MountainMornings

We are a lucky generation. Just as Alzheimer’s was about to kick in, we could casually pick up our cell phones and retrieve a distant piece of the past in an instant. Who was that actress who played in that movie? Before you know it, we not only had her name, but the name of the whole cast and the movie! But we may not all be aware at how insidious big tech companies have become; you may want to queue up two Netflix documentaries about how our data is manipulated and our minds scrambled in the process.

“The Great Hack” https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542 is about the 2016 election and how Cambridge Analytica targeted and harvested our personal data, “…It uses the scandal as a framework to illustrate the data mining structures and algorithms that are undermining individual liberty and democratic society, one Facebook like and meme at a time.”

And then there’s “The Social Dilemma.” https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224 just out this year. If you’d rather not learn how our brains are being rewired by advertisers who would like us to pay attention to their products, I’d understand. But we need to understand how social media sites like Facebook not only “…seduce us into spending time and sharing information so they can sell both” – they can also encourage extreme ideologies in the process.

This week I did a little experiment of my own on Facebook. I posed this question: FB friends, please type into Google – “The election is” And comment with your first pop-up response. For instance, mine was “not over”

Out of 31 responses, 17 people, counting my comment, got the same result! Nearly half of my admittedly ‘selection biased’ results were ambiguous – The election is NOT OVER! Really? I’m calling my group of FB friends biased because I’m pretty sure they are all Biden supporters. And to think, right about this time on December 12, 2000, the SCOTUS decided with Bush vs Gore to stop the counting of votes in Florida! What happened in Florida 20 years ago still matters. https://www.propublica.org/article/why-bush-v-gore-still-matters

This morning, a front page article in the Washington Post tells us: “Just 25 Congressional Republicans acknowledge Biden’s Win.” 25 out of 249 legislators!!!

Two Republicans consider Trump the winner despite all evidence showing otherwise. And another 222 GOP members of the House and Senate — nearly 90 percent of all Republicans serving in Congress — will simply not say who won the election.

Those are the findings of a Washington Post survey of all 249 Republicans in the House and Senate that began the morning after Trump posted a 46-minute video Wednesday evening in which he wrongly claimed he had defeated Biden and leveled wild and unsubstantiated allegations of “corrupt forces” who stole the outcome from the sitting president.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/survey-who-won-election-republicans-congress/2020/12/04/1a1011f6-3650-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html

And yet, President-Elect Biden has said that many of his GOP colleagues have called to congratulate him on his win! What is going on here? Why would Google amplify this disinformation campaign designed to create chaos? According to the AP, “When the count is complete, Democrat Joe Biden will likely have racked up around 80 million votes – and won the White House by a greater margin than any president this century other than Barack Obama in 2008.”

If you’d like to get out of this funhouse feedback loop on your social matrix, you may want to disengage from Facebook, and use a different search engine. I’ve heard that duckduckgo isn’t too bad and doesn’t collect or sell your data, nor does it try to persuade! https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-vs-duckduckgo/301997/#close

… or not to be obese.

That is the question the CDC is now considering when prioritizing Americans for the coronavirus vaccine. We all know healthcare workers will be at the top of the list, and seniors living in congregate care communities, but did you know that obesity may just buy you an early ticket to immunity?

Weeks ago, I asked the Bride and Groom if they noticed that most of their sickest Covid patients were overweight. They shrugged and said it hasn’t been studied, but doctors were hearing anecdotal stories, and so many people in this country fall into that category anyway…

One population they may consider prioritizing: Americans who are obese — a major risk factor for severe covid-19 that some experts say has gone under-recognized. 

“Obesity was ignored for the longest time and overweight was completely ignored,” said Barry Popkin, an obesity researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now the CDC is talking about both, he said. 

