Silver Linings
We are locked and loaded in Los Angeles. Thank god I still adore my husband.
There are many benefits to being out in LA during the winter months and the obvious one is the sunshine. We also have friends and family out here so our annual journey is one for spending time and reconnecting.
I feel the same when I get back to NYC. I can hardly wait to see and connect with friends. I keep up during the winter months but it is different when your feet are on the same island.
The silver lining in this pandemic is FaceTime. I am talking and seeing friends in NYC and also LA because we are in lockdown. I am on treads of texts with groups as well as individual friends.
In a world that has been running at such a high speed of angst, the silver lining is the brilliance of connecting with friends across the globe. It changes the game. I don’t feel as disconnected. I can hear their angst, their anxiety’s and frustrations of what is happening. I can talk about other things from what are you watching, reading, eating? I can see their faces and really see how they are fending. We can even have a cocktail together.
Through all of this, the silver lining is we are all in it together and it is forcing us to stay home and with that stay connected in a new way and perhaps more connected.
Comments (Archived):
True, lots of time to reflect and introspect. I keep hearing of couples testing their relationship as both are at home during work time.
Oh yeah for sure this will be a big thing. Relationships are made and lost on how you handle the bad times. Anyone can get along if no conflict.For example you and I get along great, right? But we have nothing to have a disagreement over!!!That said (I am 1/2 joking) the thing about relationships that I have observed over the years is this:1) It pays to two people that are smart. By ‘smart’ I don’t mean ‘educated’. Want to be clear about that.2) It pays to have a partner that is mature in personality and understands people and can back down if needed.3) It pays to have two people that are reasonable (duh) and accepting of the other’s quirks. For example I need total silence when coming home and eating dinner (because I read the paper and I am sensitive to noise) and my wife 100% accepts and accommodates that.4) If not ‘3’ it pays to have 1 person who is pretty much firmly in control and the other person accepts that (to use a term I hate) ‘drives the bus’. In other words they are cool with the other person making the ‘rules’ and they are good going with that control (and even like it).Now for the clincher. I get the idea that in Fred and Joanne’s relationship the following applies:#1 (both), #3 (Joanne drives). I am not joking about that either.
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The silver lining for me is gratitude and a change in how we treat the lower end of the supply chain.Some states are making shelvers in stores, delivery people essential workers and providing child care and increased pay.The realization that people not fiber is the last mile for survival in places like NY is a positive that we need to hold onto as we come out the other side.
I do hope we hold on to that on the other side.
so do i.without delivery people right now and doormen/women we would be finished.other realization i had yesterday that without amazon it all crashes. they are almost a public utility like electricity in their need.i wish i had been smarter and moved to the HV for this not in NYC but the realizations are many.
.It sounds like pure Hell, not having a doorman/woman. Just Hell.Hope you survive the ordeal. I cannot imagine how damaging it must be.Get counseling — for the doorman/woman thing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
read more carefully i didn’t say there weren’t i said that there must be and must respect those who do so.
.Thanks for that clarification, Arnold. Huge load off my mind because I was really stressing out about the idea of your not having a doorman.Like I said, must be Hell. Stay sharp.I feel your pain. My maid can’t come and I had to do a load of wash. Almost wrecked me.Be safe.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
You are letting him off to easy actually (even in jest). Arnold says in another comment there are 300 families in the building. My guess (actually not a guess) is that these are not 300 families full of 80 year olds. As such you would think that such a nice group of fortunate people who are home that someone or several would volunteer to (property dressed of course) take over the duties of that front door person and the ‘porters’. Or chip in and figure out a way to pay someone to do that work.Now if it’s a condo complex (Arnold may be in a rental) then the condo board basically is in charge of taking up the slack. That is what happened at buildings that I have been in. That is what probably would happen at the office complex where I am on the board.Ditto for having to go out and pick things up. Organize in the building residents who are willing and able to do that. Impossible to believe there are not some ‘good eggs’ that would. 5 person building hard. 300 family building possible.Actually now that I am writing this I have remembered that a local realtor here where I am (my guess is for future business (cynically)) sent around an email saying if anyone needed anything she could do it for them.See the attached of that act of kindness. Lorraine is available to ‘pick up prescriptions, supplies or whatever is needed’…. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
She sounds like a lovely lady. How cynical of you L 🙂
🙂
HV?After this is over i assume you’ll all be voting to increase their pay and benefits to reflect their true value.
