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Being in self quarantine means spending a lot of time with……well….yourself. Inevitably this will lead to at least some self analysis. Over the years those who know me best have suggested that I have an obsession with avoiding waste. I have to disagree. I think my behavior is perfectly normal.

For example, if there is a light on in a room with nobody in it, I am compelled to get up and turn it off. Wouldn’t anybody? If there is a TV on with nobody watching it, I simply must shut it down. My young grandkids have Ipads on which they watch cartoons and play games. Often they will set the Ipad down still playing and wander off to do something else. I just can’t sit there and watch the batteries run down with nobody watching it. I have to pick the thing up and turn it off. Nothing obsessive about that. In fact, I’ll bet you’re right there with me. Take this waste obsession survey:

Does running water drive you crazy? If someone in your house is taking a shower, do you find yourself timing it? Do you wash dishes in the sink because you can’t bring yourself to use the water it takes to run the dish washer? Or better yet, do you just stick to paper plates and plastic silverware?

When temperatures drop below freezing, do you let your faucets drip overnight to avoid the pipes icing up? Are you then unable to sleep all night because of all that dripping water going to waste? When brushing your teeth, do you squeeze every molecule of toothpaste out of the tube before disposing of it? Do you use toothbrushes and razor blades until they disintegrate before moving on to new ones? Do you save unused paint for years and yet remain shocked when you pry open the can and find it has morphed into something resembling asphalt? Do you keep that comfortable old pair of slippers until there are so many holes in it they function more like sandals? When the kids pick at their food and leave most of their french fries on the plate, do you feel somebody has to eat them up? And by somebody do you mean you?.

When you do decide to cut loose and overspend on some sort of guilty pleasure, can you do so without feeling you have to cut back on something else? For instance, if you want to go out and eat at an expensive restaurant, do you think “Fine, but no fast food for breakfast or lunch this week?” Are you collecting a pile of pennies in your car but can’t bring yourself to spend them on anything? Do you keep scooping from a jar of jelly until you can see your reflection in the bottom?

If you answered yes to these questions, you are just like me. Personally, I think we are just being smart and economically responsible. So just ignore those who think we have become obsessive.

Okay, I have to end this now. I just noticed the dogs haven’t eaten all of the food in their dish. I need to pour it back in the bag. I’ll see you at the therapist office.

The internet has been the driving force in American culture for about 30 years now. It’s the best thing that ever happened to us. It’s also the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.

There are so many benefits to having instant information at our fingertips. You hungry? Type your order in the app, the food will be ready when you get there. No waiting. Heck, they’ll even deliver it to you. Miss your favorite TV show? You don’t have to wait for the rerun. It’s there on demand any time. Need to renew your driver license? Do it on the website. No waiting in line at the DMV. Nope, you don’t have to wait for just about anything anymore.

And therein lies the problem, the source of so much frustration for all of us when it comes to dealing with the threat of the Covid 19 virus. We have run into something we can’t fix by pulling out our phones and clicking on the app. We are told to stay in our homes. We are told to keep our social distance from each other. But most painfully of all, we are told to wait. And we can’t stand it. Patience, the ability to wait, has been bred out of us. We simply don’t know how to do it anymore.

What? The virus may not peak and run its course until June or July? We might have to keep this self quarantine stuff up for another 4 to 5 months? We can’t comprehend that. Even President Trump can’t wait. He is publicly setting Easter Sunday as a target to begin reopening the country. Yet every time he mentions that prospect, you can see the health officials behind him wince a bit. I picture a thought bubble above their heads saying “please don’t say that….not gonna happen.” The frenzy in our grocery stores is evidence that we just can’t wait for the supply to catch up to the demand. We have to hoard. Let the next guy fend for himself.

We’re going to have to relearn this virtue the hard way. The virus isn’t going anywhere. There is no vaccination and won’t be for awhile. The economy will likely continue to decline in the short term. People will continue to lose their jobs in the immediate future. But there is a corner to be turned, and we will turn it. We just have to wait for it.

So take a very……….deep……….breath…………now exhale slowly…………..let yourself relax. Realize this: You are healthy. You have people you love and who love you. God’s beautiful world still unfolds around you. There will be many tomorrows to pursue your hopes and dreams. Everything that can be done is being done by the brightest medical minds on our planet. You have no control over that. So don’t worry about it.

We won’t win this battle with fear, lack of cooperation, panic and anxiety. We will win it by waiting it out. Patience is our best weapon. Find it deep down in your arsenal. It may save your life.

In my 69 years on this earth, I have never seen anything quite like this….a virtual shutdown of American social activity. We’re going to struggle with this. Human beings are social by nature. To be told to avoid public gatherings is almost impossible for us to truly comprehend.

