Executive producer credit

We've been watching so many movies. 

Some of them – those with crowded restaurant scenes or lavish family gatherings at least – are starting to feel a little foreign and exotic.

As we scroll past 80,000 titles, we can't agree on a single one.

In fact, getting an agreement usually requires an executive decision.

Dad usually gets the final say.

Which reminded me of the scene in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," when Toula Portokalos complains to her mother about her father's stubbornness feels like an experience that can never be lost in translation or fade into the shadows of yesteryear. 

"Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. 'Ah, the man is the head of the house!"

"Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn his head any way she wants."

That scene replayed in my mind (lightly edited for memory lapse and wishful less-patriarchal thinking) as my daughter approached me for advice on why her own father wouldn't listen to reason. "Why does he always get his way?"

It turns out, I had walked in on a typical father/daughter argument, and they had seen me. I was trapped.

She had done something thoughtless, and he had given her all the pieces of his mind at a booming volume. She was in the process of tossing them back at him when I appeared and stood there listening.

"Why do you always have to you yell?"

"Well, I have to yell because you never answer me the first time I ask."

"I answered. You don't hear me."

"My hearing is not in question here."

"Well, maybe it should be since my answers don't seem to be getting me anywhere!"

That's when I realize in this tennis match of an argument; both players are looking at me.

I really don't want to get involved. Mainly because both sides typically play against the middle. And I hate feeling like the Mommy in the middle.

Sadly, I think we have all reached the stage of quarantine when even a moment of complete silence can cause an argument of epic proportions.

"Why are you just standing there?"

Each of them wanted me to take their side.

He wants me to present a united front, nip buds, and put people into their places. 

She wants me to protect her ego and her id.

I carefully try to do both calmly addressing the validities of each of their feelings and responses. By teasing out underlying frustrations that may have exacerbated the debate, I delicately draw out how they might have reacted differently.

All the while, steeling myself for the blowback I most certainly deserve. I may think the argument can be managed with detachment and fairness … but I am neither fair nor detached.

Deflecting retaliatory accusations by way of a patented Don't Take It Personally technology, I weather a subsiding storm.

As the credits roll, a happy little tune plays as each of us takes our well-deserved bows.

Of course, the movie playing in my head has me convinced that my character's performance was Oscar-worthy.

Unacceptable loss

For years I followed nursing home ratings.

How many complaints had been filed? How many investigations completed? What percentage of those were found to be warranted?

I counted fines and averaged them, dollar/cost style. Divided by the monthly receipts, which were daunting, and came up with an equation that was almost too painful to acknowledge.

Acceptable loss.

For me, it was personal. For a time, my mother resided in the nursing home that currently has the most cases of the novel Coronavirus in Columbia County. It took us years to get her moved.

The thing I remember most about interactions with staff at that first, worst placement, was their instance that problems didn't exist at the facility because management didn't allow them. Problems, they explained, meant people got fired.

I couldn't argue with the logic. It wasn't worth it. All one needs to do in such situations is to lift the rug and locate all the problems that have been swept underneath it.

Of course, the rug is a heavier lift than we had imagined.

Wet garments may have been visible, but the bedsores, weight loss, and dehydration all came to light during subsequent hospitalizations.

Of course, there were no beds elsewhere. There were just complaints and fines and the steady trickle of temporary staff.

Pay a fine, pass the costs, business as usual.

When we finally managed to get her a placement elsewhere, the difference in her care was enormous. She was clean and dry. She was properly fed. She was more alert.

And it all seemed to stem from the administration's admission of problems. They had them, every institution does, but they understood fixing issues as they arise is the best way to minimize harm.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's initial Covid-19 response requiring nursing homes to take patients who tested positive for the virus or whose status was unknown was a costly mistake.

No doubt.

I can only guess that our collective belief that all health facilities are stringently regulated and adhere to a hospital's standard of care factors into how we might expect such a triage could be successful. Medical professionals are, in fact, medical professionals. Only now, with Pandemic pulling back curtains, we can see that some medical facilities might just have a bean counter in the center, shifting the levers. 

Honestly, I did not imagine an infectious disease spreading through the country and burning through healthcare facilities like wildfire would cause some of our "leaders" to ask that we discount the most alarming numbers (like those coming from nursing homes) in an effort to get back to a semblance of normal. 

But here we are.

At what point do we not just shrug our shoulders? At what point are we going to admit that these lives are not -- and never should have been counted as -- an acceptable loss?

Will a pandemic do it?

At what point will we investigate nursing homes and how they are regulated? 

Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of blame and finger-pointing going around right now. Blame is a consistent and effective distraction. But it doesn't usually fix problems. It just weaves a heavier rug to cover them.

Embracing the birthday

At precisely 6 p.m. on one of the days that end in Y, I was standing on my porch, with my kids excitedly hopping around me, raising a glass filled with a pink beverage in the direction of the family nextdoor.

