Author: bahaft

This is the weirdest holiday season ever for many of us, especially most of us who frequent the Grooves, so we acknowledged this communally and supportively in a well attended Groove. Many of us reported Zoom Christmas hangs with their families from their apartments. A couple of us traveled with our “pod” people for a quiet weekend in Vermont, chosen because it has among the country’s lowest COVID rates. One of us bounced down to his place in Florida and reported that it looked like it could be “any time” and someone asked, what 1950? But we knew what he meant, most people down there are acting as if everything is normal, no masks, eating indoors, enjoying crowded bars, and just ignoring that the pandemic exists. People from the North are traveling down to Florida en masse it seems, as well as out to vacation places that are not requiring quarantine, like Mexico, Costa Rica and many of the islands. We see their posts on Facebook and experience a mix of FOMO and fear as we try to maintain care in our low-COVID-rated neighborhoods. One of us was wearing a face shield in her home, self quarantining to protect her family because she had been exposed to a friend at an indoor tennis game who soon after reported coming down with it. Many people commented that the shields aren’t as good as the masks, but who knows? We expressed our quarantine fatigue and shared our favorite recent shows on the cable networks. We talked about how many people are now moving to Florida, including the Trump family . We talked about Heather Cox Richardson, the professor on Facebook who is generously and masterfully taking time to explain what the #$%@ is going on in our country, and in detailed historical context. We wondered how transgender has become normal and how kids are learning about it through cartoons and toys. And we sang another disjointed Zoom happy birthday song to a recently birthdayed Groover, which as one described was “dysphonia on top of dystopia.”

As our kinda-quarantine keeps wending on, a weird tediousness threatens to set in. So what better way to entertain and distract us than to learn to juggle! One of my classmates, Viveca Gardiner, volunteered to give us a Zoom class on how to juggle She is a professional in the circus arts, a filmmaker, a producer, a teacher, and an MBA to boot, and she has recently starting delving into art directing Zoom backgrounds. She appeared sporting a very cute shirt, emblazoned with letters in colored circles that were the symbols of NYC subway lines – JGLR. She said it was a bit of a test to see who picked up the joke. Our instructions for the class were to show up with whatever we could manage to juggle. I came with three dryer balls which apparently were the wrong sort of balls as they are “too light,” and indeed, they consequently disappeared under furniture within my first tries, so I personally mostly observed. However, some people showed up in fine form with proper official juggling balls and some experience juggling. People really got into it, it was fun, with live time throwing balls in the air, dropping them, and trying them again, all from our little Zoom boxes. She’s experienced as a teacher so she very clearly and charmingly broke down the juggling basics, with two balls, with three balls, and a fancy two balls in one hand tossed to the other hand trick. It was a great way to break up some of the heaviness we’d all been feeling, and we learned that juggling was even good for us, it helps improve coordination and combats Alzheimer’s. We didn’t even talk about COVID, just juggling, her experience juggling, how she got into juggling, and what her next projects were, which due to COVID shutting circuses, include a somewhat major film project. COVID’s affect on the arts has been devastating, but I’d like to think some of the pivots artists are forced into will lead to some good things that might not otherwise have happened, like her film project, and like a number of us perhaps picking up juggling as a new and healthy hobby.

On Wednesday we handed our Groove over to our friend Frank Breuer who prepared an amazingly detailed, vibrant talk about Ludwig van Beethoven, his music, his life, and his death. This was going to be a year of concerts and festivals celebrating Beethoven in honor of his 250th but these were all canceled because of COVID. So this seemed fitting, that we honor him in our own small way. It was a fun ride. At first we wrestled a bit with “share screen” to pull up a few videos of “Fur Elise” (which title was really supposed to be For Therese, a girl to whom he gifted the composition in order to impress her). We heard about his failed loves, his rock stardom like fame, his fortune, his weird affection for his nephew, and his death, arguably from lead poisoning from the lead sweetened wine he drank. Frank’s research went deep and the talk ran on as questions were raised and answered and side-subjects were explored.

