The Day Everything Stopped.4

The reason I ended up in assisted living in January 2020 is that nobody around me thought I should go back to living on my own. The primary care doctors, physical therapists, neurologists, visiting nurses, social workers, psychiatrists -- they all recommended I relocate somewhere where medical help would be close at hand.

As for me, I was confused about what was going on with my body, and was content for the first time in my adult life to just defer to everyone else. Listening to them meant I also started consolidating my IRAs, finalizing my will, signing a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) form, and beginning the process of assigning power-of-attorney to my kids.

I also left a list of my passwords in a safe place.

Meanwhile, almost as soon as I moved into my new assisted living apartment, a much bigger problem than what happened in my little life was starting to take shape. It had a name -- "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2," as it was called by the World Health Organization, or SARS-CoV-2.

It was first detected in China and the authorities there were frantically  trying to confine it by walling off the city of Wuhan.  Here in the U.S., President Trump banned travelers from China from entering our borders. As outbreaks of the disease surfaced elsewhere, officials everywhere started to impose similar restrictions.

Cruise ships reported some cases and soon they were trapped at sea; their inhabitants prevented from going home or anywhere off-ship. No one would accept them so their dream vacations had overnight devolved into prison terms of unknown duration.

In Europe, the travel bans came down fast and furious. My oldest daughter Laila and her family barely got out of France before the deadline hit; two other friends took the very last flight out of Italy.

But if prevention was the goal it was already too late. New reports confirmed that the virus was indeed here in the states, up near Seattle, and public health officials indicated that it was far more mobile and contagious than any previous virus had been over the previous century.

As this was sinking in, I was trying to adapt to the new routines at my apartment complex, making friends and rebuilding my sense of confidence after a year dominated by serious illnesses that caused me to end my formal career.

The first indication that Covid was going to have an impact on me was when printed notices started appearing under my door. The escalating tone of urgency was difficult to miss:

* All staff will wear masks and gloves going forward. 

* The dining room is being closed closed indefinitely. 

* No further visitors are to be allowed.

* All residents are to be confined to your rooms.

* Your meals will be left at your door.

* Alert staff immediately if you show any of the following symptoms...

Call me a hypochondriac but just reading those messages started to make me feel rather ill. Plus being confined to my room quickly turned into a form of pure torture. I could feel my spirits beginning to wilt.

The meal deliveries simply didn't work for me; the food left at the door was cold by the time I tried it. After taking one or two bites, I threw it away, telling myself I wasn't hungry anyway.

I felt listless sitting there watching the TV, and started to shiver. I wrapped myself in blankets and turned up the heat to no avail.

The head of the maintenance team, R, took note of my situation and alerted the building management that I seemed to be starting to decline. A nurse came but said I was fine. R then decided to take over cleaning my room each week herself rather than assigning other staff members to do it. As such, she was my only visitor during that stretch, and I looked forward eagerly to our conversations every Friday morning.

Unlike most of the residents and staff, she knew exactly who I was, and she remembered my Patty Hearst stories from Rolling Stone well. The rest of the staff were understandably focused on the many sicker, more fragile residents, but she realized my problem was that I was basically shriveling up from loneliness. Since I couldn't see my neighbors, play beanbags, or share meals with them any longer, she gave me news about how they all were doing, similarly locked away in their individual chambers.

She told me that my friend S from Kenya was of the few allowed to leave his room -- to visit his younger brother with dementia, because he was his brother's caretaker.

Meanwhile, my family members were all coping with their own issues -- suddenly having to work remotely, keep kids home from school, quarantine after possible exposures to Covid.

We got a major scare when my son Aidan, a brand new EMT at that time, was exposed on one of his first days on the job when he was called on to transport a Covid patient. His employer told him he had to quarantine at home for two weeks without pay or benefits, because he was a new employee.

I called or texted him every few hours but he assured me he would be fine. At the same time all of my own medical appointments were suddenly getting cancelled. I had been slated to have eye surgery for cataract removal but that was put on hold. I needed dental work urgently but that was cancelled. My primary doctor had been seeing me once each week but now those appointments stopped as well. She did warn me at my last checkup that Covid was no joke and she expected the public health situation to become very serious very soon.

One of my new friends, M, needed a brain operation at Stanford and I agreed to go with him because I knew my way around campus, but then he called me to say that that surgery had been rescheduled for months into the future. 

Like everyone else, I was isolated, scared and lonely. Then, one afternoon, a young staffer knocked on my door. I opened it to see her holding her fingers to her lips.

"C'mon out and go up the fourth floor game room!"

Not knowing what to expect, I went and to my surprise, three of my fellow residents were playing cards at a table. They were the women who had been recently widowed who I sometimes ate meals with before the lockdown.

The staffer smiled nervously. "I decided to get you all together because I can see you've each been doing badly on your own. You need to see each other. Don't tell anyone I did this."

The four of us compared notes about the pandemic. "I don't see what the big deal is," said one of them, who was in her early 80s. "We're all going to die of something anyway, so why not from this?" 

She threw her hands up in the air and grinned.

"They say it could be a painful way to go," said another.

"That's why they have morphine!" rejoined the first.

I just nodded along in confusion; basically I didn't know what to think. After an hour or so of cards and chatter, we were all worn out and retired to our rooms.

Later that evening Laila called me to say she wanted me out of that facility altogether. I was to pack my bags and go down to the lobby of the building and wait for her husband  to fetch me the very next morning.

