Positivity Post #2-Jeff Lockwood

Good Stuff in Bad Times

Jeff Lockwood

1. Zooming with both of my kids on Sunday evenings (when we’d just phone each of them every couple of weeks in a haphazard fashion before now).
2. Playing games with my brother and his family on Saturday evenings (Codenames has been really fun via Zoom).
3. Re-connecting with some old friends who’d drifted away for various “good” reasons that weren’t very good after all now that we’re thinking about what’s really important.
4. Reading the entirety of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries as a big project (about two-thirds of the way through the tales which allow a wonderful escape from this reality).
5. Writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches (sold one to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine), and distilling each of Conan Doyle’s stories in exactly 17 syllables (to match the 17 stairs from the street up to Holmes’s domicile).
6. Spoiling Gus, the cat.  He’s getting old and needs lots of affection and warm places to nap.
7. Enjoying time with Nan, the wife.  She’s getting old and needs lots of affection and warm places to snuggle.  Actually, it’s nice having “coffee breaks” and lunch together every day.
8. Watching and listening to the daily opera recordings from the Met which are now available for free, online via their “Nightly Opera Stream” (available for 24 hours after each night’s ‘performance’).
9. Marveling at how much better I look when wearing a bandana as a mask and how it gives me the cachet of a western train robber.
10. Chuckling at the capacity of humans to find moments of light in the dark hours through humor, such this from Michael Niavarani (Austrian comedian): “When this is all over, I’ll treat myself to a couple of nice, quiet days at home.”