On this Sunday I invited two classmates – two! – who at different times participated as contestants on the revered and beloved game show Jeopardy, which was fitting since we just lost the revered and beloved Jeopardy host Alex Trebek. I personally was not a watcher of game shows, I prefer scripted series of varying cultural value, so I was somewhat surprised by the unusually large attendance for this event and the fervent interest in even the most minor details of the Jeopardy experience.

Our conversation of course started with tales of what was happening in our lives as people rolled in. Our guests hailed from outside our typical realm, including our contestant speakers Adrian Goldstein from the Bay Area and Denise Littlejohn from near Los Angeles. we heard about the increased lockdowns in California, and from an attending classmate we heard about Oregon and the increased fires, and we talked a bit about our COVID touched lives.

Then we dove deeply into all things Jeopardy. We talked about the audition process, how Denise went through it twice and in both NY when she lived there and in LA where she is now (dedication!), how hard it was to make it onto the show and to even be accepted to participate was such an honor that the contestants already felt they had won, which helped them to relax and enjoy the experience. The statistics were something like 100,000 try out, it comes down to 4000, and then only 400 make it onto the show every year, which they pointed out were tougher stats than for admittance to the most selective universities. We were told they tape five shows a day, and that Alex was very careful to not interact with the contestants individually except to take pictures so as to maintain fairness, and that he was a charming gentleman throughout. There were Standards and Practices people always there watching to make sure people were fair and their friends and family in the audience were instructed to not make eye contact. They talked about getting mic-ed for the show and how that felt very show-bizzy to them. They talked about the camaraderie among the contestants at the lunch break between tapings, especially since you only got to go to lunch at the midday break if you made it to the next level to the next show. They talked about how many outfits they brought in case they did make it to the next level and that the winners were given a changing room with a star on it! A lot of questions were asked about the buzzer and their pressing techniques and whether they were given time to practice before the show (they were). They said they weren’t required to sign an NDA but were asked to keep questions secret. They were asked about how Alex knew what stories to ask about and they explained he was given five and chose one, but occasionally would ask about the wrong story to the wrong person and there was a code phrase contestants were instructed to use to let him know and move along, “that’s exactly right, Alex” but that he rarely did make a mistake.

We asked them about how they prepared for it. They both cited historic interest in games like Trivial Pursuit and in pub trivia games. We speculated who they thought the new host would be. And we ended by asking them how they celebrated after being on the show, and they both did, with dinners and parties with friends, and whether they remember what drinks they chose to celebrate (they did).

The picture I used for the Facebook event notice for this event was perfect, a cover illustration from The New Yorker by Adrian Tomine of a woman on a Zoom date wearing a pretty top with a fancy drink in hand, sitting in front of her laptop propped up on books with a desk lamp shining on her face from behind the screen, a perfectly cultivated image for her Zoom audience. Behind her there is a Japanese style rice paper folding screen, the kind I use on my Zoom calls because my computer is too old to create those cute virtual backgrounds (which interestingly most people have grown tired of and now let their homes show). Around the woman there is chaos, an unmade bed behind the screen, unwashed dishes in the sink, cats spilling stuff over, crumpled paper on the floor. Aside from the cats, it looked very familiar, I felt seen!

On the call we talked about the Georgia Senate debates that were occurring that evening, and then about our weekends. I talked about how I’d spent a lovely day out in Westchester touring an old home, not something I might have done but for the pandemic and a drive to get out of our apartments and out of town. We discussed our phones, what brands we’re using, about television shows we’re watching and about eating outside as it gets colder. We talked about SNL, about shopping online, about our concerns about social media. We discussed how Giuliani just came down with COVID and wondered about how many people he might have infected while pursuing the fraudulent court cases alleging election fraud. I brought up a Theater of War reading of the Job story, interestingly with Bill Murray, and how one of the questions that came up was our lack of empathy for people like Giuliani and others who flout the pandemic protections. Most people were all in on being less empathetic to the Covidiots.