(To be continued)

***

The news:

* What to Save? Climate Change Forces Brutal Choices at National Parks. -- For decades, the core mission of the Park Service was absolute conservation. Now ecologists are being forced to do triage, deciding what to safeguard — and what to let slip away. (NYT)

* Few mature forests remain in the U.S. after decades of intensive logging. The remaining trees could soon be gone as the U.S. Forest Service moves ahead with a plan that would allow about 2,000 acres to be cut down in what's known as the "Flat Country" project. The Biden administration is pursuing an aggressive environmental agenda but it has said little about old-growth forests. [HuffPost]

* The New York attorney general said it has expanded its probe into the Trump Organization, investigating it in a criminal capacity alongside the Manhattan district attorney. The New York attorney general's office is said to be investigating whether Trump took tens of millions in tax deductions he wasn't entitled to. The Manhattan district attorney has been conducting an investigation into Trump and his employees to determine if the company committed financial crimes. [HuffPost]

* Biden is increasingly at odds with other Democrats over Israel (WP)

* Gaza War Deepens a Long-Running Humanitarian Crisis -- The Palestinian enclave was already in a dire state. The war with Israel has made it worse, damaging the health and sewage systems, closing schools and displacing tens of thousands. (NYT)

* An Israeli airstrike hit a street outside the Al-Rimal health clinic in central Gaza City Monday evening, shattering windows, shredding doors and wrecking Gaza’s only coronavirus test laboratory. (Reuters)

* In Show of Unity, Palestinians Strike Across West Bank, Gaza and Israel -- Hundreds of thousands stopped working for the day to protest their shared treatment by Israel. Many Palestinians described it as a rare showing of common cause. (NYT)

* Beyond Airports, TSA Also Manages Pipeline Security. That Could Be A Problem (NPR)

* Restrictions reimposed as virus resurges in much of Asia (AP)

* EU Set to Open Borders to Vaccinated Tourists (WSJ)

* Parisians tuck into coffee and croissants again as cafes re-open (Reuters)

* The poorest American families are in danger of missing out on monthly checks under a new program from the Biden administration unless a massive outreach effort is made to those not in the IRS system. More than a third of children in poverty in the U.S. live in households that don't file taxes. [HuffPost]

* Police hold 11 staff of popular Belarus media outlet (Reuters)

* Was Christopher Columbus really from Genoa, in Italy? Or was he Spanish? Or, as some other theories have it, was he Portuguese or Croatian or even Polish? A definitive answer to the question of where the famous explorer came from could be just five months away as international scientists on Wednesday launched an effort to read the DNA from his remains and identify his geographic origin. (AP)

* Free fares? Big cities explore options to make commuting by bus and train more attractive. (WP)

* The Mercury News looked at the most popular baby names in the California. At the top of the list: Olivia for girls and Noah for boys. (SJMN)

* "The Onion" Calls On Israel To Bomb Our Offices In Case Any Hamas Agents Hiding Out There (The Onion)

***

"There's a Storm a'Coming"

Written and Sung by Richard Hawley

There's a storm Comin'
You'd better run
There's a storm coming
Goodbye to the sun
There's a storm comin'
You'd better

Run boy run,
You'd better run

There's a ship that's sailing
Out in the night
There's a heart that's breaking
I think it's mine
There's a storm comin'
You'd better

Run boy run,
You'd better run

Every little part of you
Is merry gotta molecules
Every little thing you do
So sad, in the end
Oh in the end

There's a ship that's sailing
Out in the night
There's a heart that's breaking
I think it's mine
There's a storm comin'
You'd better

Run boy run,
You'd better run

-30-

Dr. Weir

 

The Day Everything Stopped.3

[This is the third part of a serialized memoir of life during the pandemic.]

Upon my arrival at the assisted living complex on January 10, 2020, friendly staffers checked me into my new apartment in room number 1326 on the third floor of Building One.

Its view was northerly toward my old home in San Francisco. Every few seconds from the nearby airport, mammoth passenger jets rumbled up and out to parts unknown, but probably to places I've been in the past.

Hundreds of times over the decades, I'd lifted off toward New York, Washington, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Ottawa, London, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Rome, Amsterdam, Moscow, Geneva, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Djakarta, Sydney, Tehran, Kabul, Beirut, San José,  Mexico City, Honolulu and many other cities.

Watching and hearing the jets gave my new place a comforting vibe as if I were just stopping in for a layover.

Little did I know it at the time, but that (a layover) was going to be pretty much the case.

Within weeks of my arrival, reports of a strange new coronavirus emerging in China were circulating in the news media. Not a whole lot was known yet, and in conversations with friends I dismissed it as probably "just another SARS."

Probably just a lot of fuss about something that wouldn't amount to much in the end.

In the back of my mind, however, I remembered the warnings from a handful of journalists like Laurie Garrett years earlier that a new plague was inevitable. It all seemed too unpleasant and fantastical to really worry about.

Still, the drumbeat of approaching danger kept up and gradually I started to get a little bit more concerned. My daughter Laila, the only other journalist among my immediate family, heightened my awareness of what might be coming.

She and her family were just back from Bourdeau, France, where her three kids had attended school for the previous six months. (All five members of the family are dual citizens.) 

In Europe, apparently, the pandemic was being taken much more seriously, and Laila believed that she may have had herself it when she was terribly ill late in 2019. She had lost her senses of smell and taste at that time.

Now the family was back in Northern California, she wanted to keep a closer eye on me to make sure I was adequately protected in my new home.

At the apartment complex, meanwhile, I was receiving a steady stream of visitors, including family members, old friends, and former colleagues from my last workplace, KQED, which is the large public broadcasting company serving Northern California.