We could grasp the cancellation of major events. That was a no brainer. But we are only now beginning to feel the real impact on our individual lives. No playgrounds? Movie theaters? Restaurants? Churches? What about weddings? Don’t visit hospitals? Basically stay on your own property.

And it gets more intimate than that. We’re told to give everyone “social distancing.” We’re even told not to touch our own face. Some say it’s all hype. Others claim it’s worse than we think. Whom to believe? Social media is at the same time a blessing and a curse. It is now our most effective means of communication, while also serving as a launching pad for rumor and skeptic misinformation.

It doesn’t help that we can’t really grasp what this thing is, or how long we must deal with it. It’s like the flu, it’s not like the flu. You may only get a little sick, you may die. You may just be a carrier. Because most postponements have been in the neighborhood of two or three weeks, we want to believe we can just wait this thing out for a little while, like waiting for a tornado watch to expire. Yet health officials are using words like July and August.

As a boy I remember the collective worry that swept over the country during the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy. As an adult I recall the angst of gas rationing in the 70’s, the twin towers in 2001 and the recession of 2008. Disturbing all, but nobody told us then we couldn’t go to school or that we have to stay six feet away from every other human. Small wonder some are scared.

I am not among them. Smart, talented people are putting plans in place. Eventually the precautions will catch up to and surpass the threat. In the mean time history shows we are nothing if not adaptable. We will adjust to picking up our restaurant food outside the building, to watching church on the internet, to washing our hands 20 times a day. We will still keep in touch with our friends, rediscover our families within our homes, perhaps turn more earnestly to our Creator for assurance. Life is not worse. It’s just different. Really different.

In the end it will pull us all closer together, even as we must stay further apart.

My son is 36 years old. My daughter is 34. Neither one of them can remember a world without the internet. I confess I’m having a little trouble remembering it myself. Was there really a time when you could drive your car without a phone ringing in your pocket or purse? When you couldn’t order your food until you actually got to the restaurant?

A time when you were watching an old TV show and wondered whether one of the actors was still alive but had no way of finding out? A time when you weren’t sure when the football game started or what channel it was on so you had to check the sports section of the newspaper? A time when you actually HAD a newspaper? A time when you had to go out of your house and speak to your neighbors and friends to learn all the latest gossip? When you had to slip into the dressing room at the clothing store and try on that new pair of pants before buying?

A time when you used a dictionary to look up the meaning of a word? When you had to call the local movie theater and listen to a recording of all the showtimes? When you had to watch the local TV channels to get the latest news and weather? When you looked at your watch to know what time it is? When you had to use alarm clocks and stopwatches? When you turned on the radio to listen to your favorite music? When you had to sit down and write a letter to someone and put it in the mailbox and wait days for it to be delivered? When you needed a camera to take a picture, and then had to wait for the film to be developed?

A time when you had to look for a phone booth to make a call if you were away from home? When you had to depend on night clubs or churches or your workplace to find someone you might be interested in dating? When there was no such thing as “on demand” and you had to wait to watch your favorite show until the TV network aired it in its weekly time slot? When you had to be at your home to open your garage door, or turn on your lights, or adjust your thermostat? When you had no generic computer voice to whom you could address a question? When you boarded your dog and you couldn’t watch it all day on a live camera? When you needed a typewriter to type an essay like this?

A time when you had to go to a store to shop? When you needed textbooks to go to school? When you didn’t have to worry that information on how to make a bomb was available with the click of a button? When there was no such thing as “sexting”? When you had to keep a paper log to know how much money was in your checking account? When you actually had to laugh out loud instead of writing LOL? When there was no such word as “selfie”? When we didn’t spend hours of our lives waiting for computers to boot up? When we thought the only definitive source of information was something called an encyclopedia?

Did such a world really exist? And if so, how did we all survive it?

Okay my sweet little grandkids, it’s time to put down the Ipads and head off to bed. What’s that? You want grandpa to tell you a bedtime story? Well….let’s see…..okay got one. Snuggle under the covers and I’ll tell you a TV story.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a world where there were only three TV stations…..a world where you had to actually get up out of the chair and walk to the TV set and turn a dial to change the channel…..a world where the TV screen was part of a large piece of furniture that rested on the floor, not on the wall. It was called Antenna World, named after the long, thin metal protrusions that rested on its top.

There were only three networks broadcasting on Antenna World, NBC, ABC and CBS. Actually there was a fourth network. It was called PBS. But it existed in that snowy, murky land called UHF. No one really understood much about UHF, except that there were a bunch of school type shows on it, mostly teachers in classrooms standing in front of blackboards doing math or science lessons……like anybody was going to watch that! And anyway, it was almost impossible to get a nice clean picture on UHF. Usually it would fade in and out like a burst of wind.