Hudson ValleyAlready do.
Are you now prevented from making the journey to Hudson Valley? NYC is in lockdown?
We are in self quarantine.Will continue to be so.Staying where you are is smart, prudent, responsible.
Unlike here where London’s comfortable classes are ignoring any sense of personal responsibility and heading to Cornwall to escape the virus. The Cornish natives are not happy about it, but government is doing nothing to stop the exodus.Are you not leaving your apartment at all?
http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…
“Go out before dawn to walk and that’s it.” We would all go a little crazy if we were not able to get out all. I’m running in the park, a wide and open place where i can keep to the social distancing protocol.The darkest hour is the one before the dawn, and in these trying times this is a positive thought to hold. Reform is essential if we are to cope better with the next pandemic, and there will be a next one. Globalisation guarantees it.UBI now seems like it has found a compelling reason to be.
for mepre first light is my favorite time of the day.most positive most creativein my youth that is when i would come home.now I wake to write and work.it’s all about opportunity.each to their own.
https://www.newyorker.com/n…
I share your wish but fear that, even now, that gratitude is not evenly distributed.
Here in Brexitland, it’s rightly spawned a discussion around how critical the supposedly unskilled jobs are and what that means for visa policy. You’d have thought people would have been aware of that before.
so true and we can hope that on the other side of it they are more secure.in a building with 300 families without this infrastructure it doesn’t work and these people are the critical link,teaches me gratitude and from that generosity towards them.
It only requires the welfare state to be reimagined as UBI and millions of natives would then be freed from bureaucratic restrictions (the origins of which are to be found in the Poor Laws and workhouse thinking) to fill unskilled positions up and down Brexitland. The UK needs to be radically reformed. This virus is so very revealing.
I don’t feel as disconnected. I can hear their angst, their anxiety’s and frustrations of what is happening. I can talk about other things from what are you watching, reading, eating?I have always called this ‘talk to your aunt time’. Not in specific your aunt but someone that you would not have the patience or the time to speak with during a regular day (or even at night) about ‘nothing’.A good example is during a long car trip. You are looking to kill time. Even ‘nothing’ talk gets you into a zone. Before you know it an hour or two has passed. Good time to hear (in yiddish) ‘bubba minsas’. That roughly translates to ‘grandma stories’. Those were stories (as my Dad said) when you were growing up that your grandma told you. Very generally it’s said in a derogatory way but in this case it’s a good thing.http://www.yiddishslangdict…
.You know who is crushing it — Gov Andrew Cuomo.The guy is so well-spoken, so calm, so well-informed. This is the mark of a great crisis leader.He lays out the problem, doesn’t promise any pie-in-the-sky promises, leaves the public with a clear understanding of where he sees the challenges.This kind of confident and confidence-building performance gets people to follow you.Who knew?I would vote for this guy.Could he be possessed? Maybe somebody else is inside his normal body?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I was talking to a co-worker today- we were looking out the 19th floor window onto a deserted downtown and she sighed and was like, “you know, despite all this, I feel happy inside.”. I’m like “yes! I know exactly what you’re talking about.”. It seems like mother Earth is doing some rebalancing or something, like this is necessary for something she needs to do. I dunno, at the risk of being fluffy and new agey, yes the financial aspect is scary, and yes we need to take this very seriously, but I don’t feel too much panic. I hope I’m not being naive by saying that I feel like something good is going to happen out of all this.
I get it and am right there with you.