Since a large percentage of my friends are also journalists, the novel coronavirus kept coming up in our conversations during those visits. From what we could tell, the virus was especially dangerous for older people recovering from serious illnesses and/or with compromised immune systems, i.e., people like me.

What was going on with me physically and mentally at that time was a slow but steady recovery from four medical crises that had converged in 2019 -- pneumonia, hepatitis, tremors (Parkinsonism), and a stroke.

Although there was no formal physical therapy at the assisted living place, I was receiving weekly visits from health workers under my Medicare coverage to help me regain my strength.

I walked around the facility with a cane, or on bad days, with a walker, like many of the other residents. At first I didn't know anybody and I felt shy, but soon a few friendly faces were greeting me when I went down for the three meals served daily in the dining room on the first floor.

I would normally sit alone but one day I moved to a nearby table to watch two men, M and B, playing dominoes. They introduced themselves: B was a veteran in his 90s, and M had Parkinson's and was in his 60s.

Soon I would sit with them for breakfast and some dinners, when I noticed two other men, African in appearance, and speaking with accents. They turned out to be from Kenya originally, and soon I was joining them for some of the meals as well.

Also in our section of the dining area were four women who usually sat together at a table in the rear. They were widows in their 80s who had moved here after their husbands had died.

One morning when I got to the dining room earlier than usual they waved me over and invited me to sit with them. They were wonderful and talked much more openly than the men.

As I got to know these people, I relearned an old lesson: Most people are pretty shy around strangers at first so you have to be outgoing to break the ice. With some effort I can be charming and I like to tell stories about my adventures in the news business, Hollywood and beyond -- especially situations where I acted like a buffoon, which happened with alarming frequency.

All the residents were elderly, the great majority were white and well-dressed. Some lived on social security like I did, some had pensions. A fair number looked quite frail, and many wore expressions that indicated they felt sad or resigned to their fate.

Most everyone seemed at least a little bit lonely.

Some needed to be wheeled to the dining room in wheelchairs; their attendants hovered nearby, or in extreme cases, fed them with spoons and forks. Some folks were on restricted diets or barely ate at all.

I didn't realize it at first, but there were also dementia patients who were fed in a separate part of the complex, so with one notable exception we didn't see them in our areas.

My illnesses had drained me of much of my physical and mental stamina, and getting to and from the meals was the most exercise I could handle at first. Before and after trips to the dining room, I took naps. 

Several times a day I took my blood pressure with a kit I'd purchased online and wrote the numbers down in a ledger.

The visiting nurse told me to do this, and she checked the levels each time she visited. I was on a drug for high blood pressure and another to control tremors, especially on my left side, which at times were so severe I couldn't feed myself very efficiently.

I had to get the timing with the pills just right to avoid having trouble at meals. Otherwise, my hand shook so much I couldn't lift my coffee cup or water glass to my lips to drink. If I tried it would spill all over. So on those occasions I left the vessels on the table instead and just sipped the fluids through straws -- or avoided them altogether.

In my room, I kept the TV on all day, usually turned to CNN or the sports channels. Except for the visiting nurses and social workers, nobody ever came to see me there.

When I entertained visitors, we sat in one of the common areas, which were  hardly ever used by any of the other residents. Mostly, everyone just stayed in their rooms except at mealtime.

But a handful of guys -- including M and one of the Kenyan fellows, S -- were up and around some of the time, so I made an effort to track them down between meals.

S loved to play beanbags, also called Cornhole, outside in one of the courtyards at the center of the complex.

Although he was about four years older than me, S was in much better physical shape than I was. When I started joining him for the games, he dragged a chair to the area so I could sit in between turns, while he walked back and forth retrieving the beanbags for both of us.

It was embarrassing but I was too weak to do that for myself. To be honest, just standing up each time to take my turn would max out my energy level and when the game was over (he always won, which was good), I limped back to my apartment and into the bed.

But playing beanbags was far better than staying in my room alone and S had a lovely sense of humor and was just a thoroughly decent human being. He told me about growing up in Kenya, where it sounded like life was tough, resources were scarce, but people really took care of one another.

He said he thought people were happier there than in the U.S. but that he liked it here anyway. He cared for his younger brother, who was losing his mind but in a charming kind of way, and was the one dementia patient I got to know at that place. His brother was always cheerful, but when he spoke it was in non-sequiturs that none of the rest of us could understand. He seemed like a child, honestly, and S. just nodded and helped him with his food and to get up from the chair when it was time to return to his room.

They loved each other so openly I envied S. having. brother like that. But sometimes when we played beanbags, I would ask about his brother and S. would grimace. "He doesn't really know where we are or why we are here. He thinks we are back in Kenya in our childhood."

His voice trailed off. "Lately, he sleeps more and more of the time..."

The staff explained to me that under my contract I was authorized and encouraged to eat not only three but five meals a day and showed me where to go and what to do when the kitchen was closed. It turned out there was a special menu so I could get hamburgers and other sandwiches in the mid-mornings, mid-afternoons, and even after dinner at night until the kitchen staff went home at 9.

The reason they wanted me to eat so often was to fatten me up. My various diseases had robbed me of 75 pounds, or a third  of my former body weight of 215; I'm about six feet tall, but in the hospitals I had shrunk to a gaunt 140 pounds.

There was a scale in my room, and I was to keep a record of my weight gain for the visiting nurse. Since my appetite was improving, my weight started climbing week by week...to 150, 152, and 154.

But even as I improved, the health professionals watching over me worried that the coronavirus creeping closer and closer to our lives was going to represent a major new threat to all of the elderly residents in the very near future.

They started to prepare for the worst.

Two months into my stay, what we now knew as Covid-19 had reached our front door and the facility rapidly went into lockdown...

