded to my follow-up, but it's possible that I moved and the USPS didn't forward subsequent letters; I had misplaced the envelopes with the mailing address during my moves. BG recently confirmed their divorce but didn't provide information beyond that, other than sadness it had happened to 2 good friends.
It still surprises me when I encounter former colleagues who have already retired. (I had been fairly young for someone with a Master's, having just turned 22 two days before starting in the Navy, unemployed for 7 months after graduation.) I remember a few years back I had contacted JC to mention a post I had written in my SoftDoc blog. I had met JC, then a professor at an Arizona State who had been coordinating a series of human factors in MIS symposia, during the last few years of my academic career. At that point in time, human factors was a tiny niche in MIS, but one I had been drawn to since developing my own research program at UH. We liked each other and perhaps might have dated each other (that may be presumptuous on my part), but long distance relationships don't work. She was editor for 3 books for which I wrote chapters. In fact, I had coined SoftDoc as my business concept, somewhat inspired by 'Microsoft', as an unemployed academic after my temporary contract with ISU ended, and I think I used the affiliation with my last chapter. It's odd how you can recall little odd things. I loved my Mom's rhubarb pie (which she hasn't done since my high school days); JC, other presenters and I were at this restaurant during a symposium, and when it came to dessert, I spotted strawberry rhubarb pie on the menu and ordered that; JC immediately ordered the same. I probably was reading too much into that, but at the time I thought it was so cool. So anyway, in small talk in reference to my blog post, she mentioned that she had retired from Arizona State and was now living in Montana, Wyoming, or some other northern state, and I remember thinking how odd; many people choose to retire in Phoenix or some southern state to get away from the winter weather.
So when BG mentioned that he had retired in the Tampa Bay area, I was surprised but not shocked. Apparently he had reinvented himself as an actuary after leaving the Navy, and that's how he met his wife. I had embarrassed him in asking him about Sally; in fact, I don't think his marital status was listed on his Facebook page on the time. I had seen pictures of his wife, who seemed to have darker hair than Sally's blond, but I have a couple of ash blond siblings whose hair turned darker as adults.
I had recently texted BG on whether he had contact information on Joe or Lynn. I never got a response (still haven't), so I don't know if BG lost contact with them, didn't want to betray confidences or maybe I had pissed off one or both of them. I was disappointed I didn't at least get an acknowledgment to the message. But part of the reason may have been that Bill and his wife were probably on a cruise at the time I messaged. Maybe he mentioned an upcoming cruise on Facebook and I hadn't seen the post.
So he recently returned from his (interrupted) South American cruise, quipping he needed to check on his stocks (after the recent stock market crash over over 30%).
He recently posted something to the effect he had been unable to get a bag of something (let's say salt for purposes of discussion) for his home property delivered by Home Depot or other vendors. So I asked a naive question: can't you just drive up to Home Depot and do a curb pickup or whatever? Maryland is now under a stay-at-home rule, but at the time I wasn't aware of any restrictions of going to Home Depot (in MD it's considered an "
essential business"--I guess if you have a busted pipe, water heater, roof, etc) I didn't think Florida, at the time, was under lockdown.
BG obscurely referenced local policies, later mentioning he and his spouse made a decision to self-quarantine after the cruise, not because of known outbreaks but given their public exposure during the cruise. I later responded something to the effect, "Dude! You're an actuary! You have to know that your exposure (at least at the time) was highly unlikely..." No response. He later mentioned that he finally got his salt or whatever and thanked other locals who volunteered to bring some over in the interim.
Wrestlemania and COVID-19
Well, I'm sure WWE is in historic bad times, although I'm sure its premium channel is doing well during these stay-at-home days. A major portion of its revenue is live events, and that revenue has completely dropped off the cliff. The signature Wrestlemania event this weekend is still on, but at their no-audience performance facility in Orlando, this time over 2 nights (and at least some matches for the event seemed to have been already canned).
Probably the biggest development has been in the Universal Title match. WWE had the champion Bray Wyatt job the title to wrestling icon Goldberg, a part-time talent. The storyline never made sense: what had Goldberg done to deserve a shot at the belt? Whatever happened to Wyatt's right to a rematch to regain the title? Obviously WWE didn't think a rematch would be as big a draw. It's fairly clear that Goldberg would drop the title but to who? The answer was immediate: Roman Reigns. I'm not a fan of his signature moves: the Superman punch and spear. It seemed like WWE had been saving a Reigns vs Wyatt confrontation for Wrestlemania. Why didn't it happen?
It seems like WWE has had tepid responses in the past trying to establish Reigns as a babyface/good guy, and having Reigns beat a fairly popular but bizarre schizophrenic Wyatt/Fiend character wouldn't achieve the expected fan reaction. WWE management knew that Goldberg would draw heat for undeservedly beating Wyatt and serve as a heel for a Reigns match. (They could then serve up the saved Reigns/Wyatt match for Summerslam (my speculation).) No doubt WWE is hoping Goldberg's iconic reputation helps build an audience for Wrestlemania.