There was no color on Antenna World. There was only black and white and shades of gray. Strangest of all, there was no strong violence or bad language or naughty romantic shenanigans on the shows. When the good guys would shoot the bad guys, they would just fall down. Oh, and that’s another thing. In Antenna World the good guys would always win. And you could tell who they were. Some of them wore white hats. On the funny shows they would try to make you laugh by just being silly. They didn’t have to use bad words and naughty jokes. Sometimes they would just hit somebody in the face with a pie, or fall through a trap door.

Everything was fine on Antenna World until one day it was invaded by the Satellite People. The Satellite People attached long cables and weird looking dishes on the roofs of people’s houses and brought in hundreds of networks and channels. Suddenly there was much, much more than NBC, ABC and CBS. And every channel was aimed at a special group of people. There were channels for golfers and tennis players and race car drivers, for people who liked cooking, and remodeling and travelling, for fans of old movies, mushy movies, and funny movies, for Jews and Catholics and Scientologists. There were even channels for people who didn’t speak English.

The Satellite People worried that there would not be enough folks to watch all of these channels, so they started making them nastier and naughtier and more disrespectful. They were also charging a lot of money to see all of their channels. As time went by the number of channels kept growing and growing. There were channels for children and teenagers and very old people. Channels for music videos and government hearings and cowboy western shows. And some of the shows kept getting nastier and nastier and naughtier and naughtier. It got so bad that some of the people on Antenna World had had enough. They told the Satellite People to go away. They started cutting those cables and taking the dishes off of their roofs. They went back to the long, thin metal protrusions on top of their TV’s. They found they could still get more channels than just NBC, ABC, and CBS, but most of them just showed those old programs that were funny and silly and nice.

The people of Antenna World had learned a very important lesson. That more is not always better. That we can laugh and cry and pay attention to things without them being nasty and naughty. That it was silly to spend all that money for hundreds of channels that they don’t even watch! Why, they even discovered they didn’t have to watch so much TV at all. They started talking to each other and spending time together. They were very pleased. And they lived happily ever after. The end.

Now go to sleep my little buddies. Tomorrow we’ll take a break from Disney Plus and maybe play catch.

There is more out there. More than you know. More than you want. More than you can take. I’m talking about Christmas music. There is more out there than Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Mannheim Steamroller. More than Brenda Lee, Josh Groban, Elvis and Frank Sinatra.

In fact, if you’ll pardon the grammar, in the music biz, you ain’t nobody til you record a Christmas album. Just out of curiosity, and also because I basically have no life, I decided to surf the internet to find the Christmas music you DON’T hear on the radio and in the retail stores. Here’s a few examples of albums that I found guaranteed to make your holiday season a little more……….unique?

A JAMES BROWN FUNKY CHRISTMAS….One of the cuts is titled “Santa’s Goin’ to the Ghetto”. It’s yuletide tunes designed to make you feel good like you knew that you would.

A COLONEL SANDERS CHRISTMAS……and you thought all he did was make fried chicken.

CHRISTMAS IN THE STARS: A STAR WARS CHRISTMAS…..various sounds of the season sung by, hold your breath, C-3PO and Artoo. I think I might have heard the Wookie in the background. The force was definitely not with them.

A MEOWY CHRISTMAS……Sure Bing Crosby did an okay job of singing Little Drummer Boy, but you haven’t really experienced it until you’ve heard it sung by cats. Just make sure your dog is not in the room when you play it.

YULETIDE DISCO……Yes my friends, get out those leisure suits and polka dotted shirts because Disco is not dead! It lives on in this collection of traditional Christmas songs done to a disco beat. It’s like having John Travolta and the Bee Gees in your living room. You will have to invest in a strobe light to get the full effect.

A TWISTED CHRISTMAS……Don’t like disco? How about heavy metal? Twisted Sister puts fuzz tone guitars and pounding bass on to the classics. I’ll bet you never knew that Silent Night had a drum solo.

HUNG FOR THE HOLIDAYS…….Remember reality show wannabe William Hung? He had his 5 minutes of fame years ago but he used about three of those minutes to put together this medley of holiday offerings. Once again, the judges were not impressed.

JINGLE BABIES…..A gaggle of babies cooing and ooing and ahhing to various sounds of the season. Wonder how many times the recording session had to be stopped for diaper changes.

CHRISTMAS ON DEATH ROW…..I skipped right past this one. I don’t want to know.