***

(Today)

One of the things about the pandemic ending for most of us is everything that's been frozen for fifteen months in our lives is now starting to thaw.

To explain that in personal terms, for the first time since I stopped working in 2019, it is now dawning on me that I am actually retired. 

I guess you could say I was in denial because sometime over the past year, I took the word "retired" out of my profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. In a moment of self-delusion, I even applied for a few jobs.

Nobody ever replied. Maybe they knew what I couldn't face at the time -- you can't go backwards. Just because Yossarian did it in "Catch 22" doesn't mean we mere mortals can get away with that one.

For me, accepting that I am retired is a huge development. It means that one phase of my life -- the phase that defined and dominated me for 55 years -- has officially passed on. It is fitting to write its obituary.

I *used to be* a journalist who reported lots of stories, traveled all over the world, got into a bit of trouble here and there, won dozens of awards, published several books, gave speeches, held press conferences, and so on and so forth. But that is over and finished now. I no longer do those things.

On the other hand, I *am* right now an active father and grandfather, and (I hope) an alert storyteller focusing not on the past but on the future.

Of course, in order to make the future count for much, we have to understand our pasts. And that's where the serialized essays I am writing up top come into play...

***

The news:

* Millions of immunocompromised Americans may not be fully protected by vaccines. They’re in limbo as the country reopens. (WP)

* Covid’s Next Challenge: The Growing Divide Between Rich and Poor Economies (WSJ)

* Biden Supports Israel-Gaza Cease-Fire, as Fighting Rages Into Second Week -- Mr. Biden’s language was carefully couched, reflecting continued reticence to criticize Israel despite rising international condemnation. (NYT)

* Under fire, Gazans are running out of electricity and fuel (WP)

* Democrats, Growing More Skeptical of Israel, Pressure Biden -- Among Democrats in Congress, attitudes toward Israel have grown more critical as the party base expresses concern about the human rights of Palestinians. (NYT)

* Japanese doctors call for Olympics cancellation amid covid-19 surge (WP)

* It's Time For America's Fixation On Herd Immunity To End, Scientists Say -- Researchers say the herd immunity threshold isn't the right finish line to end the pandemic. Instead, the public should just focus on getting as many people vaccinated as possible. (NPR)

* In the U.S., 60% of American adults have gotten at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In addition, more than 4.1 million young people ages 12 to 17 have received their first dose. (CNN)

* India Braces for Powerful Cyclone Amid Coronavirus Wave -- Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from western India as a powerful cyclone approached. The severe weather threatened to divert resources from combating a deadly wave of coronavirus. (Reuters, AP)

* In Taliban-Controlled Areas, Girls Are Fleeing for One Thing: an Education -- Two districts in Afghanistan’s northwest offer a glimpse into life under the Taliban, who have completely cut off education for teenage girls. (NYT)

* DHS Failed To Analyze Intelligence Ahead Of Capitol Violence -- A forthcoming report says DHS officials had the intelligence they needed to predict that the pro-Trump rally would become violent. What was missing was DHS telling the people who needed to know. (NPR)

* For some Navy pilots, UFO sightings were an ordinary event: ‘Every day for at least a couple years’ (WP)

* Supreme Court jumps into U.S. culture wars with abortion, gun cases (Reuters)

* Biden moving to improve legal services for poor, minorities (AP)

* Bank of America to Raise U.S. Minimum Hourly Wage to $25 by 2025 (WSJ)

* Nations Must Drop Fossil Fuels, Fast, World Energy Body Warns -- A landmark report from the International Energy Agency says countries need to move faster and more aggressively to cut planet-warming pollution. (NYT)

* Biden to pitch his $174 billion electric vehicle plan in Michigan (Reuters)

* Biden says U.S. in race with China to build electric vehicles as he pitches infrastructure plans (WP)

* Nationwide Survey: 79% of people do not approve of companies profiting from their data. (Invisibility)

* Amazon is in talks to buy MGM, the studio behind the James Bond movies and other legendary films (Reuters)

* Phoenix Republicans Condemn G.O.P.-Ordered Vote Review and ‘Insane Lies’ -- Leaders in Maricopa County, Ariz., are hitting back at Donald J. Trump and fellow party members in the State Senate over a review of the county’s ballots. (NYT)

* Any amount of alcohol consumption harmful to the brain -- UK study of 25,000 people finds even moderate drinking is linked to lower grey matter density. (The Guardian)

* Tattoo businesses flourish again as Americans look for expressive outlets after a year of loss (WP)

* Warning Shot for California: A Los Angeles Wildfire in May -- The Palisades fire, which was 23 percent contained late Monday afternoon, forced the evacuation of 1,000 people and hinted at the severity of the state’s drought. (NYT)

* Increasingly Bold Israel Begins Building Settlements In Downtown Albuquerque (The Onion)

***

"Don't Stop"

Song by Fleetwood Mac

Written by Christine Mcvie

If you wake up and don't want to smile
If it takes just a little while
Open your eyes and look at the day
You'll see things in a different way

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Why not think about times to come?
And not about the things that you've done
If your life was bad to you
Just think what tomorrow will do

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

All I want is to see you smile
If it takes just a little while
I know you don't believe that it's true
I never meant any harm to you

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

-30-

The Day Everything Stopped.2

[This is the second part of a serialized memoir of life during the pandemic.]

As my son-in-law drove me away from the assisted living complex in Millbrae in March 2020, ours was one of the only cars on an eerily empty highway 101. It was rush hour but no one was rushing. The governor had declared that everyone should "shelter in place" -- were we even allowed to be on this road?