What happened to the match? Well, the context is, as most fans know, Roman Reigns experienced a recent (
second?) bout with leukemia, and he no doubt has a compromised immune system, which puts his health especially at risk during the current COVID-19 crisis. I don't think any WWE wrestler has tested positive for coronavirus, but apparently the Miz, one of the Smackdown tag team champs, showed up ill for a match against his cousins, the Uso's. I'm not sure if Reigns was at that taping and/or with the Uso's after the match, but given concerns about COVID-19 propagation, the possible risk of contamination of the ring by a performer not showing symptoms probably exacerbated personal health anxiety by Reigns, leading to his withdrawal. In the meanwhile, WWE Creative has booked Wyatt into a Wrestlemania revenge match against Cena, once the WWE workhorse babyface but now a sparingly used talent near retirement, like HHH, who no doubt will job to Wyatt.
So who will now face Goldberg? We should know during Friday's Smackdown, but rumor has it strongman Braun Strowman will replace Reigns. Of course, there's no storyline to explain Strowman's selection, given the fact he just jobbed the Intercontinental championship to Zahn. Maybe they'll book a #1 contender's rumble match Friday.
Personally I would have booked it differently. WWE originally booked Daniel Bryan into a Wrestlemania 30-like adversity build for gaining Zahn's newly won Intercontinental championship by requiring an allied wrestler qualify him for a match. I might have inverted Wrestlemania 30 by having Bryan win a triple threat against, say, Zahn and Strowman to qualify for a title shot against Goldberg later in Wrestlemania.
Rumor has it that Miz' illness has sidelined the expected tag team championship event. I don't see anything compelling about Wrestlemania that sparks my interest. I don't see how having Lesnar job to McIntyre or Goldberg to Strowman helps the product because neither of the prospective new champs is a draw. In part, that explains why they've taken two belts off Strowman so quickly. The only reason I might see it happening is to book, say, big Summerslam matches.
As I wrote in a recent tweet, I'm expecting NXT to run a Nexus type angle to take Rollins out after his recent promo. Maybe the Kevin Owens match will be an opportunity to push this.
I also responded to a Twitter hashtag identifying my 3 favorite wrestlers as Kurt Angle, Ultimate Warrior and Andre the Giant. The last one is a more sentimental choice. I didn't realize my maternal grandfather was a wrestling fan until I visited him while my folks were stationed in Germany during my college years and I went to visit him. This was before Andre's WWE run; he was squashing opponents in handicap matches as a babyface; my grandfather was blown away by his size. With Warrior, it was less about his wrestling moves and more about a distinct, compelling persona.
Minor COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Notes
During my minor hospital stay in November, I got prescribed a cholesterol med (I had earlier tests by my doctor which showed my readings on the higher end of normal, not enough to require meds) and they also boosted my thyroid deficiency. So you probably know how doctors want more blood work done after a period of time to evaluate the efficacy of the meds: e.g., do we need to increase dosages, etc.?
So a few weeks back I got a note from my physician's clinic simply saying I needed to pay them a visit. And about a month back I needed to have a series of tests done, this time having to go to one of the testing labs for a specialist, not coordinated with my physician, who probably wanted to check on my thyroid and cholesterol. I did ask the lab about at least the thyroid check, but the lab refused without an order from my doctor.
Long story short, I ran out of the cholesterol med with a "no refill" status from both Walmart and the mail order unit associated with my health insurance. I had called my clinic to report results from the specialist (she canceled my scheduled in-person to review blood results under COVID-19 restricted routine visit policies); the nurse had told me about the need to check cholesterol and thyroid, but didn't want me to visit for routine stuff.
So Walmart contacted me about needing to check with my doctor about my refill request (the clinic has instructions to have the pharmacy fax them). When several hours into the next business day no follow-up from Walmart, I called the clinic and talked to the nurse. Apparently during this interim period, they will extend prescriptions until hopefully the situation mitigates over the next 2-3 months.
I later get a call from Walmart that my insurance company had blocked a 90-day refill, saying that anything over 30 days had to go through mail order; I could get a temporary, say 30-day, supply from Walmart (maybe a 10-minute drive away). I must have spent a half hour on the phone talking to the mail order people; apparently they couldn't handle say 30 days from Walmart and 60 days mail order because the 60-day residual would be booked as a concurrent, unauthorized transaction.
I realize most people have far worse problems, but I had to take several proactive steps to get a routine prescription refilled. I also had to worry when I called the clinic, because I didn't know if Walmart had processed the prescription request and whether I would be wrongly duplicating the same request. Walmart hadn't sent a refill notification for the expiring prescription and the last time I went to the mail order vendor, all prescriptions showed no refills available. Not to mention the clinic had not warned me they would not prescribe refills without blood work. (I did get a note I needed to pay them a visit, but that was it. )
While I was at Walmart, I did a routine check on staples. I don't need eggs or toilet paper, but I checked, mostly out of curiosity. This time, for the first time I've checked, their eggs were completely sold out. Again, the entire paper products (toilet paper, etc) aisle was completely wiped out except for a few rolls of paper towels. This time I did see small posted notices to limit paper good purchases to 1 item. I saw a mostly depleted beef section in meats, several cold cuts also wiped out. Lots of employees restocking shelves.