A WAFFLE HOUSE CHRISTMAS…..Apparently all the wonderful tunes you enjoyed while wolfing down those omelets are now available on LP. By the way, it’s available 24 hours a day.

I hope you and your family have a most wonderful and blessed Christmas and New Year. And after reading this, if you want to stick with Bing and Burl, I will totally understand.

So I’m in my car the other day listening to the news on the radio and the guy comes on with a health report about the dangers of an inactive lifestyle. Too many people are spending too much time sitting, he says. Studies, he says, show sitting too much can do irreparable damage to your body over the long term. He goes so far as to say sitting is the new smoking.

Really? This is distressing to me. You see, sitting is one of my favorite things. It’s one of the things I do best. I’ve gotten really good at it. I can sit in multiple positions for hours and never stiffen up. I can do the standard upright arms-at-your-side technique, transition seamlessly into the right side elbow lean, switch to the left, ooze down into the slump, snap into the legs underneath pose (we used to call this Indian style but I guess that’s politically incorrect now), and finally….spectacularly….whip my legs over the side of the chair and do the sideways sit. For me it’s beyond relaxing. It’s an art form, a kind of ballet of laziness.

Now you tell me this can be as bad for me as smoking? Wow. It got me thinking about how much sitting we actually do in a typical day. (I was sitting when I thought about this).

What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? Go to the bathroom right? And promptly sit on the throne to take care of business. After bathroom duty, it’s breakfast time, where you sit to enjoy your corn flakes and orange juice. Actually, I do know a person who stands while she eats. She always looks like she’s in a hurry, like she’s at an airport at one of those standing tables wolfing down a quick bite while trying not to miss her plane.

Then it’s either off to work or, for the retired, settling down into some relaxing activities. Either way, you’re sitting. In the car or in your recliner. If you have a desk job, you sit all day, interrupted by lunch where you sit at a restaurant. After a hard day’s work, you can’t wait to get back in your car (sitting), drive home, eat dinner (sitting), and then unwind with your favorite TV shows (sitting). If you no longer work, you likely spend a good chunk of your day doing stuff like reading (sitting), crossword puzzles (yep), movies (uh-huh), sewing (oh yeah), in my case writing (hard to type in a standing position), and of course snacking (sitting…or, if still in bed, laying).

But wait you say. You work out right? You get your walk in, your treadmill, your stair climber, your jog, your free weights(some of which is done sitting). You’re good right?
Not good enough says the man on the radio. It’s not how much time you spend doing yoga, it’s how much total time you spend sitting.

What’s the answer? Stand America! Stand while you eat! Stand while you work! Stand while you watch TV! Stand in church! (which will be a bit awkward when everyone else is sitting) Stand when you read! Stand when you pet your dog! Stand when you tie your shoes (also good for the hamstrings). Stand and stand some more!

Whew! It’s all so exhausting. Might as well face the truth. We can’t stand standing. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stand up for my right to sit down. Just pick me up on your way out of the spin class.

There is apparently no longer a “slow” time of year at the Happiest Place on Earth. My wife, daughter, son-in-law, their three toddlers and I spent a week there in early October. The tour books rated that an “off” season. I would hate to see the busy season. Crowds were huge all week long. The economy must be good because great hordes of people seem to be able to afford expensive vacations. And Disney is expensive. A columnist once described it as “a giant vacuum cleaner aimed at your wallet”.

That said, I was stunned at how friendly, courteous and considerate most everyone seemed to be, despite crowded waiting lines in hot sun. In those conditions it’s inevitable that you’re going to get smacked by ladies purses, get the back of your shoe stepped on, or get jostled and/or cut off by somebody crossing the lines. There was always a quick “Please excuse me” and an empathetic smile. It’s contagious. I found myself being much more polite than my usual curmudgeonly self. Many went out of their way to make room for our little toddlers so they would have a better view of the parades and fireworks, or skooch over on the bench so we would have a place to sit. People of all races and creeds working together for the benefit of all. What a concept!

How long would you wait in line to get on a ride at Disney World? What’s the absolute longest you would wait? Would you wait 4 hours? That was the waiting time for the Avatar ride in Animal Kingdom. Fortunately we had a Fast Pass for that attraction. Lots of dirty looks from those poor souls in line as we walked past them. I’ve been trying to think of something….anything…for which I would stand in line for four hours. I haven’t come up with anything yet. (By the way, the ride was outstanding…but not four hours outstanding.)

Those Fast Passes are definitely the way to go. Get as many of them as the system will allow. Guard them, protect them, cherish them, love them as your own. They will save your experience.