Loic mumbled something about an exclusion for transporting elderly relatives in danger from the novel coronavirus. He said that Laila -- his wife and my daughter -- wanted me out of the facility, because it might soon turn into a "death trap." He was wearing a mask; I didn't have one yet.

We drove along in virtual silence wearing grim expressions. I noticed that there were no highway patrol cars anywhere to be seen.

I thought back over the previous year and my long, twisted journey through the United States Healthcare System, which had ended at that assisted living place. When I'd arrived there, I'd known nobody save the marketing director who'd come to meet me at a skilled nursing facility in Pacifica where I'd been rehabilitating after a stroke, among other problems. 

She sang the blues in clubs on the side, so she definitely was my kind of marketing executive.

The place she worked was where I chose to go post-Pacifica, where I'd been attended night and day by medical personnel.

There were doctors, nurses, CNAs, PTs, OTs, psychiatrists, social workers, ministers, medical students, volunteers, and uniformed staff members who took care of our bodily needs. They brought us meals, answered our calls when we pushed the red button, changed the diapers of those who needed that, walked the rest of us to the bathroom, bathed those who needed that and watched over the rest of us as we showered, brought us our medications three, four, five times a day in little Dixie cups, measured us, weighed us, took our BP, checked our heart rate, monitored our breathing rate and most importantly engaged those of us who were sentient in non-medical conversations. 

They all carried clipboards with notes. They'd glance at the clipboard before looking up at me. "Hello Mr. Weir," or (from the staff members), "Hello Mister David." Practically everyone spoke with an accent, usually Filipino.

They also brought sleeping medicine at bedtime, but I would never swallow that.

Perhaps for that reason, I didn't sleep much. Or maybe it was the call-and-response cadence of the dementia patients, screaming deep into the night, conducting long-distance conversations with each other even though they'd never met and never would meet.

And if they did meet they wouldn't remember it afterward.

We were all mixed in together, the population recovering from heart attacks and strokes and accidents with the people who were gradually, inexorably losing their minds.

I was fairly certain which group I was in, but due to the hallucinations and delusional spells when I was semi-conscious, I couldn't be completely sure. Seeing a little man in the window for three days only to discover he was actually a reflection of a nightlight will introduce doubt into your mind and the minds of those caring for you.

A single terrifying thought kept me awake at night: "If I'm going insane, nobody's going to tell me that."

In any event, the night nurses tended to take their breaks in my room since I was always awake and I endeavored to appear extra specially normal in the way I talked to them. I was strapped to the bed, not literally, but the blankets were so tight I couldn't move my body without their help.

They told me abut their dreams, their stresses and their frustrations. To me they were angels, doing whatever God's work might be. I fell in immediate love with all of them, including the men, there in my dark hospital room.

In case you've never been, and I hope you never are, a skilled nursing facility is a transitional kind of place, like an airport. Everyone is coming or going except those who work there. But unlike airports, it feels like most every patient who leaves will never be coming back on a return flight.

Whenever someone leaves, there is a sudden flurry of activity involving lots of people with hushed voices. The curtains are drawn around the bed; if the patient is conscious, they may be frightened. "Where are you taking me?"

Once they are gone, the curtains are all opened; the bed is completely stripped down, waiting for its next occupant. Nobody ever mentions the one who is gone.

As I said, it was a transitional place and in my case, I was demonstrably getting better, which I told anyone who would listen, so the day presumably was coming when I would be transitioning right out of there, once it was determined that I was well enough to leave.

That day arrived quite suddenly on a Thursday when at the end of her night shift my pretty nurse informed me, "It says here that today is your last day, David. The doctor has authorized us to release you but you need somewhere to go."

At first I panicked and asked to call my son. Where was I to go? Back to my flat in San Francisco, where I'd kept falling and calling 9-1-1 for ambulances to transport me back to hospitals? Or on to somewhere new, one of those nursing homes or independent living centers everyone kept recommending to me. 

After some hasty research, I found a couple places right nearby on the peninsula that sounded okay. I didn't feel confident enough to go back home on my own, so within hours, two marketing teams had shown up, eager to recruit me as a new resident able to pay my own way into their facilities.

I picked the blues singer's place and that's how I landed in Millbrae, where I met a small band of other survivors who'd escaped from the Land of the Young.

(To be continued...)

***

* From India, Brazil and Beyond: Pandemic Refugees at the Border -- Fleeing virus-devastated economies, migrants are traveling long distances to reach the United States and then walking through gaps in the border wall. The Arizona desert has become a favorite crossing point. (NYT)

* Israel-Hamas conflict hurtles into its second week with more airstrikes on Gaza (WP)

* The Biden administration reportedly blocked the U.N. Security Council from calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hamas. Biden has stayed vocally supportive of Israel despite growing opposition from within his party over the Israeli army's daily barrage of attacks on Palestinian civilians. [HuffPost]

* Aerial assaults, casualties derail any hopes for Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks -- Israel has so far declined entreaties from outside mediators that it agree to a halt, according to two officials. Hamas has vowed to continue retaliatory rocket attacks for an Israeli strike that killed 42 people. (WP)

* When Fighting Erupts Between Israel and Hamas, the Question of War Crimes Follows -- Civilian deaths on both sides raise urgent questions about which military actions are legal, what war crimes are being committed and who, if anyone, will be held to account. (NYT)

* Days before conflict, Congress learned U.S. approved $735 million weapons sale to Israel, raising red flags for some Democrats (WP)

* Trump’s comments on Maricopa County election recount are ‘unhinged,’ Arizona GOP official says (WP)

