Living the dream, drinking the bleach

An arachnoid presence

While you have been studying Renaissance art or harvesting yeast from the backyard, I’ve been busy doing important things like playing an epic game of Spider Solitaire.

For those who are familiar with Spider, I play with four suits and choose only games at the Grandmaster level. I have one goal – win all games. Purists will have to close their eyes, but that means I use the undo feature with wild abandon. Since adopting this approach, I have not lost a game.

My last attempt was a test of moral strength. Undo, undo, undo. Nothing I tried was working. The game automatically saves, so I’d just close it after a good butt-kicking and then go back to it the next day. I am proud to say I won it yesterday after – hold the applause please – 33 hours, 14 minutes and 23 seconds.

Spider is a good way to waste time, but I like to believe it’s also good for the brain and soul. If you believe all games are winnable, then you keep going until you win. Sometimes my original assumptions don’t hold up, and I have to abandon them for new strategies that are often counter-intuitive. Are there parallels between Spider and real life?

Yes. In the words of the Canadian philosopher, Corey Hart, Never Surrender.

More yard art, please

Now that my brain is freed up from the tyranny of Spider, I’m starting a new art project. Many of you know I’m not much of an artist, but I’ve been experimenting in retirement and boldly display my work here. I’m particularly fond of Gladys, the sun goddess I rescued from heaps of rust. Her smiling face watches over us.

I have this piece of bench from the fire a year or so ago (when all those cute firemen showed up). This is actually my neighbor’s debris that I scavenged from a pile headed for the dump. While creating beauty seems like a natural antidote for our current reality, I’m open to ugly.

This morning, I woke up thinking whatever I do with this piece of bench will somehow be an expression of my feelings about the pandemic. I have no idea what that means in terms of a deliverable, as we used to say at work, but I’m going to try and let my emotions flow.

Less whining, more wine

We drove out to our favorite Amador County winery. The tasting room isn’t open, but someone is there, and you can purchase bottles. We were only going to get six, but all wine was 40 percent off, so we doubled that. We wore masks, and they added a plastic shield over the wine bar, so it seemed like a pretty benign process.

I asked the guy who works there what phase they were in as far as opening, and he just laughed. No idea.

Golf or something like it

I’ve decided golf is reasonably safe, at least the way I do it … only courses where I can walk with my personal pushcart. I have three masks at the ready. One for the beginning, when people are waiting to tee off. One for the turn, when I use the restroom. And one for the end, when people are gathered in the parking lot. I steer clear of everyone and keep hand sanitizer in my bag.

The CDC is saying the virus isn’t easily spread through surfaces, so that’s promising. But just in case, I grabbed a stack of scorecards with a tissue and took them home to “cool off” in the garage.

I played with the women’s league last Wednesday. My favorite guy was at the cash register and asked me how things were going. I said, “Oh, you know, living the dream, drinking the bleach.” We had a good low-emission chuckle (not the bad droplet-spreading laugh).

During play, I had to ask one of my partners to back off. She looked at me with surprise, like I was making this up. She said, “Do you know anyone who has the virus?”

My response?

“No, but I’ve had cancer twice, and I know what it’s like to be sick and face death. I’m not taking any chances.”

In conclusion

I continue to be amazed by all the conspiracy theories floating around about this virus. I wonder if people believe this stuff because no one believes the news anymore, and science is for sissies.

One thing confirmed for me through this pandemic is that we are in big trouble when everything you know you read on Facebook. The anti-intellectuals seem to be winning.

I’m no stable genius, but I’m starting to think basic intelligence is my super power.