Writer’s Workshop: Life After Covid-19

Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay

So, how has my routine changed since Covid-19?

Not a whole lot, actually. I don’t get out as often, because there’s really nowhere to go. Mary and I would go to Starbucks several times a week, maybe to lunch at one of the local places, such as O’Charley’s or Jim ‘n Nick’s before we have coffee. Starbucks has reopened, in a way, but the conditions under which you can go in and sit there are so lousy, we’d just as soon stay home. As for eating out, we’ve discovered the joy of drive-thru at places other than McDonald’s or Chick-Fil-A, so we’re still able to get the restaurant food without having to get in the car and go there.

About the only times I get out is when I have a medical appointment, which lately is a lot more frequent because I’m going for lymphatic drainage a couple of days a week so my right leg doesn’t blow up like a balloon. I am getting a leg pump, which is a wrap that has inflatable chambers. I put it on and it does what my therapist does, namely push the lymph that’s gathering in my leg up and out of my leg and into the rest of the lymphatic system, which takes it into my bladder. Pretty amazing stuff. Like I said, every time I go to my therapist there’s another technological advancement…

And that’s probably way more than you wanted to know.

Since I’m not taking my laptop to Starbucks, it’s up in the living room, where I generally spend my afternoons. It’s a change of scenery for me; I had been spending the better part of the day in my office, coming down for dinner and our evening TV ritual (Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and The Andy Griffith Show). Now I come down at lunch and go up stairs at roughly 9 PM so Mary can help me with my leg wrap before she gets too tired.

In short, life hasn’t changed that much for us, apart from going to Starbucks all the time, and I’m finding that I don’t miss it. I do feel trapped in the house from time to time, and if it weren’t for my disability I’d be prone to participate in a little civil disobedience and go out wandering around without a mask… but we can talk about that some other time.

Song of the Day: ZZ Top, “I Thank You”

"I Thank You" was written by David Porter and Isaac Hayes and recorded by Sam and Dave in 1968. It was a Top Ten single on the Hot 100 (#9) and the R&B chart (#5). ZZ Top covered the song for their 1979 album Degüello and released it as a single the following year. Their cover reached #34, their second single to reach the Top 40 after "Tush," which reached #20 four years earlier.

Simply Six Minutes: Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways

You probably recognize, at least if you were a kid growing up in the US during the ’60’s, the title of this piece as the marketing slogan for Wonder Bread, which I haven’t seen in years, probably because I haven’t looked for it. I saw a commercial for it from the ’50’s and the slogan was "helps build strong bodies 8 ways." I guess technical advancements in the bread-making industry allowed the makers to increase the number of ways it builds strong bodies by 50%.

Almost 3 years ago, I wrote a blog post for Just Jot It January on a day when the prompt was boisterous. I drew a little heat for suggesting that it should be spelled boysterous, because the definition reads like the job description of a boy. Not that girls can’t be boisterous, as several of my fellow bloggers pointed out (no doubt thinking I was suggesting that they couldn’t), but boys seem to have a greater need for roughhousing and generally getting into trouble than girls do.

There was more that I was going to write, but the alarm just rang…

Christine at Stine Writing runs Simply Six Minutes. She has the rules over there, so follow the link…

#1LinerWeds from Thelonious Monk

Just because I can no longer participate in most of my pre-stroke musical activities doesn’t mean that I don’t still think of myself as a musician. One of the YouTube channels I watch is that of Adam Neely, bassist, expert on music theory and harmony, and just a cool guy. He posted a video on Monday where he went over the 25 tips that jazz pianist Thelonious Monk gave to a young saxophonist named Steve Lacy when Lacy was playing in his band. The whole list is worth seeing, even if you’re not a musician; Adam copied it into the description of the video (which is why I’m linking to it instead of embedding it).

One-Liner Wednesday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now here’s Richard Denning for Montclair cigarettes.

You might remember Richard Denning from Hawaii Five-O or any of the other shows he was in. I remember him from an ancient TV series called Mr. & Mrs. North, which he was in with Barbara Britton and the incomparable Francis De Sales as a cop…

Song of the Day: Sly & The Family Stone, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Sylvester Stone was a genius at combining rock, soul, funk, and psychedelic music and turning the result into music that it seemed everyone could relate to. With his guitarist brother Freddie and keyboardist sister Rose, Sly & The Family Stone was one of the first bands to combine black and white and male and female musicians. "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was released as single in late 1969 and topped both the Hot 100 and R&B chart in 1970, and earned a gold record.