We then talked about the vaccine and how excited most of us were for it. The New York Times posted a handy online calculator that would show how many people were “in front” of you before you could get the vaccine based on age and comorbidities. Most of us had a couple of million people ahead of us, even in NYC, so we joked now would be a good time to get fat so we could enjoy the benefit of obesity, a comorbidity for COVID that would push us forward in the line.

We ended by talking about how many of us are choosing to decorate our apartments for the holidays, even as many of us face a “long dark winter” on our own. We talked about bringing in their Christmas trees, even if it was just for ourselves. I even brought in some extra pine branches that fell from the trees sold in little half block forests on the NYC sidewalks which pop up every season, and fortunately popped up this season too. A very nice Christmas tree salesman allowed me to dig into a giant bag of loose branches and take all that I wanted for free. I put the branches in a flower vase and am enjoying the fresh pine smell, which apparently provides some sort of health benefit, which may even be where the tradition of bringing pine into the house was inspired.

We closed this strange post-Thanksgiving Day weekend with a nicely attended Groove. I guess people were feeling more inclined to connect being in the holiday spirit and all, even though the weather over the weekend was unusually good. We shared our Thanksgiving Day jaunts with each other, all of which were arguably pandemic-friendly. I spent my Thanksgiving at my parents, after testing negative a week before and being careful thereafter. I had tested at the request of my sister-in-law who planned to host for the holiday. Unfortunately, my niece’s closest friend tested positive, so she decided it was best to cancel and instead we all Zoomed from all our respective homes. Having become somewhat adept at the Zooming thing this went much smoother than at Passover (no shouts of “unmute yourself Dad!” etc.). The next day, Friday, I enjoyed a potluck picnic in the park which had been postponed a day because of scheduled rain for Thanksgiving, thankfully which never really came, but which made the picnic available to those of us who had plans the day before. As Friday was sunny and unseasonably warm, this worked out very nicely. One friend described his Thanksgiving Day diner lunch with a friend, he had a turkey burger in honor of the day. Another had lunch at an upscale French restaurant where he ordered the Thanksgiving Day special which he said was excellent, with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. His date ordered something French. Another friend who is out in the Hamptons described a potluck dinner shared outside on covered picnic tables overlooking the beach. Someone else described a larger dinner held in a garage with the door open. Another described a very small inside dinner with his brother, brother-in-law, and a young friend who taught special education classes, and we discussed the challenges she faced teaching more challenged kids remotely. Another had a small three person get-together in a friend’s apartment building courtyard. And another had her husband and one of her two kids for Thanksgiving and Zoomed with her other child and other relatives. As turkeys don’t usually come in a size “small” most people are facing more turkey leftovers than usual. One person shared that her nephew and girlfriend had a dinner for themselves and mistakenly ordered a 26 pound turkey, which, as she said, meant “turkey sandwiches until Christmas.” Many people, among us, and friends we’ve heard from, and as evidenced on our Instagram and Facebook feeds, made their own turkey for the first time this year, as for years they’d all been celebrating at others’ homes. We noticed that there were indeed a lot of travel pictures on our feeds, and we wondered about how that would impact our country’s health. In any case, most people did something for the holiday, which is a nice show of strength in a way, and of how we all keep going and keep celebrating any chance we can.

