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random notes from a pandemic
Boy did it feel weird to be isolated for Shabbat -- no torah study, no services, no shared meals, just me and Dani home all day. Some Reform and Conservative congregations (including mine) streamed services, but I don't use computers on Shabbat. If weeks turn to months I wonder how much pressure I'll feel on that. One bright spot is that we have a lunch-time torah study (parsha of the week) on Wednesdays that I can never go to because of work, but since it's virtual now I can block off that hour from work and attend. So at least I'll have that.
Pesach is in a few weeks. The seder we would have gone to is going virtual. I care about the ritual aspects way more than Dani does; his connection is family not religion, and we won't be with his family. It'll feel weird for me to basically read the haggadah while he plays along, maybe? I wonder if it would be safe to invite, say, one other couple and sit at opposite ends of the dining-room table. Maybe the virtual one will start well before sunset (sunset being late now that we're in DST)? I don't know what to do here.
Local businesses are struggling, as expected. Today we got take-out from a local restaurant to do our small part to help -- got two meals' worth of food, so lunch today and probably lunch tomorrow. I got email from the shop where I have new eyeglasses pending; when they come in I can pick up curb-side, but of course that removes any possibility of adjusting the frames to my face, which is always necessary. So I guess I get my new glasses when all of this is over.
With both of us working from home we've needed to develop some protocols: close the door when in a meeting, use headsets, coordinate lunch times. Eating lunch together helps with the isolation. Both of us are used to casual in-person chatting with coworkers and video chat isn't the same -- it's the difference between bumping into someone at the coffee machine and chatting for a few minutes, which feels natural, and taking a deliberate step to initiate a video chat just to say hi, which feels more forced. Our doc team (which is already remote even without a pandemic) is now talking about a regular casual video chat; maybe that will help. Maybe the Pittsburgh team should do that too.
Dani and I wanted to play an on-theme game yesterday and our copy of Pandemic is missing. Much sadness. We're trying to figure out if we left it at some friend's house or what. It's the older edition, before they changed the board and the game pieces in ways that combine badly for the vision-challenged, so I actually want that one back, or to replace it with that edition, rather than getting the current edition, if it turns out we need to get another copy.
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On a happier note, please pass on my thanks to Mr. Fixer with the docking station! It's now seeing the USB ports and ethernet connection, yay. I now have a different mysterious network problem, but it's not the dock -- when using the ethernet and then connecting to the corporate VPN I can't access stuff on the VPN, *but* if I disconnect the ethernet and use the Wifi on the *same home network* the VPN is fine. Tomorrow when I set up for work I'll dig around in the ethernet settings looking for hints. I haven't had this problem at work, but they might have configured their machine image to work with their network without my intervention.
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Mr. Fixer has used audio stimulus as a pain coping mechanism since he was 17. His neurology also prefers multiple stimuli at one time. Whatever room he's in, there's usually TV, music, or a podcast playing (or he's playing an instrument). I used to be very good at coping with this cacophany (especially in the workplace), but as I age my neurology demands fewer auditory stimuli at one time, particularly if languages I understand, or music, are in the mix. Sparky has yet a third idiosyncratic relationship with audio stimuli, and he's also a gamer. And they're both way more talkative than me, and Sparky has some of the spectrum problems with prosody (and volume).
Negotiating the audio climate of our house has become very important, and very difficult, in these days of the three of us being home together all the time. (I.e., since he went out on disability, not just during these present troubles.) The fact that this house is so much smaller and less audio-isolating than Casa Chaos, with a more open floor plan, is part of the problem too. Mr. Fixer is good about going to headphones, but that only works with the music server and the podcasts -- not the instruments or the TV.
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I was going to ask about headphones, which you already mentioned, but they can be isolating too. I wonder if he would get the stimulation he needs while still being able to interact with you, for example to play a game or work a puzzle together, with *one* earbud -- so one ear for music or podcasts and the other ear for attending to the room and other people. (He'd need to throw the balance all to one side or the dangling earbud would play the music too, defeating the goal.)
There might be solutions for the TV; I've seen streaming boxes that advertise support for headphones. Musical instruments are by their nature aurally present, but if it were *only* musical instruments and not everything else, you might find that's enough for you. Unless he has hours-long jam sessions, I guess...
Does white noise (or pink or brown) help you at all? Would it interfere with him getting what he needs?
Best wishes to all three of you in your current house and constant togetherness.
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He's able to play games and do puzzles with the audio input that comes from social conversation. We talk while we do puzzles, and he loves playing games. (We are hoping that's a thing we'll get to do more of after we move: play games as a social activity.) And he can also exist without a soundtrack for a while if he's sucked into what he's doing (like programming). But he processes better in an environment with layers of sound.
Right now he's been in a protracted practice session as he learns to play 16C four-course guitar music on a retrofitted ukulele. Which is cool. I am fine with instrument music, but listening to someone practice for an hour at a time can be disruptive. It's not specific to this music and this instrument: it's always been like this for me with him, whether he was learning delta blues on the slide
lyreguitar, or ragtime on the resonator guitar, or Jorma-style fingerpicking on the Ovation, or Irish music on the pennywhistle, or medieval dances on the flat-backed oud, or folk music on the hammered (or Appalachian) dulcimer, or whatever else I'm managing to suppress the memories of at this hour of the night. :-) I do so love that he is musical, but I really don't always need to hear it while the sausage is being made.My favorite form of white noise is birdcalls or crickets, or waterfalls. There was a period of some years where I needed that to calm down enough to fall asleep. Since we got the cat water fountain in the house I've been noticeably more serene; it is almost as pleasant to listen to as an actual fountain!
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And yeah, I hear you on listening to practicing. Practicing music is, pretty much by definition, repeating things over and over, partially complete, with errors. It's not at all like listening to "completed" music. When On the Mark was together it must have been pretty disruptive to Dani; closing doors only does so much, after all.
What is a resonator guitar?
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A resonator guitar has one or more metal inserts in the soundbox to make it louder. It's an early 20th century invention for playing blues. They come in a few different styles. Mr. Fixer has an all metal, really loud one that he likes to play slide style; it sounds much like a dobro. I love that combination of sound and repertoire, but I need to be at least 40 feet away for my ears to be comfortable.
Mr. Fixer also made a "slide lyre," an Anglo-Saxon style lyre with a resonator insert that he calls The Historical Abomination. There's a whole Boreal Master Symposium schtick that goes with it....