A sense of where we are

Every day it seems I hear or read of people having nightmare scenarios at airports. Flights canceled. Luggage lost. Long layovers. Etc.

The dread from those stories is offset by the longing I feel -- admittedly -- when I see people's beautiful photos on Facebook from their European and other vacations. Looks good. Of course I have myself gotten out to some beautiful places since the onset of the pandemic -- Colorado, Seattle, San Francisco -- not to mention plenty of trips to more mundane places like the Northeast, Houston and Atlanta -- so perhaps my itch has been just scratched enough. 

But looking at people's stress over trips interrupted I can't help but to think that they represent people's failure to internalize the key lesson of the pandemic -- to appreciate what we have. I recognize as I say that that it's easy for me to say it, when I have so much.

As a case in point, our dishwasher was out for a week. There was even a moment on Sunday when -- with overnight guests from Paris barreling down the East Coast towards us -- I realized that our AC was off downstairs. I was hot from having played tennis and hungry too, but there were a few minutes there when I had the grim feeling that everything was falling apart. I finally figured out that a poorly-labeled circuit breaker had been tripped in Graham's room when Mary was vacuuming and that bullet was dodged. 

Back to the dishwasher. We had to wash dishes by hand for five days or so. It was a bit of a pain but we did it and by yesterday, when an appliance repairman was able to come by and fix it, it was a very joyful moment. The guy who fixed it was super pleasant and helpful in giving guidance on how to extend a dishwasher's life and also about the virtue of our ancient but still working dryer -- old enough to not have any computerization and therefore relatively cheap to service -- don't replace it! He also had run track at the same high school as Carl Lewis up in NJ and we talked about how kids didn't want to get outside and sweat like back in the day. Great guy.

When he left I felt great about all the old stuff we have around the house that still works and felt the warmth of preserving and maintaining things.