We also talked about COVID, about the lockdowns abroad, and about how France is still very strict. We pondered the threatened December 15 NYC lockdown and wondered whether that was really going to happen or whether it was just a boogey-man threat to get us all to behave. And, in line with NYC frights, our regular with a new dog shared that she had a bit of a pup-napping scare. She had left her little dog tied up to the fence near where she was playing tennis. Obviously well cared for, the dog was wearing a bright red warm coat, was sitting comfortably on a soft folded towel, and had a chew toy to amuse himself. Despite all this someone took it upon himself to “rescue” the animal and removed the dog from where it was chained and delivered it to the person manning the tennis center front desk. Fortunately, the dog wore a license with his name and our friend’s number so she received a text describing the whereabouts of her pet, but that was only after she had noticed he had gone missing and was panicking a bit, and this probably was all several minutes later than the abduction since the dog was wearing an anti-barking collar. I mentioned I would have been furious, but she generously assumed it was because the abductor was a “dog person.” In the end no one was worse for wear but we all agreed this was a heads up that she should probably not leave her dog unattended. Since the pandemic began, and remote working became the norm, dogs, especially cute little apartment-sized dogs, are in high demand and are demanding big prices. Someone amongst us relayed a story she knew of a friend whose dog had disappeared and was found a month later two states away, obviously pupnapped, so this happens. That same friend shared she also had a new dog, but that living in the suburbs the pup had other threats, like roaming wild turkeys bigger than the dog, even at over 80 pounds.

We then stopped to sing Happy Birthday to one of our regulars, and afterward marveled at how comparatively better the Zoom performances by known bands and artists on television are than our disjointed attempt to musically express our birthday wishes. We posited that they must use better tech, or maybe prerecorded tracks. In any case, the wish was heartfelt and she enjoyed the off-key serenade.

We then meandered to memories of vacations and summers past. A mention of summer camp horseback riding lessons reminded a friend of riding horses on a Costa Rican vacation with her then-boyfriend now-husband when her horse decided to take off from the slowly walking pack into a full on gallop. Having mastered summer camp horseback riding classes she was able to rally the horse and bring him into line. She fondly remembered the horse’s name was Saddam.

We discussed how in many of these vacation spots, like in this case Costa Rica, tourists are allowed to do possibly dangerous sports, like horseback riding and diving, with minimum training. We talked about having been pushed off the back of boats on random islands and in Australia after a half hour’s lesson with a diving tank, while those of us who were “certified” divers endured months of training in swimming pools before being permitted to dive. Another of us, a certified diver, remembered that a year ago at this time she was swimming with sharks in French Polynesia, and we discussed that this was likely a COVID-friendly activity. She had had another diving trip planned for this past April and has postponed it to May and we all wondered whether this might need to be postponed as well, based on what the likelihood of obtaining a vaccine by then will be. This of course then led into a discussion about the vaccine trials and the promises of the various companies coming up with the vaccines and AstroZeneca’s latest flub in their trials. The scientists among us discussed how the vaccines work and whether the FDA would approve them fast enough, and about the QAnon conspiracy theories we read about which made too many people adverse to taking them when they do finally come out.

We then somehow moved into remembrances of myriad celebrity spottings. As most of us live in NYC most of us had a couple to share. Celebrities are known to prefer New York because we city dwellers tend to leave them alone, being too cool for school, or just too much in a rush somewhere to stop to gawk. Most of the mentions related that they were generally very pleasant. One person shared that her friend witnessed Paul McCartney singing “Blackbird” to a fan who apologetically stopped him in a store to tell him it was her family’s favorite. Another mentioned she saw Chris Cuomo at a pizza place, and he was more excited to talk about the excellence of the pizza than anything else. Alec Baldwin was seen many times in the Hamptons by our Hamptons dwelling friend, and though his reputation with fans has been a tad tarnished over the years, her experience and her friends’ experiences with him have only been lovely, as she described. Other names were mentioned, and all with a bit of excitement, but distance, like Ric Ocasek, Steven Tyler, George Clooney and Peter York. I have several encounters, having lived here quite a while, but I shared one of my favorite stories from long ago, spotting Chris Noth at a charity benefit when he was in Sex and the City playing Mr. Big, and looking up at him and then away, because of course he should be there, Mr. Big always went to those parties, but then double-taking, remembering he was a person and not the character, and that this was pretty ironic and funny, and the look he shared with me was a total Mr. Big “yeah, it is pretty ironic and funny, isn’t it?”