The agency has already laid out four groups that should be considered for priority: health-care personnel, workers in essential and critical industries, older adults, and people with certain underlying medical conditions — including “severe obesity.” But it’s unclear to what extent the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will prioritize this group.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/30/health-202-obese-americans-could-be-prioritized-coronavirus-vaccine/

So what exactly is “severe” obesity? According to the CDC, 35.9% of American adults meet the criteria for severe or “morbid” obesity; it is defined as 100% above your ideal body weight, or a BMI of 35^.

To calculate your Body Mass Index, divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html My BMI is “normal” which is funny since I feel anything BUT normal, still it’s reassuring considering all the pie I’ve been eating!

The shocking statistic to me was learning that 20% of children (including teenagers) in this country are obese, ie a BMI of 30^.

This morning Moderna applied for emergency use authorization – which means the Bride will learn if she got the real dose or a placebo in September. Of course, we’re all betting she received the vaccine because tomorrow the whole family will be tested and so long as we are all negative, we can be inside together, we’ll be able to hug again. We’ll be a family again. We’ll be a POD!

And it couldn’t come at a better time because snow flurries are predicted tonight! Have you been naughty, not wearing your mask? Or have you been nice?

Every morning I fire up three news sites on my computer: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the BBC. Two out of three yesterday were all about how Mr T will “allow” Biden’s transition team to proceed. Allow? This is the way an abusive spouse might speak; guess what, the American people really didn’t need his permission. Numbers don’t lie, the Biden/Harris team was going ahead just fine without the GSA.

But I guess reality, not a TV show alternative reality, has to set in sometime. Today we hear that Joe Biden described the White House help on the matter as “…not begrudging.” Why do I find that so amusing? Mirriam-Webster defines begrudge as, “To give or concede reluctantly or with displeasure.” I mean, did I miss something; has Mr T conceded?

Teenagers are the ultimate begrudgers. Parenting at this point especially, is all about patience. If you ask them to empty the dishwasher for instance, 9 out of 10 times their performance will be halting and begrudging. After all, they have better things to do – playing video games, texting, maybe even homework? I learned a long time ago not to expect compliance along with a good attitude when dealing with the pre-teen and teenage set. A simple “Fine” would suffice.

Just getting the job done, with or without a smile, was good enough for me.

Getting Mr T behind us come January will be just the start of a transition for the ages. Great Grandma Ada used to say, “Everybody’s in transition!” The friends she would meet to paint with were scattering around the country. Her friends were moving to be closer to family. Only Mimi stayed put in NJ; nearly 99, Mimi is a legend in our old community. And she showed up to honor her friend Ada at the graveside service.

This Thanksgiving, there will be an empty seat at our table. Our family will celebrate on Friday since the Bride will be working tomorrow. We are all honoring her in our own way; I will light the candles on her mother Ettie’s candlesticks for the sabbath, Bob will say the prayers, and the Bride will wear her bluebird necklace. We’ll watch the final screening of the Rocker’s documentary film about Ada.

Her abundant love will be forever present, no matter how many transitions are yet to come, begrudgingly or not. And since Brookdale is still in lockdown, I hope that Hudson can patiently wait until Friday for his plate of turkey with all the trimmings.

Let’s face it, this virus is out of control. And the worst part is, the symptoms can be deceiving. For instance, I just saw my amazing hair stylist Chase for a splash of magenta pink, because why go halfway when coloring your hair? He had tested positive for Covid-19 last month, and so I had to get up to date on his recovery and the latest Drag Queen shows.

Yes, we still have Drag Queen brunch shows in Nashville at the City Winery – outside at socially distant tables. You can either Venmo some tip money after a performance, or they might hold out a butterfly net! Lip synching in a mask and full makeup has got to be difficult though.

Anyway, he told me he knew something was wrong when he had a headache that wouldn’t quit. And then he started vomiting. And that was it, mostly Chase’s Covid drama was a GI thing, with generalized aches and pains. No fever. No coughing. The Groom really didn’t have much coughing either, just fever and a generalized achiness all over.

