MIni-Post: Master & Commander

Two blog posts in two days.  Well, why not.  The other night the movie "Master and Commander" was on, and being a big fan of British naval warfare (past life thing maybe?)  I watched it again.  If you have not seen this movie you should really check it out.  Russell Crowe, back when he was still cool, plays Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, of the HMS Surprise, and the rest of the cast is stellar too.  It's an action movie but the real heart of the film is based on the relationships between the characters, which gives it a resonance and depth that's rare in an action movie.  (It's also rare to have a thrilling action movie where the vehicles involved never go faster than about 30 miles an hour, but still, it's pretty thrilling.) 

Anyway, I'm watching this movie and there's this big scene where they're in a storm and one of the horizontal thingies that stick out from the masts has broken (for a fan of British naval warfare, I'm not that good at actual terminology) and they're trying like hell to either fix it or throw it overboard because it's acting like a storm anchor and the boat's being pulled down. People are scrambling up the rigging and down the rigging and chopping at the rigging with axes and it suddenly occurs to me:  Are there lots of fat people out there because none of us have jobs like that anymore?

I mean, seriously.  The sailors in this movie are climbing up the rigging to like 3 or 4 stories above the deck to do their jobs and then they're climbing back down.  They're working the pumps and turning the wheel and doing all these very physical boat jobs.  I don't know what they're eating, but whatever it is couldn't have been good; they didn't have the food preservation tactics back in1805 that they do now.  So they're not getting anywhere near the calories that we do now and they're doing these hard physical jobs and no surprise, most of them are rail-thin.  

We in the US have managed to create the most efficient calorie delivery system that has ever existed since the history of the world, probably.  Even poor people can get more than sufficient calories because we have things like Little Debbie cakes and other cheap junk food.  (Note, sufficient calories doesn't mean sufficient nutrition; the two are very different, and eating nutritious food is expensive.  I'll get to why another time.)  So while a lot of people still suffer from food insecurity (something else I'll have to get to another time), for the most part, most people get plenty to eat.  And then look at what most of us do for a living.  We go to offices and sit at desks.  Oh, there are lots of exceptions but that's what most of the US work force is doing.  I personally have to remind myself to get up and stretch once an hour or so or else I get stiff.  So we have the most efficient calorie delivery system and the most sedentary workplaces.  This is a recipe for more fat people.

But people can exercise! you say.  Well, yes, some people can, but taking the time to go out for a three-mile run is not likely to happen when you're working two jobs to put calories on the table and raising three kids besides.  And even if you do have the time, it might not be safe to go out in your neighborhood.  Gym memberships cost money.  (And try canceling one, if you don't believe me.)  B y and large you need a car to get to a gym, too, and poor people are less likely to have cars.  More and more, exercise is becoming the domain of people with enough money and time to do it.  Poor people aren't lazy; look at the workloads they're carrying.  They just don't have the money and the time to exercise.

Lots of people have been freaking out about the "obesity epidemic" (I hate that word, by the way; just say fat already) and especially how it's affecting kids.  Well, kids are raised by parents, and if those parents are working the two jobs and raising the three kids and don't have time or a place to exercise and don't have the money to buy nutritious food and count on things like McDonald's and Little Debbie snack cakes to keep their kids' bellies full, the kids aren't likely to be able to exercise or eat nutritious food either unless they're getting it at school -- and guess what part of school budgets keeps getting cut?   In Europe, people have desk jobs as much as they do in the States, but they at least do a lot more walking, and they take trains places instead of cars, which means fewer opportunities to get fast food. There are also studies that show that European folks don't go out to restaurants nearly as often as Americans do, though that's changing.  

Everything I've seen about the "obesity epidemic" has been saying, how are we going to get people to change their habits?  I saw this movie and what I'm thinking is, who's going to come in here and change our whole culture? Because that's what's needed.  QED.  Cheers!

State of Affairs

Yes, I know I owe you guys a blog post.  Good gravy, I haven't written one since mid-February.  Of course, not a lot has changed since then.  There's a pandemic, we're working from home, we're both still employed and the cats are still happy.  I heard someplace that people are losing touch with their friends because they're getting tired of having the same conversation over and over:  "What's new?"  "Not much, what's new with you?" "Not much."  