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This Sunday we were all anticipating probably the weirdest Thanksgiving we’d face in our lives with all the dire warnings spinning in our ears cautioning us against travel and visiting friends and family because of the very real possibility that we might infect ourselves or others by the innocent act of celebrating a national holiday we’ve known since childhood. The attitude on the call was, however, not alarm, but mere “whatever,” more pandemic, more poopiness Most of us had decided to forego big events, or that decision had been made for us, and were anticipating smaller events or riding the evening out solo. It wasn’t even that much of a topic of conversation as it was sort of done deal and best not belabored. We talked briefly about alumni and alumnae and about the book the Red Tent by Anita Diamant and the graphic details of the biblical story of Dina which inspired it, which made some of the gents uncomfortable. Then we launched into a very long and extensive conversation of what to look for in a laptop. I’m contemplating buying a backup as so much of our lives we’re now living so remotely depends on our computers and our access to the internet that the prospect of my old workhorse failing is a tad disturbing. One friend kept commenting privately in the chat that our collective lack of knowledge about computers, aside from an individual or two, made us sound “old.” As most of us are over 40, well so be it. Hardware and software issues were parsed collectively and many of us shared issues of minor note that caused major frustration.

We went from computers to more fretting about the COVID situation. New lockdowns are being threatened in various parts of the country, and various parts of New York State, now. Someone mentioned her doorman in her Manhattan building told her several families in the building had contracted it, two of which were on the same floor. One person shared that her building required that a tenant reveal their status to the building if they do test positive. Personally, my building does not require notification and when I asked my doorman in passing whether he knew of anyone who did he said no. I live in a building of mostly young people, so maybe that’s why. However, one young gent shared with me in the elevator when I asked if he minded that I join him on it (even though we were both masked that seems to be the current elevator etiquette – to ask) that he had had it back in April, but didn’t have symptoms while his parent and grandparent did. He referred to his household as a “typical” response to COVID, with the symptoms worsening with the age of the person suffering the virus, as if there were such a thing as normal with this. We talked again about staying warm as we socialized outside and about the vaccine. Our regular with a young daughter shared her on her Zoom box and our regular with a little dog shared him on her Zoom box. We talked about fitting in dinners, haircuts, and doctors visits before any worsening spike in cases or increased lockdowns. We talked a bit about Trump’s refusal to concede even while more Republicans encouraged him to do so, and we wondered about who he would pardon or what important documents he would shred before leaving. We worried that so much of our government relies on people doing the right thing and how Trump often didn’t and that Trumpism isn’t going away and that he may run again in 2024, and we were curious who was funding all his spurious lawsuits. We wondered a bit about who Biden would choose for his cabinet, and how we couldn’t wait until January. And then we retired from the chat, with the impetus that our friend had to put her little girl back to bed.

For the first time in a while our conversation did not obsess over politics and elections. We talked about heat lamps, haircuts, medical updates, and the weather – as a very loud wind storm was whipping around many of our NYC windows and threats of tornados in Brooklyn popped up on some of our phones. We talked about Thanksgiving and how to handle it with COVID and the recommended limits on gatherings, about televisions shows, about diners and about living as an avatar online in endeavors like Second Life. We talked a bit about corrupt judges, the upcoming Georgia runoffs and the Million MAGA March, which attracted maybe one hundred thousand or so and broke out in violence. One theme that did emerge, and caused a tad bit of contention, was how we Democrats (as most of us are) really need to try to understand why people, so many people, voted for Trump. We all agreed that the divisiveness in our country now is not something to be proud of or to promulgate. The question of how to understand each other, of how to reconcile with each other, of how to move forward and strengthen our country, was of course posed, but not answered.