Oh and there was the smell, the sweet smell of pixie sticks that could strike at a moment’s notice. One of the Bride’s friends, a hospitalist in Asheville, lost her entire sense of smell and taste for months.

While talking to Doctor Bob about all this, he asked me what these “protean manifestations” might suggest. First, I had to look that phrase up! Proteus was the mythological master of disguise, so it describes something that is complex, and can take on varied shapes and meanings. Like a Changling in Star Trek! In other words, the manifestations or symptoms of Covid can range across a great diversity of disease.

Is it just respiratory? No, it can present as neurological, or just gastro-intestinal. You could even luck out and have no symptoms at all! In fact, “…people with the virus have presented with or developed heart disease, acute liver injury, ongoing GI issues, skin manifestations, neurologic damage, and other problems, especially among sicker people.” Some have even needed dialysis.

I felt like I won the lottery when I said, “It’s in the BLOOD!”

But then the Bride and Groom stopped by for lunch in the garden. They brought the Grands and the puppy of course because the Groom was picking up his new bicycle at our local bike shop. The weather has been cooperating – 70 degrees and sunny skies in November!

As of today, the Rocker and Aunt Kiki are flying in for Thanksgiving this coming week. They’ll be staying in the decon-garage apartment. We’ve all been tested, in fact, Bob was tested twice last week. So we will be following the new Nashville rule of no more than 8 in a family gathering – 3 tables in the garden of 4, 2 and 2. Oh, and the Bride is working in the ER on Thanksgiving – so we will celebrate on Friday.

The Groom is finished with his Covid ICU shift, and the Grands will stay home from school. Maybe we’ll find out if the Bride got the real Moderna vaccine? We can have a safe, socially distant Thanksgiving, and if all goes well, we may even be able to hug everybody eventually!

Happy Pandemic Thanksgiving y’all; this year will be different but we can always find something to be grateful for every day. Stay hopeful and wear your mask!

Things are looking up! Last night, Moderna announced a 94.5% efficacy rate for its coronavirus vaccine trial.

Moderna is the second company to report preliminary data on an apparently successful vaccine, offering hope in a surging pandemic that has infected more than 53 million people worldwide and killed more than 1.2 million. Pfizer, in collaboration with BioNTech, was the first, reporting one week ago that its vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/health/Covid-moderna-vaccine.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

I may have mentioned that the Bride volunteered for the Moderna study this summer. She won’t know for sure if she received the real vaccine or a placebo for awhile, although I like to imagine that she did get the real deal. That would make her family rather bullet-proof, since the Groom is presumably immune after contracting Covid-19. And it was during his incarceration isolation in the garage apartment that a puppy plan began to take shape.

Call it foxhole faith if you must, but suffering through this election/pandemic/unprecedented year left our little Nashville family in need of some good old fashioned fun. And what could be more fun than a puppy? After all, it’s not as if we had never raised puppies before. When the Bride was about 13, I traipsed our Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Tootsie Roll, out to PA for a few days to breed with a champion male.

And just like that, Bob started building a whelping box!

I phoned the Flapper in desperation one night because pregnant Tootsie was walking all over the house panting and sighing. It was like she wanted to avoid that special place we had designed and built just for her right off the kitchen. I asked my Mother what she did when her dogs were about to give birth. “I wouldn’t know darling,” she said through puffs of cigarette smoke, “they went under the porch.”

Tootsie’s five pups were born in a far corner of the living room; I suspect if we had a porch she would have been under it. None of her puppies looked like her, like a tri-color Tootsie Roll wrapper; they were all gorgeous shades of sable brown, like their papa. I let the Rocker pick his puppy, so we kept Blaze who was the dominant male of the litter with a big white stripe up his forehead.

After that experience, we pivoted to rescue dogs who were mostly already potty trained. Like Joe and Jill Biden, our very first family canine decision was a rescue German Shepherd dog. Little Ms Bean is going on 13 years of freedom from the Charlottesville SPCA. And the Bride and Groom already have two big, black rescue dogs. What was needed now, by the Love Bug and her Mom, was a lap dog!