I was toasting the sweet little choir that had gathered on their front porch to serenade me on what seemed, in these Corona-fide days, like my 127th birthday.

I had no idea it was a trap.

Three days earlier I had hidden my birth digits from the social network I have come to think of as Face Bonk, in an impulsive fit of self-preservation. I'm not sure why. Ordinarily, I look forward to the steady stream of well wishes from all 155 of my digitally-prodded friends.

Face Bonk silence was exactly what I needed - a salve for a future that is stuck on the present.

I imagined I was just quietly slinking through another day in Pandemicland, wearing soft pants and smiling in earnest at the few sparsely placed "Happy Birthdays" those who don't need reminding would deliver through the phone lines or written on greeting cards stamped with postage.

I had already graciously received presents foraged from the bottoms of drawers or the backs of closets. Thoughtful little do-dads I would be free to use up or to restock my own little mom and pop regifting shop. 

All that was left was to contemplate the gift cards forwarded from favorite stores, whose profit margins may be so so razor-thin it might slice open my heart to actually use them.

All of that changed at precisely 6:01 when a car pulled into the driveway and rolled past our house.

"Who's this now?" I asked my daughter in the voice of a new retiree who is wishing passerby off their lawn.

Suddenly I knew. And the knowledge went on like a lightbulb as one after another; a fresh vehicle joined the slow parade.

With no discernible pecking order, the masked drivers, who waved as they headed to our turnaround, didn't necessarily know each other. They had been drawn in from various circles just to wish me a happy day in semi-isolation.

Some of them got out of their cars to chat for a few minutes from a safe distance.

I hadn't been prepared, though, and had to dash into the house for a mask. And even that felt less awkward than I could have predicted.

Covering up my face and standing at a distance meant people couldn't see my normally steely demeanor turn soft.

And before a person could sing the Happy Birthday song twice, we would all wash our hands of a formal part of the celebration. The party rolled on home.

As I stood finishing my cocktail, I had the feeling that this was truly the best way to celebrate things we dread: with silliness and brevity.

I have never been more grateful to turn 127 years old and never been happier to be surprised.

Especially now that we don't have to hug.

Goodminton

As small parts tumbled out of the box and onto the deck of the front porch, the tension in every muscle of my upper body ratcheted just one tick tighter.

The came up to sniff one, and I frantically shooed her away. 

In addition to my teeth being set on permanent edge as a result of these here pandemic times, we have gaps in the porch steps through which any one of these little do-dads could slip, and not only would my newly eager children have their dreams for a front yard game of badminton dashed, but the decision I don't remember making to NOT allow for under-porch access amid a renovation several years ago would come back to haunt me ... and these kids.

Oh, these kids.

I want to sing their praises.

I want to tell you how surprisingly wonderful they've been, not fighting with each other. Finding joy in the most simple of things, or just making it themselves out of hope and thin air.

Like this badminton set, I masked up to find at the five and ten. This set that is just a bunch of parts strewn across the porch deck like a puzzle.

As I try to decide how this v-shaped plastic nib fits into one of five pre-drilled holes in the nylon nesting poles, we all feel the heaviness that what was once an impulse now risks so much and so many.

"I almost can't believe there are no instructions," I say, hoping it didn't sound like too much of an indictment of my kids' investigative skills. But just enough ... knowing the likelihood of anyone in my house lifting a single thing in pursuit of a lost item.

My daughter looks again. This time she finds a bifold sheet of paper with simple illustrations instead of words, which she scans and quickly realizes I look like Steve Martin's "Freddy" to Michael Cain's "Lawrence" as I try to stick myself in the eye with a cork-topped fork.

"Here, let me have that," she says gently as she takes the poles and the widget and quietly sets about inserting Part A into Slot B, risking her perfect (and newly grown) nails in the process.

It is a moment to savor.

She is taking charge while her brother and I wordlessly follow her instruction, slipping the net onto the tops of our poles and waiting while she secured them with what I wouldn't be telling her were called "wing nuts."

Well, almost wordlessly. I forget that I haven't entirely digested the paper instructions, and think I'm "just helping" when I ask my son to "take three giant steps back."

"Hey, Mom... I'm "Simon" in this enterprise, and 'Simon' didn't say anything about taking three freaking steps."

"Simon" said a lot of words after that, but none of them were "freaking."

Not that I was clutching at any pearls.

I was just holding onto a pole as she anchored two spikes attached to twine on either side of me, and watched as she repeated the process where her brother stood, nine yards away. All of us mildly amazed when the setup kept standing as we finally stepped away.

It worked!

The taught net stood sturdily against the intermittent gusts of April winds. And there was much rejoicing.

Two children, holding racquets over their heads, pinwheeled around each other on the soft grass.

Neither one cared whether their side had the most or the least number of obstacles. The dog, roaming from one side to the other, evened things out.