Well, there are a few new things.  One of them is that Joan and I have now been vaccinated against COVID-19, at least theoretically.  And that was an adventure.  The county of Dallas sent me a text message the night before the day I could get my shot to let me know.  The same county of Dallas sent the same text message to Joan, telling her that her first shot could be had the day after my shot.  Now, Joan can't drive, so I would be driving her to her appointment.  So it would make sense, would it not, to have them both on the same day?  Well, there was no convincing the county of Dallas of that.  And I tried.  I worked my way up through levels of bureaucracy as only a former Federal Government employee can.  But I got nowhere.  I was actually a bit depressed about this, because I'm good at cutting through layers of bureaucracy.  However, when the smoke cleared and the dust settled, I was having my shot one day and Joan was having her shot the next day and that was all there was to it.  So I got to drive down to the big mass vaccination site twice, thus missing two afternoons of work instead of the mere one.  Thanks, county of Dallas.  

  

Still, we got our shots.  Last week we had the second round, and by Tuesday, I should be as fully immune as science can reasonably make me, which is to say, if I do get it, I won't get very sick.  (There are no absolute truths where any of this is concerned.  We hope it works. That is all.)  Dallas County's case numbers have dropped back down to about 270 new cases a day, and stayed fairly stable around that number, so there's some indications that the vaccines are making a difference.  They've also opened up vaccinations to anybody over 18, which is a good sign that they think they have a grip on this thing.  The troublesome part is, nobody seems to know how long the COVID vaccine will last.  A year?  Six months?  Until the current strain mutates again?  Will we have to get it every year like the flu? Nobody knows.  It may be years until we know the answers to those questions.  

However, one thing is sure.  With two shots in my system, I can go back to the pool. 

Not back to my swim team, because my swim team is no more.  I will have to content myself with making up my own workouts and swimming at the gym.  (Or joining the Tom Landry Fitness Center, which has a coached swim practice, which is sort of the same thing, kind of, minus the four swim meets a year.  That might be an option.)  During the summer, I was swimming at Lake Lavon and in a friend's outdoor pool, which was great.  When it got cold, I started swimming at the gym, but then the COVID numbers went off the charts and Joan and I sort of mutually decided that going to the gym, in any capacity, wasn't safe anymore.  So, considering that swimming has long been an important pillar in keeping me generally stable. this is really good news.  And don't think I'm forsaking the treadmill; I'll still plod along for a mile or so on the days I'm not swimming.  

Mind you, there are precautions to have in place about this thing.  I'll have to wear a mask while walking through the gym to the pool, and back out again.  I don't wanna shower there or otherwise put myself into contact with folks unnecessarily.  It has to be one person to a lane.  But other than that, I can go back to the pool.  I'm doing that this morning, in fact, as soon as I finish this blog post.  

The other news is that our governor, Greg Abbott (and Lou Costello) opened Texas "100%." Which means all the bars and restaurants are open, business are supposed to reopen and the Lone Star State is supposed to go charging back into the world economy, puffing and snorting and leaving big hoofprints.  Now, not all of us are buying this.  Those of us in Dallas County are still wearing masks, for the most part, and avoiding large gatherings.  But things do seem to be opening up, and if the vaccines really are making a difference, we can maybe dodge a fourth wave of this thing.  Maybe.  

 But maybe even more important than that, we can have dinner with Tammy and Tracy again.  It has literally been a year since we've seen them.  They've had their shots, too, and if we can find a restaurant that's suitably open-air, we can maybe get together.  This used to be a weekly thing, or almost a weekly thing.  And I miss them.  And I'm sure they miss us.  

And is my law firm opening up again?  Well, maybe.  We were supposed to open on April 5 but that's been pushed back again.  (By "open," I mean, "we allow non-employees into the building".  Regular staff have been working, both at home and in the office, for some time now.)  I was supposed to return to the office on Monday but that's been pushed back too, which is Just Fine.  (I like working from home, though there are some drawbacks.)  The libraries are still not open.  You can still get any book you want through their curbside service option, and the reopening plans are in progress, though no date has been announced.  So Joan is still working from home too, and in her case we hope it will be  permanent.  More on that situation as it develops.  

I guess the most important thing is that we're all still here.  Some people in our family and circle of friends got sick with COVID, but they didn't get a really bad case of it and recovered quickly.  Nobody died.  Nobody even went to the hospital, as far as I know.  We've all been very lucky.  And I can go back to the pool.  So the news is all good.  

I hope your news is good too. Cheers!