Quiz #83. Essential Fantasy
Bless me reader, for I have not written. It’s been 12 days since my last quiz. Here’s what’s been going on.
I’ve been living in a fantasy world. Fantasy football. In Quiz #62. Football Fantasy on June 28th, I proudly proclaimed that I could not see how football could be played in a pandemic so I did not want to waste my time studying for fantasy football this Summer only to have the season come crashing down. In August, I reversed course. As noted in Quiz #82. Promise Made, Promise Broken, I created a fantasy football league (that’s more like a pool) with rules built for COVID: weekly lineups and a money-back guarantee if the season gets cancelled before Week 8. $5 from each $50 entry fee also goes to a local food bank so, even if it’s a waste of time, it’s for a good cause.
1966: Back row, second from the left. My only year on a football team. Go Tigers!
I’ve spent the last few weeks studying--and trying to get people to join the pool. Like most things, I’ve been a bit obsessive about it. All in or not at all. As we head into the first Sunday of the season when the pool will close, we’re at 33 entries. Most people I know who are typically pretty enthusiastic about these sorts of things are sitting on the sidelines--a decision I fully respect and appreciate. Still, after sending out email blasts to my fantasy people and getting few responses, I sent more personal, direct appeals to people I knew to ask them to join in a league that’s been called “pandemic proof.”
One guy told me he doesn’t watch sports on TV because it just doesn’t seem real, but most of the responses were more personal--and oddly, the fantasy reach-out served as an internet check-in during these homebound days. The overwhelming response, stated in different ways, was that people are just overloaded. Most of that centered around parents with small children. “Back to school” is simply a national nightmare.
During the pandemic, I’ve continued to scan old photos. Each year, there were ritual photos. September meant back-to-school photos on the stoop.
Back-to-school in 1998 with Annie (on the back stoop because a high schooler shouldn’t be seen taking a back-to-school photo), Ted (middle school) and Betsy (heading into 4th grade).
Betsy (who can remember the outfit she chose for each grade of the first-day-at-school photo) is now teaching 4th grade at a local elementary school. For now, they’re planning on in-person learning with masks and social distancing.
Betsy teaching 4th grade, 2020
Being older and more susceptible to the virus is scary and sobering, but I am relieved to be beyond the age when I have school-age children. I don’t think I’d feel safe sending them to school right now, and yet I’d know that it would be insanely difficult to keep them at home.
Beyond fantasy football, I’ve also been dealing with the tremor in my left hand, detailed in Quiz #81. Tremor. After Labor Day, I saw a neurologist. After a neurological exam, the very good news is that I have no other signs of Parkinson’s which had been our principal worry. I have what’s called an essential tremor. It’s caused by stress and old age. I wish it were optional, but I also know that getting older is something about which I have no choice. (A reporter friend of mine in TV news once sent a tape of his work to a news director. The news director told him that he looked too young--but don’t worry, “you’re working on that problem every day.”)
For now, the only difficulty is that my left pinkie inadvertently hits the ESC key in the upper left on my laptop. I’ve lost a lot of half-written emails which is not the worst thing in the world.
(Think twice before you send any email--something you’re forced to do when you write an email twice.)
The neurologist also revealed that the glucose levels which I had seen in the online readout of my blood work were normal and not concerning. My blood test had been done without fasting. Still, despite what I wrote in Quiz #81. Tremor, I am happy to report that I’m still staying away from the two bowls of Lucky Charms that I had every morning for the first five months of the pandemic.
When a co-worker read in Q about my daily diet of Lucky Charms, she texted me, “Are you 8?” (See above.) On many levels, often for diet and sometimes for demeanor, the answer is “Yes.” In a FaceTime with my son Ted after my Lucky Charms disclosure, Ted also questioned my diet choices, pointing out that our granddaughter, Turner, who turns 3 next month, likes Lucky Charms. Upon this revelation, Sara noted my profound pride with our granddaughter.
When I saw the neurologist, I also got my flu shot. Sara got hers separately--and we’ll get the vaccine for coronavirus as soon as it’s tested, approved and available. There was no line when I got my flu shot, but there was when Sara got hers--and she said it was harrowing. The medical facility we use set up the shots on a ground floor near its lab. On one side of that ground floor, they were doing flu shots; on the other, coronavirus tests. Even though the areas with shots and swabs were completely separate, the line feeding them both was not. So, even though people stood six feet apart and wore masks, Sara felt unsafe. Shouldn’t people coming in worried that they’re most vulnerable and needing early protection from the flu be separated from the people coming in worried that they might have coronavirus?
Over Labor Day, I was surprised to see so many families in our neighborhood who were “away.” Sara and I are just not ready to leave the safety of home. We’ve spent a lot of time on the back deck where the mornings are just beginning to have that taste of Fall. Our deck faces East and in the morning, the sun rises over the trees that line our backyard. We put up an umbrella that blocks the sun from our eyes so we can read in the morning, but in the early morning hours from 7:00 to 8:00, the sun’s too low to be blocked by the umbrella. To solve this problem, I brought out a kitchen towel and placed it over the umbrella so that it blocked the sun from our eyes where we sit. Sara lamented my towel trick at first--until she realized that it worked.
When “throwing in the towel” actually works!
On Twitter, I’ve seen people lament the passing of Summer--a Summer that in 2020 did not include many of the usual rituals from the Jersey shore to ice cream. (I miss Dairy Queen.) Working in TV and having raised several children, the start of September has always seemed like the true start of the new year. Still, to me the start of Fall also means the passage of time--and that means we’re hopefully closer to an end to this madness. Not because it is over but because it’s closer to starting to be over.
Sadly, I believe that acting as if this is over is its own fantasy--and it’s the one part of trying to play fantasy football that I know is wrong. I don’t want to contribute any credence to anyone who does think this is over--because, yes, I still think the NFL season will come crashing down before November. An essential contradiction, I know--so why play? Because pretending to “own” football players to play on “my” team (named “Lewis Oil”) to beat a guy whom I’ve never met in person and know as @bigtmd, owner of the team “Passing Gas,” is always itself a fantasy. Why should 2020 be any different?
What did not happen?
A. @bigtmd and “Passing Gas” are in my 2020 fantasy pool. We traded emails and he asked me what I do for a living. I told him I work in TV news. He told me he was a radio news director before becoming a doctor;
B. Former colleague Ed declined to be part of my “pandemic proof” fantasy football league because it doesn’t have a draft--and Ed says the draft is the best part of fantasy football;
C. College friend Brooks, a lawyer, also declined entry into the league. He wrote:
“I have never played fantasy sports and even this simple version is too complex for me;”
D. Sara, who has played in our family fantasy league and made it to the playoffs in her first year, is sitting out 2020;
E. My daughter Annie has joined with work-friend Nicole to have an entry in my fantasy football league/pool.
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Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #84. 3 Emails, 3 Snail Mails and 1 Special Note.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #82. Promise Made, Promise Broken
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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