2023 Edition of Holiday recipes

I started writing this on New Year’s Morning. I had spent my holiday with my brother and dad, spent most of our town outdoors and shared differing views on health care, politics, golf, good eating and lifestyle choices. In order to pull in some data and reflect on what us humans can do differently I set it aside for a few days. In that time I talked to two more friends who were home and tested positive for Covid, sent a set of antigen tests to a friend and learned another one of my friends still didn’t go for the vaccine. What the data told me is something that I already knew, but I’m hoping that sharing my local places, you may be able to come to your own conclusions and choose whether or not you what to be the change.

Updated note 06 Jan 2022

Tonight we had a little banter on our group text message. Our little sample is a micro-level view of America as it is in 2022. We the People have become subverted from each other thanks to the political manipulation, that led to scientific manipulation, that turned news programming into entertainment and created soap boxes for the repetitive storyline told by coordinated storytellers instead of news programs presenting just the facts that were checked, verified and presented in an easy to understand format. We learned that one man’s ability to recreate the bigotry that we have all worked to change especially after World War II WAS VERY POWERFUL AND INSPIRING TO MANY. However we also rediscovered the human ability to love unconditionally and spread kindness to reinforce that healthy communities can exist if we work to create inclusive, compassionate and united communities. We the humans on this planet look at what is going on through our own two eyes. Some of us learned to fear different. Some of us embraced a certain mob mentality. Some of us fought the mob in simple ways. Some of us just stayed silent. While others chose to be the light and lead with love.

Then December 2019 came and showed us that nature is really in charge, by unleashing a virus that was first discovered in Wuhan, China. In less than three months we learned that just like corporations, supply chains and climate–viruses could also be global–in fact that last time we saw a pandemic to this degree was 1918.

Here in the United States we never really were given a realistic story to better understand what was about to happen to our simple little lives. We were not prepared for the emotional challenge of a Pandemic Marathon. We were conditioned to pretend that it wouldn’t impact the US the way it did China and Europe. In fact Covid-19 was made into another political game instead of one message for all of human kind.

Some of us were deemed essential workers and had to show up to work meeting anywhere from 20-200 people a day. Some of us were deemed essential workers but were allowed to work remotely using technology so we could avoid workplaces of 10-100 people per day and create our own safety pods. I started the pandemic in the at home bubble. Once the vaccines were available I then took a risk and chose to coach on the scholastic level because I understood how important it would be to get our collective children active and social again. I’m very blessed. I have a diverse group of family, friends, co-workers and dogs that have made me local to a lot of different zip codes and American counties. I’ve kept an eye on all of my places and people since March of 2020 when I grounded myself for 26.2 months of a pandemic marathon, realizing that we were about to go through something that hadn’t happened in over 100 years.

It has been a while since I visited the Johns Hopkins Covid Dashboard. Since I last looked at it I’ve been:

• vaccinated to hopefully give my body the code to fight Covid-19 if I were to become infected.
• coached outdoor soccer while the school district was fighting it’s own Covid-19 battle.
• refereed soccer- primarily outdoor
• avoided the indoor state cup when I realized omicron, indoors and activity didn’t seem to make sense.
• traveled with family to Cancun, beached, golfed and saw an ancient city.
• traveled to Florida with family to beach, golf and celebrate a holiday outside.
• continued to mask when indoors.
• double masked at the gym, wiped equipment(cleaning theater) observed what cleaning has done to equipment.
• SELF ISOLATED AFTER LEARNING ONE OF MY CLOSE CONTACTS TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 (AT HOME TEST, SO NO THEY DIDN’T POP ON THE OFFICIAL COUNT)
• home tested using On/Go to know if I was asymptomatic but could spread Covid-19 due to my close contact.
• caught a cold for the first time in two years, isolated and took Covid-19 self tests even though my symptoms didn’t appear to be Covid.
• Returned to the US following all of the State Dept. testing protocol in existence at the time.
• Received my covid- booster.

Let’s talk a little more about creating healthy communities. This has been one of those goals that I started to take aligned actions toward back in 2021, even if I didn’t have a million dollar expense account, I wanted to start the change. I feel that getting involved with coaching would allow me to help shape the future leaders of this country. One of the best challenges of coaching under Covid-19 guidelines was learning the best practices used in a non-urban community.

Here’s my final grouping of locations I call local. I added in the poverty numbers and connected the state for those that didn’t guess. When I group Raleigh and Pittsburgh in with Columbus and Milwaukee I’m struck by the link between poverty and confirmed cases. My years as a site wellness coordinator made me aware of the issues that impact human quality of life: healthcare, nutrition availability and community design.

So how would you change your community to make it more equitable? Make a $100, $1000 list so you can start now. Start with you mindset. I found this TEDTalk to be a fun listen especially since they noted what Pittsburgh did during the pandemic.

A few weeks ago before heading to Mexico, Phoebe and I had a discussion with her dog sitter about the similarities between Covid-19 denial and human belief in God. Humans for centuries have struggled with things they cannot see, smell, touch or taste. Is it possible that Covid-19’s typical symptoms taking away the sense of smell and taste this one really applies to the conspiracy? If you don’t understand the disbelief of the approach to masking and vaccines, here’s this clip from CNBC.