Whatever You Do, Don't Look Down

 So there's a risque riddle I first heard in college: what advice should be followed by both a tightrope walker and someone being intimate with an unattractive person? Whatever you do -- don't look down.

I thought about that the other day during one of my very long walks, and how the advice applies to the times we're now living in. Whatever you do -- don't keep thinking about all the negative things. It's tough advice to follow.

Even though I know it's bad for my soul and psyche, I doom scroll the news during the day -- the latest death tolls with the pandemic, and the fact that mutating variants of the virus may just laugh, microscopically, at the vaccines we now have.

Also, there have been two tragedies that hit me hard, even though I don't know the families directly. A UF freshman, Sophia, from right here in Pinecrest, was killed standing on the sidewalk on University Avenue -- a spot I've stood on many times, and the Ds literally hundreds of times. My friend Loni was her teacher at Palmetto High, and is just devastated by the news.

A week later, Norman was kind enough to pass along the news about a UM freshman -- a 4.0 pre med student killed in a car wreck up in Broward. His mother is a UM lawyer.

Yeah -- not good to add misery in a local level to misery on a worldwide level. But on the other hand, as the great character Tevye said, it also brings perspective. Compared to the unthinkable tragedies the Lambert and Travisano families are enduring -- well - our family issues are quite manageable.

And so I stroll my beautiful neighborhood, usually in the morning and then late afternoon or evening, trying to get to my daily 10 miles, and give thanks to the Big Man.

Yesterday was a hectic, by pandemic lockdown measures, day here at Villa Wifey. D2 came over to work with the enormous puppy, since she got word power was being cut for hours in her aging condo building. The joys of condo living -- especially in an 80s era structure -- something is always breaking in a big way.

Well, construction guys were here to install the new impact front door and two side windows we had bought last year. They put up a plastic sheet, and kept to just the front entrance area, but there was a LOT of loud banging and sawing and grinding. 

D2 retreated to a quiet area by the pool for her business calls, and then the gardener came, with a cacophony of my least favorite suburban sound -- the dreaded leaf blower. So D2 retreated into what we still call Grandma Sunny's room - actually a small bedroom built to be a maid's quarters -- but we never had a live - in maid. My dear mother took that room whenever she stayed -- it was small and cozy, with a full bath right outside the door -- she felt secure and comfortable there. So there was D2 on the single bed -- doing her work -- while the noise of the workers roared around her.

The installation crew got in the door, and, as I suspected, left the two windows for today. They'll be back in a few hours to hopefully finish. The young company co-owner, Charles, assured me it'd be a one day job -- I could tell there'd be no way. And that's fine -- storm season is months away.

But it just reaffirmed that I really, really don't like home construction projects. I joked with Wifey that next time we need painting -- it'll be time to move, instead of living through it.

The Ds Facetimed in the evening, and I was outside sitting in the dark. They asked me why. I told them I was savoring the quiet, after the tumult of the day.

I truly look forward when the plague is no longer front and center -- always hovering like an ominous storm cloud.

In the mean time, I'll just keep trudging on -- without looking down.