Things I Think
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Things I Think by Gary Tetz

Exhale, with love

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How are those masks working out for you? My glasses are as perpetually fogged as a car windshield after prom, and I do enjoy sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Quoth the Raven

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I consider it an ominous omen. Yesterday on my walk, I was attacked by a crow — three times. Or it might have been a raven. I can’t tell the difference.

Bad news for bald administrators

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It turns out there might be one type of administrator who is more personally susceptible to this vile virus now plaguing humanity than any other.

The incredible shrinking brain

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For those of you seeking a different coping path through this pandemic, might I suggest walking, gardening, swimming or dancing. I say this because a new preliminary study suggests that people who do those things regularly have bigger brains.

Masks change everything

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Now that small respiratory droplets created by human speech have been found to hang out in the air for more than eight minutes, requiring masks in long-term care and any other setting where people congregate seems like a no-brainer.

Coping with COVID-19, the beard and Chuck Norris

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While long-term care workers I’ve interviewed have been grateful and positive during the COVID-19 pandemic, my coping mechanisms could be considered somewhat less constructive and helpful.

Time to end this handshake insanity

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To shake someone’s hand is to say, “I don’t know much about you, but I choose to embrace every bad hygienic choice you’ve made today.”

Courage is contagious

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Facility staff have no idea if catching COVID-19 will be merely an annoyance or a life-threatening battle, a parking ticket or a death sentence. But still, they go.

Bad news on the doorstep

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Compared to shoppers tearing apart a pallet of toilet paper, our facility staff have been Buddhas in scrubs during the recent pandemic. But even they aren’t the most inspiring out of all of this.

Face touching for dummies

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Can you remember a public health directive than “don’t touch your face” that’s ever been more simple, clear and science-based, yet more difficult to execute? I can’t.

Love in the air

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Love was in the air this Valentine’s Day, and in the days before and after. Let me tell you the ways.

Tempets in a typo

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Sometimes a writer has to take a principled stand no matter how oxymoronic that might sound. That’s why today, without fear of reprisal, I want to talk about typos.

An insomniac’s medicine cabinet

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Wakeful, wandering, grumpy and doomed. These precious words describe our faithful, bleary-eyed columnist most nights.

Seniors — more than shadows of former glories

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It would be one of those sympathy shows, I figured, the kind where you go home acknowledging the performer more as a historical artifact than as a still-vigorous artist. “How good could she really be at this age?” I even caught myself wondering.

Escape from Emojiland

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The growing use of a lazy trend in text communications makes me weep for the future of real compassion and empathy.
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