Lee.org

We harvested 3 of the 19+ artichokes on our fabulous artichoke plant today! They were AMAZING!

I planted it last year and we ate 3 disappointingly bland & mushy chokes from it but got 3 amazing artichoke flowers (have you ever seen one, they are astounding!). On the second year, we truly have the “weird giant” plant I was hoping for in our front yard!

In 2016, I had a central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) in one eye and macular edema and crosshatching in my vision to go along with it. I was treated with Avastin (that’s the brand name, no one can pronounce the generic “bevacizumab”). I got monthly-ish injections into my eyeball (yeah, squick! but it worked so…!) for a year and my vision returned to 95% normal, hurray!

On April 10th, I started having macular edema again and it was scary business. I made it to the eye doctor last week and got treated Monday (effing insurance wouldn’t cover a “same day pre-approval” so I had to be increasingly blind over the weekend). I am VERY happy to say that my eye has gotten much better over the past 3 days! Wow, what a huge relief! I’ve got more eye injections coming up and I’m fine with that! It is wonderful that this procedure exists! Until about 20 years ago, this condition was mostly untreatable and I’d have gone blind just like that. Now there is a safe and easy procedure to address it!

Macular edema makes everything look like you’re seeing through bullseye glass. I was watching a movie last week when the camera angle switched to looking through a window with bullseye glass. I panicked because all of a sudden BOTH of my eyes had the same view of the world!

To track my vision changes, I put up this eye chart in my office. On the 21st, I could read to line 3 “20/70 vision”. Today I can read to line 6, “20/30 vision” Woo hoo!

Oh and my sister-in-law Roanne has been of great help! She’s a professor of optometry and has helped me and held my hand from the beginning! Thanks Ro!

I just watched it again (thanks again to Michael for the recommendation). What a completely entertaining movie!

Are we flattening the curve?

Watch this video, Minute Physics “How To Tell If We’re Beating COVID-19”

and look at this live chart
In brief, when a line is moving diagonally, the virus is growing exponentially (ie. unchecked growth!). When a line starts descending, the virus’ growth is slowing down.

On 4-17-20, this graphical mathematical analysis says, essentially, “Maybe the US has started to flatten the curve as of 4-11-20”. Of course, in order to “keep the curve flat” we have to all stay home… ummm forever. Hmmm.. hmmm…. And what state is doing the best? Well, according to the state chart on the same site, all the states are doing fairly similarly.

A recommendation: We have gotten a couple grocery and prepared food deliveries from Greenleaf Platters https://www.greenleafplatters.com/. They deliver all over the Bay Area. They don’t normally deliver staples like milk but times have changed! It’s been -very- nice getting staples and some fancy foods to keep eating interesting! The staples are very reasonably priced and the fancy foods are expensive and (OMG!) worth it!

via

This article has been made free for everyone, thanks to Medium Members. For more information on the novel coronavirus and Covid-19, visit cdc.gov.

Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*
You are not crazy, my friends
Julio Vincent Gambuto
Apr 10 · 9 min read

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.
Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms – a billboard here, a hundred commercials there – and in new-media forms: a 2020—2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses – and very large ones – that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay – all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people – and most anything in life – there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House – inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define – on our own terms – what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus – and protect all Americans – we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.
–
Note: The author and Medium have made minor tweaks since initial publication.

WRITTEN BY Julio Vincent Gambuto
JVG is a writer/director in NYC and LA. His latest film, “Team Marco,” is currently at film festivals worldwide. Learn more and connect at www.juliovincent.com.

It took a couple months to internetify this…

Our Winter Break in December 2019 was just wonderful. Here’s our happy-winter-break-blog!

What a wonderful and relaxing winter break it has been!

December 20th: Megan and Abigail made it to Little Farm to play with the animals. Later we all made it to the Tilden Merry-Go-Round with Vivi, Silvi, and Margot

21st: We made it to another wonderful performance of A Year With Frog and Toad, a fantastic kids musical!

22nd: Abigail and Megan went to make cookies with Caitlin and Ameilia. They had a wonderful time making sugar roll out cookies and chocolate roll out cookies. Made many shapes and decorated them. Abigail went to a 3-hour crafting class at our good friend SarahJane’s store, Bay-Made in Oakland.

24th: we had Christmas lunch at Penelope’s nursing home. Caitlin, Jeff, Amelia, Megan, Abigail, and Lee were there. Chaparral House had a fine buffet with turkey and fixings. After, Amelia and Abigail played in the nearby playground for a good while.