* Changes to make voting safer during the 2020 elections made casting ballots easier for people with disabilities, a population that has struggled for decades with polling site access. But a wave of voting restrictions proposed or already passed in Republican-led states is threatening to not just halt the progress, but significantly reverse it. (HuffPost)

* U.S. Supreme Court takes up major challenge to abortion rights (Reuters)

* Long Before Divorce, Bill Gates Had Reputation for Questionable Behavior -- Melinda French Gates voiced concerns about her husband’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and a harassment claim against his money manager. He also had an affair with an employee. (NYT)

* Board members for Microsoft determined in 2020 that the company’s co-founder, Bill Gates, needed to step down from his own role on the board amid an investigation into a past affair with a female Microsoft employee, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Gates spokeswoman confirmed there was an affair but said Gates stepped down of his own accord. [HuffPost] 

* Chinese businessman with links to Steve Bannon is driving force for a sprawling disinformation network, researchers say (WP)

* Pandemic Hit Less-Educated Workers Hardest, Fed Survey Shows (WSJ)

* Underfunded And Overworked, Secret Service Fears They're 'Relying On Luck' -- Carol Leonnig spoke to a number of Secret Service agents for her new book, Zero Fail. "They strongly believed that it was a matter of time before a president was shot on their watch," she says. (NPR)

* U.S. tiptoes through sanctions minefield toward Iran nuclear deal (Reuters)

* When it comes to lobbying lawmakers in Sacramento, California’s main teachers union is king: The California Teachers Association outspent other interest groups in the first quarter of this year. The teachers union pursued political influence amid the pandemic to the tune of $2.85 million. (Bay Area News Group)

* A Scratched Hint of Ancient Ties Stirs National Furies in Europe -- Czech archaeologists say marks found on a cattle bone are sixth-century Germanic runes, in a Slavic settlement. The find has provoked an academic and nationalist brawl. (NYT)

* Scientists unravel a mystery about a naked giant carved into an English hill (WP)

* The Golden Gate Bridge has been humming loudly and driving commuters and neighbors crazy. A team of engineers has been working on the problem, which began following a retrofit of a sidewalk safety railing. (SFC)

* U.S. awaits chorus of huge, 17-year cicada hatch (Reuters)

* Deep Throat’s identity (FBI agent Mark Felt) was a mystery for decades because no one believed writer Nora Ephron, who figured it out while married to reporter Carl Bernstein (WP)

* Why We Speak More Weirdly at Home -- When people share a space, their collective experience can sprout its own vocabulary, known as a familect. (Atlantic)

* Family Can Trace Ancestry Back To Whatever The Hell Grandma Was Talking About (The Onion)

***

"Where Am I Now?" (excerpt)

Patti Murin, Lewis Flinn

How am I here?
Which way do I turn
When it's all so unclear?
I'm standing alone
With nothing but fear.
Where am I now Now that I'm here?

-30-

The Day Everything Stopped

Sunday I was going to return to Contra Costa, which is my official residence now, when I suddenly extended my visit in the City instead. It occurred to me that 2021 is the first time in 50 years that San Francisco is not my legal home base, and I'm still getting used to that. 

Maybe I just need to extend my stay for a few more days, I told myself.

These kinds of insights, like the reality of retirement itself, sink in only gradually over time. This is the twentieth month since I earned a paycheck of any kind, and only now is the meaning of that becoming clear. 

I probably have the pandemic to thank for this suspended state of confusion. That day in March 2020 that I sat in the lobby of the assisted care facility on the peninsula waiting for my son-in-law to pick me up for a short visit away is in some ways clearer in my memory than any day since. 

I had two bags stuffed with my clothes, plus my computer bag, two extension cords for my phone, a baseball hat, my cane, some rolls of toilet paper, cans of soup and a giant box of brown paper coffee filters #9.

I sat alone and still on the couch in the lobby while around me, a frantic urgency filled the air. The facility was in the process of locking itself down, though nobody knew quite yet what that meant. New procedures had been decreed but no one seemed to know how exactly they were to be enforced. 

Nobody in, nobody out. That was one of the rules. But over 100 of us elderly residents lived there and we received constant shipments of things, including toilet paper, cans of soup, and coffee filters.

Plus visitors, including our physical therapists, social workers, in-home care personnel and so on. Some of us lucky ones counted on that one weekly visit from a child, grandchild or friend  as the highlight of our isolated lives.

Everyone knew something supposedly bad was on the way, a super virus, but nobody knew its name yet. I'm not going to say we were panicking, because that suggests rapid, fast movements or feelings -- neither of which are typical among old people.

Nope, not us. We'd seen it all before -- polio, AIDS, SARS, whatever -- plus we usually do everything slowly, methodically, pondering every step. After all, even getting up from the couch is an accomplishment worthy of note.

The lady at the front desk wore an exasperated expression. The phone just kept ringing and ringing, as did that damn doorbell buzzer.

Trucks from FedEx, UPS, AmazonPrime, DoorDash, InstaCart, USPS, and other more obscure courier services pulled up into the little roundabout outside and drivers unloaded their boxes. They heaved them onto a growing pile next to the front door, punched a few digits into their phones or tablets, and slipped a paper recipe under the door.

There were signs everywhere about "Wear Your Mask," and "Return to Your Room," and Dining Room Closed Until Further Notice."

Some of the delivery men insisted on remaining at the door with their cargo, because they needed a signature. They buzzed incessantly, demanding the poor receptionist's attention. Not wanting to feel useless, I sprang up (relatively speaking) to accommodate them, not fully realizing this was not really sanctioned behavior.

"You know you don't really have to do that," she spoke softly to me, but she smiled nonetheless.