I first posted this Zoom time on Facebook as “Re-Count Re-Groove” with a picture of a roller coaster and a comment along the lines of we all want to throw our arms in the air and scream, so let’s chat.” Then Saturday morning around 11am Joe Biden was announced as President Elect. Friends from across the world were texting me congratulations and neighbors were dancing in the NYC streets and partying in the parks. So I immediately changed the title of the Zoom meeting to Celebration Groove and the picture to one of Pres. Elect Biden.

Rather than being celebratory and joyous as I’d hoped we’d be, most of us on the well attended Zoom expressed concerns about the immediate future, what scorched earth tactics Trump planned, the lawsuits alleging voter fraud he promised, and his threat to not leave the office quietly. We also talked about our PTSD, how we realized how used to being regularly upset by his tweet, how we wince when he hear his voice, how Biden’s and Harris’ speeches Saturday were a welcome respite, to hear people speak calmly and in proper sentences with hope and seriousness of purpose. We again worried about how many people had voted for him and what that would mean for us having Trump in our futures. We talked about the Georgia races especially, commended Stacey Abrams for getting out the vote, and hoped the recounts would go well. We also talked a bit about the scandals among the Democrats which hadn’t gotten as much press as one might have thought. We also talked about Alex Trebek who just died and about the etymology of the “horny” and “onanism” and the ancient practice of “Jibbum” when a brother married his dead brother’s widow, as happened in the Biden family. We talked about autism and how common it is now that older fathers are propagating more frequently, about inclusion, and charity tennis games with Federer and Nadal who played Bill Gates and Trevor Noah. Someone told a story of watching Bill Murray read Yeats in light of an upcoming online production of Bill Murray reading poetry and someone told a story of having seen his brother Charlie Murphy perform standup. We admired our friend’s little dog. And then we returned to the election, and our concerns over the next couple months. We wondered whether he’d be arrested and agreed likely not, maybe just fined, and that fine would also somehow go away. We wondered whether he would be liable for the Hague to prosecute him for crimes against humanity, but then figured, probably not. We talked about the schisms in our families with some of us veering Democrat and some Trumper and whether that would continue. And we worried a little about COVID as Europe starts to shut down again and we’re seeing superspreader events like maskless weddings and big sports games like Notre Dame vs. Clemson where the students poured out of the stands into the field in one giant semi-masked cluster. So, what was supposed to be a lighter Groove turned out to be more anxiety. I’d hoped we’d allow ourselves a break, but I guess it’s too soon.

This year’s elections are absorbing most of us, and not in a good way. Most of us are anxious about the results and about the possible fallout from the race, locally and nationally, and immediately and for the long term. On Election Day most of the polling places in the City had small lines because so many people had voted early out of anxiety about voting, store windows were being boarded up in anticipation of protests, and lines at grocery stores wrapped around blocks in case the protests got violent and kept people inside and extra provisions were needed. Wednesday, the day after the election, the results still weren’t decided. Many of us stayed up late watching the results come in, and one of us even was still up at 3:00 am to watch Trump insist he had won and votes after Election Day didn’t count, which of course was debunked. Of course the conversation was dominated by the election, by the different results from different states coming in, by the Senate and the House of Representatives races. Many of us were watching our televisions reporting the races as the call went on. We talked a little about some television shows we’re watching, some exercising we’re doing and how one can get rhabdomyolysis from exercising. We talked a bit about languages we knew, in light of the impact the Cuban and Venezuelan communities made in Florida on the incoming result, and about some past trips abroad we made. The conversation consistently came back to the election and how disappointed many of us were that although Biden is kind of winning, it’s too close to call and what that failure of a deciding side signifies for the country going forward, that we’re so split. We would have kept going, we were anxious. However, when the young daughter of one of our regulars wandered into her mom’s computer room sleepy eyed to see what was going on we realized it was time to say good night and to return to our television screens, and to continue to hope for the best for our country.