Time Machine, Lockdown, and the Human Condition

            Like so much of the planet I’ve been at home since March with the company of my faithful TV.  No cable so there are a number of channels showing old TV series, old movies, and one channel dedicated to old game shows.  Hence the name, time machine.  My partner on his last visit from Spain called it dead people’s TV and said it brought back the nostalgia of his childhood since many of those shows were broadcast all around the world.

            After a day of pretending to work on my novel, I turn on the TV.  It immediately transports me to another world, one which was simpler and more less conservative.  After all, the 70’s were about trying out new freedoms, both sexual and political.  It’s like when we look way back to the pre code era of the early 1930’s.  Films portrayed all types of relationships along with many female characters. 

            The other night I watched a long forgotten (if ever watched) film called “Congratulations, It’s a Boy” starring Bill Bixby.  The main character played by Bixby discovers he has a 17 year old son, product of a fling.  There is no moral dilemma here.  However, there is homophobia when Bixby’s parents think he might be gay.  Fortunately, we’ve overcome that stigma. 

            The only game show I can stomach is Tattletales, another product of the 70’s.  Here there’s a wealth of information since there are three couples and the host.  My activity while watching these shows is conducting google searches of these vaguely reminiscent figures of the past.  These aren’t the big name actors of yesteryear like Paul Newman.

            The searches I conduct are to find out answers to questions  like who is still alive?  Who lived the longest? Who had successful children?  And therein lies the human condition in all its pain and glory.  Bill Bixby lost his son at a young age to a skiiing accident. Years later, his wife committed suicide by gunshot. 

            The host of Tattletales, Bert Convey, and one of the panelist, Bobby Van both died of brain tumors which struck me as an odd coincidence.  Van’s life, Elaine Joyce, married about four times while Robert Vaughn, a TV actor was married for decades to the same woman.  Finding out what happened to people is reassuring in the era of uncertainty.  And, on the plus side, it keeps me busy with research when I’m not quite ready for my novel.  A writer friend once told me, the only writing he could control was non-fiction.  Perhaps fiction is too difficult in this time of anxiety.  My brain is occupied with survival so the stories I find show just how that worked out for these TV personalities. 

Bees, Rats, and Masks- A Look at the American Problem of Individualism

         I am beginning to understand the reluctance of Americans to wear facial masks to protect themselves and others in the Covid era.  We have heard enough about the American 'individualism' and I have seen it in action in my own neighborhood.  I live in the West Side of Buffalo, New York, a neighborhood defined by houses and an occasional small apartment building.  The houses which often were once single family homes are usually broken up into apartments and I live in one of three in a home built in the early 1900’s.

            Having lived in densely populated cities like New York and Barcelona, I am surprised at how there is very little sense of sharing space and living together.  My downstairs neighbor is a case in point.  When she and her husband first moved in, they threw out some of the belongings I had in the basement, wrongly assuming that every space is theirs.  They put up a fire pit and bird feeders.  When I photographed photos of rats eating at the feeder and requested she take it down, she lost control and screamed that I was ruining her home.  Her home?  Rats?  We are all in it together in a rental.  Not to mention the endless smell of marijuana wafting up from her apartment into mine as early as 8 in the morning.  I have diffusers and candles (soy, of course) set up in all corners to mask the skunk like smell.

            The second case is the neighbor whose property is directly behind where we live.  She set up beehives on a platform.  As one friend pointed out, they are as far from her home and as close to mine as possible.  I pointed out to her that the bees are aggressive and that in a city beehives may not be ideal.  I was uanble to sit in my yard and was chased indoors by one.  

          She is bringing in another.  I told her the bees could kill someone who is allergic.  We have a two week old baby on the other side of the property who could be vulnerable.  The same downstairs neighbors (of the bird feeder dilemma) said the bees fly around their apartment.  Why should we all adapt to her schedule of feeding and cleaning the hives when we have to stay inside while she is in her protective gear?  There is no give and take here.

            So where is the concern for the greater good?  I don’t like to lump bees in the same category as rats but in an urban area they can cause problems.  The same concept applies to masks.  Can’t you just put one on for the sake of those around you?  Be considerate of those around you and hopefully, we can all live together. 

A Look at Where you Are

Taking a look at place

            One of the things that’s struck me most about living in the corona virus spread is the importance of where you are- your home, your location.  You’d better like it because no matter how restless you get or how low flight prices drop, you may be stuck there for awhile. 

            There are positives to being ‘at home’,  You know how to manage with grocery shopping and medical care if you need it.  I have a friend in her 80’s who just last week got on a plane to go alone to Florida.  There, she’ll need to figure out the basics of functioning in a suburban sprawl with no car. This just may not be the best time for moving.

            My partner in Barcelona has a ticket to come to Buffalo at the end of March and he’s trying to change that trip.  He doesn’t want to get sick in a place with a complicated health care system nor does he want to get stuck in a quarantine.  As he put it, he’d rather stay at home.

            That brings me to a fear I have that I can trace back many years to my mother.   She left her home in Latgale in the middle of the night with bombs falling thinking she’d return in a week.  That never happened nor did she ever see her father or brother again.  That was her exile after the Second World War. 

            I want to return to my beloved Spain.  I want to walk by the sea, eat a fabulous meal, and drink a good strong red wine with friends.  I hope I can and that it will be soon.