Certain residents had passes allowing them to exit the facility. They had medical appointments or such, and their rides were waiting outside. Some used canes, like I did. Others were pushing themselves in electric carts that they controlled by pushing buttons. A handful could walk unaided.

I rose to escort the weaker ones on their way.

Outside in the sunlight, S from Kenya, was minding to the flowers and bushes that lined the sidewalks greeting our visitors. He was 78, a kindly, soft-spoken fellow who told me it wasn't part of his job to do this work; he just liked to do it. In fact he was a resident like me, and cared for his younger brother who had dementia.

They had two rooms upstairs in the facility. His brother napped frequently and always had his TV playing in the background, though he couldn't understand anything the talking heads were saying.

Downstairs, nobody spoke except for the receptionist when answering the phone or the door buzzer. The tension that hung over all of us was like that scene in Casablanca when Rick and Sam are waiting to board the last train out of Paris before the Germans arrive.

But it wasn't raining and the invaders were tiny invisible creatures flowing toward us from the Far East.

Finally Loic appeared outside the door trying to locate the buzzer or the outside phone; normally he could just walk in through the unlocked door. I could see him but he couldn't see me in the darkened interior.

All kinds of signs had been hastily pasted on the glass doors; it felt like we were inside some sort of contaminated facility, when of course we were at that time the pristine, virus-free, perfect ones...the contamination was out there among all of them.

I got up to let Loic in. The receptionist helped him sign me out on the electronic signature pad. She nodded over at me and whispered: "He keeps getting up to help everybody. He doesn't know..." She thought I couldn't hear very well but that particular day I was hearing every sound, feeling every nerve ending.

As we loaded my paltry possessions into the car, Loic said cheerily "Is that it?" and I settled in for the drive north. Ours was the only car leaving, every other vehicle had labels on its side. As we exited the parking lot, I looked back and saw S standing up and peering at us as we disappeared.

We locked eyes.

I never saw him or that place, my home, again.

[ To be continued...]

***

The heds: 

* Searching for Love -- the pandemic hasn't helped (New Yorker)

* Israel kills 42 in Gaza as Netanyahu warns war will go on (AP)

* Tensions Among Democrats Grow Over Israel as the Left Defends Palestinians -- Divisions within the party have burst into public view, with the party’s ascendant left viewing the Mideast conflict as a searing racial justice issue that carries echoes of U.S. politics. (NYT)

* Central Banks Jump Into Climate-Change Policy Fray (WSJ)

* Cheney continues her lonely ‘battle for the soul of the Republican Party’ (WP)

* Palestinians Commemorate Annual Day of Grievance Amid Conflict -- People gathered in the West Bank on Saturday to honor Nakba Day, the anniversary of the 1948 displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during Israel’s creation. The demonstration is one of several that took place globally. (AP)

* Violence Shakes Trump’s Boast of ‘New Middle East’ -- Trump officials said the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab states would transform the region, but new Israeli-Palestinian clashes lay bare the limits of that change. (NYT)

* AT&T, Discovery in talks to combine content assets  (Bloomberg News)

* Hundreds of bodies found buried along Indian riverbanks (AP)

* Netflix Movies Turn Up in a Surprising Place: Theaters (WSJ)

* Houses Of Worship Grapple With The Vaxxed And Unvaxxed Divide (NPR)

* The meat industry is doing exactly what Big Oil does to fight climate action (WP)

* Afghan cease-fire ends amid calls for fresh peace talks (AP)

* Herd community? Elephants show us how to coexist (Reuters)

* Sharks Use Earth's Magnetic Field as GPS to Navigate (Current Biology)

* Paris Bookstores Are Designated Essential — But These Landmarks Struggle To Survive (NPR)

* A surprising pandemic side effect: It has improved health care (WP)

* Steph Curry scored 46 points in the Warriors final regular season win over the Grizzlies, capturing the NBA scoring title and leading his team into the playoffs. (S.J. Mercury News)

* Area Man's Knee Making Weird Sound (The Onion)

***

"The News"

Songwriters: Andre Carnell Robertson / Jahron Brathwaite / Jonathan Joseph Hoskins

What's news to you, it ain't news to me
What's news to you
What's news to you, it ain't news to me
And what's blue to you, it ain't blue to me
(Blue to you) it ain't blue to me
It ain't new to me

-30-

Call It What It Is

Okay, I've had it. 

Benjamin Netanyahu's absurd excuse for blowing up the headquarters of the AP and Al Jazeera is a bald-faced lie. The alleged existence of "military assets" of Hamas in the same building is a cover story for deliberately disrupting media coverage of the war against the Palestinian people.

Any attack on one reporter is an attack on all of us. There are no exceptions to this rule.

What is also patently obvious is this entire "war" is a desperate attempt by Netanyahu to retain power. He was on the verge of finally being expelled from office and perhaps even jailed for corruption when this conflict somehow magically materialized.

A sad corollary is Hamas is all too willing to play into Netanyahu's hands. If ever there were antagonists who deserve each other, it is these jokers.

The big question is where is Joe Biden? Where is the U.S.? Do we believe in human rights and the freedom of the press or does Israel somehow get a pass?

No passes. Principles are principles; you don't bend them because of entrenched political alliances reinforce by massive financial interests. That is also corruption and it is far beyond time to root out this problem right here in America.

Like the singer says "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything."

Don't fall for smokescreens by corrupt politicians -- that is a cardinal rule for journalists and citizens. Call it the way it is.

 ***

I actually had a real visit with a journalist friend at his apartment Saturday; he cooked us a meal and we watched an old journalism movie I'd never heard of, "Call Northside 777" with Jimmy Stewart (1948).