Coinciding with the good news from Pennsylvania and Georgia, the Bride and Groom surprised their kiddos with a French Bulldog puppy. He is very French, adorable and just so full of himself and mischief. Every day is a new adventure, and an opportunity to laugh out loud at his antics. I wonder if pandemic puppies in general will suffer from a lack of canine socialization, but I’m not worried about our little guy. He’s holding his own with the big dogs.

On Saturday night, Bob and I decided to have a puppy sleep-over party. After all, The Bride was working in the ER all weekend, and the Groom is attending in the Vandy Covid ICU this week – which btw, is filling up rapidly. They both needed a good night’s sleep. Making life and death decisions is hard enough without adding sleep deprivation. We were happy to help. After all, having a new Grand Dog is a sacred responsibility.

And having a dog (or in this case two) back in the White House fills me with hope. ALL of the votes will be certified by December 14th, and within a month, the electoral college will have met, Whether Mr T “decides” to concede defeat, or not, is moot. The transition of power to a sane and rational President-Elect Biden shall go forward.

I can puppy-promise you that.

Remember when “fusion” restaurants were a thing? The chef didn’t want to be nailed down to just one category of cuisine, so you might see an Italian/Southeast Asian menu. It all started with Tex-Mex if you ask me, and who can argue with a plate of loaded nachos?

Lately, I’ve been avoiding Mr T’s minions on the Hill, and their current power-hungry shenanigans; a morbid mix of math denial and transition obstruction for the Biden/Harris team. What’s keeping me up at night is the fact that 72 Million people in this country voted against their better interests.

We had nearly 1,600 deaths in this country from Covid-19 yesterday, but Mr T’s followers think we are “rounding the corner.”

Psychologists call this ability to remain loyal to an alternative narrative, to a fiction, “Fusion Identity.” It’s one step beyond passion and extremism, it’s a borderless wasteland where integrity and intellect go to die. Fusion identity is the reason cult followers must be de-programmed when they are rescued. Researchers will ask people to draw a circle for themselves, and then to draw another circle representing their obsession – a person or an organization, or a religion.

When the person’s individual circle is completely engulfed in the other circle, their identities have fused. Any tether to reality flies out the window.

Great Grandma Ada was really into the psychology of identity. If a marriage was in trouble, she would gently suggest returning to school as a remedy for the unhappy spouse. Her constant refrain was that everyone is in transition, and with a strong identity, one can surf the waves of pain and loss that are the inevitable side-effects of life.

Identity includes the many relationships people cultivate, such as their identity as a child, friend, partner, and parent. It involves external characteristics over which a person has little or no control, such as height, race, or socioeconomic class. Identity also encompasses political opinions, moral attitudes, and religious beliefs, all of which guide the choices one makes on a daily basis.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/identity

If someone is conflicted by their gender identity, or overwhelmed with the impression they are making on others, consumed with self doubt, they are a ripe target for a con artist. And a medical quack, someone who promises a cure for their malady with bleach or snake oil, is the most loathsome type of con. Once you hitch a ride on the Trump Train, you’ve fused your identity with a false narrative. You might as well call up the psychic hotline. You certainly don’t need to wear a mask.

President Obama just wrote in his memoir, in bookstores next Tuesday, that Trump “…promised an elixir for their (Trump’s followers) racial anxiety.”

There will never be an elixir, a pill or an easy explanation for the rise of Trumpism, for the reason the majority of GOP leaders feel the need to coddle this son of a millionaire real estate mogul who squandered his family’s fortune and future at the altar of his own bombastic ego.

But in our family, we have found a remedy to salvage what we have left of 2020, even though he does keep the Bride and Groom up at night.

It’s a pandemic French Bulldog puppy named Watson!