25th: We spent almost all of Christmas day opening presents! It was a leisurely affair. Most of the presents (rightfully so) were for Abigail. Megan cooked the famous Flom Cheesy Souffle that she had started the night before. After receiving the unexpected “gift” of lice from Abigail’s school, we spent much of the day cleaning house and shampooing; in many ways, it was pleasantly cleaning.

On the 26th, we went up to Gail and Walt’s in Santa Rosa. Presents, homemade tamales, cake, cookies, fun on the big backyard tree-swing!

27th: Megan went to the Kabuki Spa in San Francisco while Lee and Abigail stayed home and played with our neighbor Ana at the park.

28th (oop, we forgot to write it down!)

29th Megan and Abigail visited Grandma at Chaparral House. While there, Megan discovered Abigail had more lice! so we went home and deloused our hair and house again! Delousing made us miss Nathaniel’s birthday party. We also had plans to see Charlotte at Picante but she had food poisoning! So the day ended up being house cleaning and head cleaning instead of going out for fun :-) / :-(

30th We went to Ikea on a hint and Lee was ecstatic to finally find food storage containers that all fit together, then off to Costco, then for Vietnamese Sandwiches, the library. Then Megan and Abail were off to the Berkeley Marina for some fun while Lee chillaxed at home. Nice!

31st We went to the Lawrence Hall of Science for the New year’s noon confetti drop. We went with Abigail’s good friend Leia and her mom, Rachel. We ended up spending 4 hrs at LHS, exploring, creating, meeting a Ball Python snake, playing in the water outside, and eating a nice lunch with popsicles! Megan made salmon and asparagus for dinner. After Abigail fell asleep, Megan and Lee watched the ball drop in NYC (at 9pm). After some struggling, they were able to open a tiny bottle of Proseco to celebrate, which they drank from Penelope’s Waterford crystal glasses.

Jan 1st – Hung out at home until Nataliah (babysitter) came over. Megan visited her mom and then Lee met Megan at a games party being hosted by Peter and Mary in Oakland. There, they played games and chatted with folks for a few hours. Upon arriving home. It was discovered that Abigail and Nataliah had made a giant cardboard foosball table!

Jan 2nd – Hung out in the morning, playing at home. Then, Ruth, Megan’s psych intern from Mill Valley came by for a signature and stayed to chat for a while. Then, we all went out to run errands. We first went to Past Time Hardware for stuff to hang pictures/art and a new lightbulb for the kitchen. Then, we went to Solano Ave where we had ice cream first and then chose new calendars at Pegasus Books. Last stop was swinging by Fern’s Garden so Abigail could tell Fern (the owner) that her wish had come true. (Just prior to Christmas, Abigail had made a wish in the store — by throwing a small stone into a sandy tub. She had wished for more stuffies for X-mas and she had gotten 3 new stuffies! Fern let Abigail make a new wish :-) As we were on our way to another errand, Charlotte called to say she was at our old apartment and was available to hang out. Since we were close by, we drove over to meet Charlotte and Rick. We all drove over to King Park, where Abigail played and the adults chatted.

Jan 3rd — Abigail came into our bedroom around 6am and said that she had wet her bed. After getting her cleaned up, she crawled into bed with us and snuggled until about 7am. Meg and Abigail got up together and hung out on the couch. Lee took Abigail to Dr Takao for a flu shot and then played at a nearby park (in Orinda) and then went out to sushi lunch together. While they were away, Megan organized several rooms in the house. For the afternoon, Megan spent much of the time in the kitchen. She made tuna casserole, molasses cookies with brown butter icing, and Chex Mix. Abigail and Lee had a craft competition, and every few minutes Abigail would stand up and yell “Makers, you have 9 hours left!” to count down the time until the judging. Dinner was amazing! And so were the cookies!

Jan 4th – Abigail woke us up around 7:45am — we all slept in! Then, Megan and Abigail made a Christmas tree out of pipe cleaners, from a kit received from Zeke. Mom did one last lice treatment while Lee and Abigail had bfast together. Then Abigail got a treatment. Haircut for Abigail, then lunch at Saul’s with Caitlin & Amelia. Play at a park.

Jan 5th – Lee and Abigail went to a birthday day party for Carter (from school) at bowling alley, then Megan and Abigail went over to Juniper’s house for a playdate. Lee stayed home and worked on Abigail’s legal name change (it’s way easier to decide on your daughter’s name before you leave the hospital!)

Wow, what a Winter Break!