The plot is based on the true story of a Chicago reporter who investigated whether a man imprisoned for killing a cop was innocent or guilty. Of course it reminded me of why I love journalism and the kinds of stories that, once you start on them, you just can't let go of until you reach some sort of resolution.

You don't always get that resolution, but unless and until you do, you just keep digging. We're a certain breed, not unlike homicide inspectors and any other type of investigator who is driven by figuring out what actually happened in a given situation.

Once that sort of work is in your blood, you're hooked for life. That's true of my friend and it's true of me.

***

As my visit to San Francisco continues, this is one of my first real chances to connect with my youngest granddaughter, Bettina, who is two-and-a-half. A precocious, energetic child who looks almost exactly like her Dad did at this age, she seems to understand everything you say to her and chatters away in complete sentences.

"Okay, Grandpa, read me this book now."

If the book she chooses is one of her favorites, she reads right along with you and will finish each sentence as you start it and stop, like, "She has..."

"...one, two three balls, wow!"

I'm used to young kids before they can actually read memorizing phrases like this, though usually they are more like four when this happens. What I've never encountered before is a toddler who points out each succeeding word in the sentence individually with her finger as she "reads" it.

In general young children dazzle me with their innate brilliance, their determination to learn, and their infectious joy of expression.

But this one is doing that earlier and faster than anyone I've known previously.

The headlines:

* Israel pounded Gaza on Saturday, destroying a tower block that housed news media organizations, while Palestinian rocket salvoes hit Tel Aviv with no sign of an end to almost a week of fighting. Israel’s military brought down a 12-story block in Gaza City that housed the Associated Press and Qatar-based Al Jazeera media operations, as well as other offices and apartments. Israel gave advance warning of the strike so it could be evacuated. The Israeli military said later the building was a legitimate military target because it contained military assets of Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza. The strike was condemned by the AP and Al Jazeera. The United States told Israel "that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility." (Reuters)

* Statement: AP ‘horrified’ by Israeli attack on its office (AP)

* Israeli-Palestinian Strife Widens as Frantic Calls for Calm Go Unheeded -- While Israel and Hamas signaled willingness to consider a cease-fire, worries grew about further fracturing in one of the Middle East’s most intractable struggles (NYT)

* Unrest grips Israel and West Bank ahead of large scale demonstrations -- Palestinians readied for protests to commemorate the loss of homes when Israel was founded more than 70 years ago, raising the specter of more unrest on Saturday as violence between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel continued overnight. (WP)

* The fighting between Israel and Hamas comes at a politically opportune moment for Prime Minister , as the threat to unseat Israel’s longest-serving leader appears to be collapsing. (WSJ)

* Arab and Jewish Israelis are increasingly clashing with one another in an escalation of communal conflict that hasn’t been seen for decades. In many ways, the strife represents a more complicated challenge than the country’s external enemies. (WSJ)

* Less than 3% of U.S. small businesses could face tax hikes under Biden plan -White House (Reuters)

* A fading coronavirus crisis and an astounding windfall of tax dollars have reshuffled California’s emerging recall election, allowing Democratic Gov. Gavin Newscom to talk about an end to most COVID-19 restrictions and propose billions in new spending as he looks to fend off Republicans who depict him as a foppish failure. (AP)

* An advocacy group that successfully challenged the use of algorithms in U.K. immigration and education policy is preparing to take on Facebook and Uber Technologies over tech workers’ rights. (WSJ)

* Tesla is like an ‘iPhone on wheels.’ And consumers are locked into its ecosystem. (WP)

* Beneath Joe Biden’s Folksy Demeanor, a Short Fuse and an Obsession With Details (NYT)

*  John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, met privately with Pope Francis on Saturday, afterward calling the pope a “compelling moral authority on the subject of the climate crisis” who has been “ahead of the curve.” (AP)

* Americans spend hours and hours preparing their taxes. We shouldn’t have to. (WP)

* Spy Agencies Seek New Afghan Allies as U.S. Withdraws -- The move signals an acknowledgment by Western intelligence agencies that they are preparing for the likely collapse of the central government and a return to civil war. (NYT)

* When Your Company Is Named Covid, You've Heard All The Jokes -- Covid Inc. in Tempe, Ariz., has been selling audiovisual equipment for decades, but in the past year, some visitors stop by for an altogether different reason: They're looking for a COVID-19 test. (NPR)

* Heart study: Low- and regular-dose aspirin safe, effective (AP)

* Why can’t more straight men say ‘I love you’ to each other? (WP Magazine)

* Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be (The Onion)

***

"You've Got to Stand for Something"

Song by Aaron Tippin

Songwriters: Aaron Tippin / William Calhoun Jr. Brock

Now Daddy didn't like trouble, but if it came along 
Everyone that knew him knew which side that he'd be on 
He never was a hero, or this county's shinin' light 
But you could always find him standing up 
For what he thought was right 
He'd say you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 
You've got to be your own man not a puppet on a string 
Never compromise what's right and uphold your family name 
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 

Now we might have been better off or owned a bigger house 
If Daddy had done more givin' in or a little more backing down 
But we always had plenty just living his advice 
Whatever you do today you'll have to sleep with tonight 

He'd say you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 
You've got to be your own man not a puppet on a string 
Never compromise what's right and uphold your family name 
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 

Now I know that things are different than they were in Daddy's days 
But I still believe what makes a man really hasn't changed 

You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 
You've got to be your own man not a puppet on a string 
Never compromise what's right and uphold your family name 
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything 

You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.

-30-