It’s possible to have too much money. Occasionally while waiting in line we would see a family come in through a side door at the last minute, and immediately be ushered in to a front row seat. A man in line in front of us told us those people had purchased a private tour of the park at a cost of $15 thousand per person! For a family of four, that would be $60 thousand dollars!

I love reading the funny t-shirts people wear to the park. One woman’s read “I wear the ears”, while her husband’s read “I buy the beers”. Another had a picture of the seven dwarfs with the inscription “I’m Grumpy. Deal with it”.

Please…no more photos framed so that the subject appears to be holding up the big silver ball in EPCOT. It’s been done and it’s kinda lame.

No matter how meticulously you budgeted for your Disney trip, at some point you will have thrown your credit card out there so often you’ll have absolutely no idea how much money you’ve spent.

My wife Sharon thought it would be fun for all of us to wear identical t-shirts. At first I thought it was a bit silly but it actually became useful as it helped Disney ushers recognize we were all in the same party and keep us together…no small feat in these crowds.

Going in, we told ourselves we would save money by visiting a grocery store outside of the Disney property, loading up on food, and eating meals in the hotel room. Yeah, that never happened. In the morning we wanted to start early to beat the crowds to the parks. By evening we were too tired and sweaty to make the trip. If you have similar ambitions, do the shopping before you get there.

Oh, and about that beating the crowds thing….you can’t do it. There will be as many folks in line at 7am as there will be at 2pm. Might as well sleep in and take your time.

Disney is constantly replacing old attractions with new ones, but a few of the classics remain and thankfully so. Even after all these years, I still can’t get enough of “It’s a Small World”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and Space Mountain.

I get why children would be ecstatic to have their picture taken with the Disney movie princess characters, but I was stunned by the number of adults who wanted to be photographed with them.

Speaking of the princesses, I see now why they have to go to school to learn how to do this. I was fascinated to observe how they have mastered the subtle art of over-emoting with hand gestures and smiles and photographic poses and acting….well….like a princess. What they do is not easy and requires talent and poise.

In general I would say the food was good, however I paid twelve dollars for a massive foot long hot dog that looked and tasted more like a piece of PVC pipe.

As I lifted and carried and held toddlers through long lines in blistering hot weather I told myself I would never do this again. But by the time we got home I was thinking I can’t wait to go back.

So the toddler grandkids are coming over to spend the weekend eh? And you’re afraid they will be bored with the same old toys you’ve had around the house for months. Yep, it’s time to venture out into that vast, complicated and costly expanse known as “New Toyland”. But how do you know what to get them? There are countless options out there. What will be a hit? What will get discarded after 30 seconds?

It’s always a roll of the dice. I remember last December buying my toddler grands a toy Christmas tree with different color ornaments they could hang and arrange in different ways. In terms of holding their interest it was an epic fail. They did, however, take a liking to the box the tree came in, turning it into a fort and climbing in and out of it for hours. Sigh.

Oh sure, you can cop out and buy them some character from the “Frozen” movies. I guess that’s okay if you don’t mind listening to the dang thing play the chorus from “Let It Go” incessantly. We’ve gone that route. I have come to despise that song. I hear it in my head everywhere I go. It’s playing in my dreams. Somehow, some way I’ll get back at Disney for doing this to me. The worst versions of this toy are the ones that are motion-sensitive. They start playing the song just by picking up vibrations around them. Every time Sharon and I walk through our den we hear the song kick in, no doubt from a Frozen doll that was buried under the furniture or stowed away in the fireplace. You can’t escape it!

For this reason I recommend skipping the Frozen toys this time around, or any toy that sings, buzzes, rings, or recites poetry. You want nice, quiet, soft, benevolent toys. Yet engaging and fun. For my money you can’t go wrong with building blocks…..nice, quiet building blocks. Legos are always a winner, but I found a few others that I would think would be cool if I was a toddler.

One of them is called Suction Kupz. They are brightly colored silicone cups with suction edges at the top and bottom. Kids can stack them and stick them on to walls, windows, tables, almost any surface…or just drink their juice from them. A set of six sells for $14.95.

Another version of this sort of toy is called Tobbles Neo. They are uniquely shaped and weighted and can be stacked. The ad says kids never get tired of the blocks toppling, spinning, balancing, wobbling, tilting, and wiggling. A set of 84 units is listed at $26.95.

As a kid I always loved dominoes. Now there is a modern day version called Zoo-Ominoes. The dominoes are animal and tree shaped and come with obstacles, staircases and other contraptions. A young mind could set up all sorts of creative chain reactions. The kit contains 200 units and the price is $29.95.

I found these and other ideas at a website called fatbraintoys.com.

Best of all….not a single one of them plays “Let It Go.”