The year of living dangerously

Winter was notable for the political theater of a groundless impeachment, and spring turned surreal when North Carolina's feckless governor forbade indoor gatherings of more than 10 people beginning at 5:00 pm on St. Patrick's Day, but the front end of 2020 turned out to be a warm-up act for everything since. 

It's been a summer of "chemo and covid," as we sometimes say around here -- but the chemotherapy is almost done, and my sweetheart is a total trouper who always has gumption enough to refer to her treatment days as "healing days." Doxorubicin is a helluva drug.

Naturally, there were no vacations to speak of. My "road trip" was a two-day "there and back" to Lexington, Kentucky early in July, transporting a young adult and an even younger Ball Python, not to mention "mice on ice" in case the snake got hungry.

Uncle Jim hangs his hat just on the other side of the RDU airport most of the year, but I haven't seen him since we watched the movie Richard Jewell together, in lieu of the Ford vs. Ferrari he thought we were going to see (they're both good movies, and he was a sport about it). The last film I saw in a movie theater was this year's nifty remake of The Call of the Wild, and Lisa wore a winter coat to that screening. 

My son and I are now housemates. We make do without air conditioning while we listen to video game mayhem or the rising and falling susurration of the cicadas that marks Carolina this time of year. Fireflies still twinkle at dusk, and sometimes through moonrise. Going to work for me means booting up a computer on the dining room table. Going to work for him means pulling on a grocery store uniform, now that food service is moribund.

Daughter scrapes by in an apartment one town over with a boyfriend whom I haven't yet met. She's a surprisingly philosophical nanny. I still smile about our Fathers' Day picnic together, when each child drove separately to the park we'd chosen for that event. We were masked except when partaking from a bucket of Popeye's Chicken or the fixings that go with it. Lisa the Wonderful saved all the energy she could muster to help make the day special, as she so often does.

We shelved Disney World dreams indefinitely. Trips to the grocery store or the coffee shop with the drive-up window became events.The jovial former pastor of my parish retired with none of the fanfare he would have been feted with in normal times. 

Closer to home, Lisa and I watched house sparrows fledge from a nest built into a wreath on the front door. We also spent anxious nights on a bad weekend awaiting the return of a runaway teenager. 

But unforeseen developments can help with perspective if you let them (as writer Joel D. Hirst has done), and I'm getting better at finding grace in big things (the kid returned safely) and small ones (there are sometimes affogatos for dessert). Carrying a camera around helps.

"Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude," as Mr. Jack Khoury used to say to his high school students, dramatically enunciating all three syllables for each of those words, and looking a little cooler than a pudgy middle-aged guy with a comb-over and black plastic eyeglass frames should have been able to.

In a season sorely lacking live musical performance, it sure was fun to see my old harmonica teacher fit to bust about his sons and their sibling band, "The Brothers Gage." 

Those chip-off-the-old block teenagers made it to the semifinals of "America's Got Talent," and performed on air for that show's celebrity judges, including the estimable Mr. Simon Cowell, before he broke his back. Watching their national debut was a treat.

I almost signed up for an intensive songwriting workshop taught over three days by Mr. Jonathan Byrd of local band Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys, but next spring's HVAC replacement project and current adventures in cosigning for student loans have stronger claims on my bank account. Sallie Mae has no patience for people who fall behind in loan payments -- which I knew but Thomas now does, too.

Summer Olympics were canceled and outdoor exercise turned solo for most people, yet the Camp Gladiator trainers who were most effective in person still bring their A-game to "virtual" workouts. Andy, Bree, Lizzie, and Amy rock.

Other Gladiator coaches do, too, but those four still lead workouts at times I can actually make, and what I did this summer was earn a limited edition "Better Together" t-shirt. Grinding out burpees, bear crawls, and "Johnny Cs" still seems like a better idea than strolling past boarded-up shops in downtown Raleigh.

The men's prayer group of which I'm part (we pray the rosary, yo!) continues meeting weekly, though none of us realized back in February that we might not again see the inside of Panera Bread anytime soon. We didn't know that a beloved neighborhood pub would go belly-up, either. 

I miss the pub more than the bakery. At least Zoom video makes it possible for prayer peeps now living in other states to rejoin our fellowship when their schedules permit. Lord knows there's no shortage of things to pray for and about, especially in an election year.

Mom's slowing down, yet relatively healthy for her age. Da's sneaking up on 83, but the calendar can see him coming from darn near the horizon. Although he tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus almost a month ago, he's been blessedly symptom-free of that. His recurring leg and head wounds are of more concern to my siblings and I, not least because the vascular specialist Da had an appointment with would not see him after the covid-19 diagnosis came back while Da was in the man's waiting room. What a weenie. 

"Assisted living," like "safetyism," ain't what it's cracked up to be.Two phone calls ago, Da described his extra-special-super-lockdown as "wretched, miserable, and lonely." He agreed that he is woefully short of minions. Thank goodness my flight attendant sister is just as feisty as he is, and not averse to rattling the cages that need rattling in Arizona. My brother -- he of the background in academic negotiation -- backs her up.