Temporary Retirement

Now that I am unemployed my days are pretty simple. I spend them taking Lucy for walks and hunting for jobs. So they seem a bit uneventful, which becomes more than evident in my daily talks with Jodi. Our conversations usually start out something like this:

The other day I had a little news to report though. There was construction for a long overdue crosswalk going on near our house. While watching the guys work, a drunk driver drove through the Fred Meyer parking lot hitting nine cars along the way. So to change up my day, I wandered out and took a look at the smashed up cars. Along the way, I chatted with the construction crew about the crosswalk and upon reaching the parking lot I surveyed the damage. As I arrived, the cops were just putting the obviously intoxicated driver of the van into the back of their squad car. I brought my camera so I snapped a couple photos of the scene. One of the owners of a smashed car saw me and asked me to take photos of his damaged car as well. A few others gave me their emails and the investigating police officer wanted a copy of the photos for her report as well.

I thought this was pretty exciting stuff but Jodi seemed less than impressed. After going through my events of the day she exclaimed that it must be nice to be a retired old man. At first I was offended, but I guess I can see where that came from. Being unemployed does seem a lot like what retirement might be like. I walk around the neighborhood and see what everyone is up to. To fill you in on the news, our next door neighbors (the ones with chickens) just moved out and the house is for rent. I talk to random people, like construction workers, about what is happening. And I investigate un-normal occurrences like the carnage in the parking lot. Now that this realization has hit me, I can tell you that it will be nice when I have gainful employment again. I’m not sure how the retirees do it.

I tell myself lies. This is what I’ve learned from my few months in Baltimore. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not big lies, just little white lies. The kind that help your psyche manage until it can handle the truth.

Two summers ago, I spent a few weeks in Baltimore taking classes for my degree. Baltimore is not what you would call a “safe” city. It’s got its issues with violent crime. I remember my roommates at the time giving me detailed instructions on which streets I could walk up and which I could not. Basically, I could walk a straight line to a main drag and then turn to catch the bus. So, that’s the route I walked for five weeks. The same route; I never deviated from it.

On my walk to school in the morning, I usually navigated around smashed bugs on the pavement. Those poor beetles I thought. They seemed to live quite a perilous life on the street. Toward dusk when I’d walk home, the little beetles would be out scurrying across the sidewalk and hovering in the cracks. Man that’s a lot of beetles, I thought. Where do they all come from? But, I didn’t give the beetles too much thought. They went about their business and I about mine. My last night, however, when I was starting to feel more comfortable with the neighborhood I went out with my roommates. We were out late and while walking back to the house, droves of beetles scampered around. With the flip-flop of my sandals lulling me into the security of a warm summer night, I heard my roommates talking about cockroaches. Cockroaches? Why are they talking about cockroaches? And, that’s when it hit.

My beetles were not beetles at all. They were cockroaches. Nasty, disgusting cockroaches.

Fast forward to present day: I’m living in Baltimore again. This time I’ve got a room in a residential neighborhood in a fairly safe area. I stick to the same route every day though, which includes cutting across a big open field. When I first moved in, I heard birds at night. That’s strange, I thought. I didn’t know of any bird species active at night. But boy, did they make a racket. I need to look up the birds native to Maryland, I thought. They’ve got an unusual species that only comes out at night. This is what I’ve been telling myself for nearly three months now. A few nights ago, however, they were making a ton of racket. While crossing the big open field and pondering those night birds, it clicked.

My birds were not birds at all. They were bats. Holy cow, they ARE bats. And, they are everywhere.

I’m not sure what this says about me, except that maybe I’m deranged. But, I find it comforting that my psyche is looking out for me in strange and bizarre ways even if it does change cockroaches into beetles and bats into birds.

So, what about you? Have you ever told a white lie to yourself?

There’s been a slow rumble building inside me for awhile over inaccurate reporting on flu vaccine safety, but today while watching Inside Edition (I know, I know, don’t ask) it exploded. A few weeks ago they aired an episode about Desiree Jennings, a NFL cheerleader. In the report, they claimed the seasonal flu vaccine she received ten days earlier caused a serious neurological disorder, Dystonia. Today they kindly let folks know that the viral youtube video of her was falsely altered. Thank you Inside Edition. Now, can you also let your thousands of viewers know that most neurologists, including those from the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, believe the woman isn’t suffering from Dystonia at all, but a psychogenic disorder (meaning it’s psychological). Please also let those viewers know that her doctors are banned from speaking publicly about her diagnosis, which makes her and the socially irresponsible anti-vaccine groups free to say whatever they want.

Ok, so let’s set a few things straight because folks are confusing all sorts of matters that are not related. This business about Dystonia occurring in 1 of every million flu vaccinees is bunk. Total BUNK. It has NEVER been associated. Never. People are confusing Dystonia with an association seen between Guillain-Barre syndrome and the 1976 flu vaccine. With that particular vaccine (the 1976 vaccine), there appeared to be 1 extra case per 100,000 people. The underlying incidence of Guillain-Barre in the population is 1-2 per 100,000. Several studies have been conducted since, and it’s a mixed bag. Most studies saw no association, whereas two found that the seasonal flu vaccine was associated with 1 extra case per 1 million people. [Seasona Flu Vaccine Safety. CDC website, accessed 02 November 2009]

So, what should you do? Well, you weigh the risks. It’s estimated that seasonal flu hospitalizes 750 people for every 1 million. What you don’t do is confuse the facts.

Ok, now let’s get to what’s really on everyone’s mind–safety of the novel H1N1 vaccine. The 2009 H1N1 vaccine is built on the same construct as the seasonal flu vaccine, which means it should have the same safety profile. Thus, it’s not likely to cause any adverse events but there is the chance that 1 person out of 1 million *might* suffer from Guillain-Barre syndrome as a result of vaccination (again, several studies found no association but two did). [H1N1 General Questions. CDC website, accessed 02 November 2009]

What I’d like you to get from this post is that public health officials are being honest with you. They’re trying to give you the facts so that you can make a knowledgeable choice. It just irks me that socially irresponsible people take that and twist it into a fear campaign. If you’re in one of the high risk groups (pregnant, aged less than 24 years, or immunocompromised and aged 25-64) you should really get the vaccine.

Don’t be fearful of a smart choice. Any questions?

I’ve been putting off writing this post for awhile. I’ve been waiting until I could write it in a positive note. Well folks, I don’t know when I’ll reach that positive point. So to spare you a negative rant from reverse culture shock, I’m going to tell you about the fortunes told to us before starting our trip.

During Chris’ birthday two years ago, our good friend read our fortunes. This was before we really planned to set out on our travels. It was suppose to be just for fun, but she read wildly different fortunes for us and they stuck with me. For this particular reading, she asked us to think of a question we wanted to know from the cards. At the time, I didn’t think we’d ever manage to travel around the world. From the time I was old enough to flip through National Geographic, traveling to far-off places was a dream of mine but I was about to give up on it. (As a side note, don’t ever give up on your dreams—they’re worth it!) So, I asked the cards whether we’d ever travel around the world. And guess what? The luckiest cards came up. It’s not possible to read a better fortune than mine that night. The position of the cards and their alignment could not get luckier.

And Chris’ fortune? Well, the unluckiest cards came up. It’s not possible to read a worse fortune than Chris’. I immediately started peppering Chris with questions. What did he ask?!? How could our fortunes be so wildly different; we were connected, weren’t we? Much later that night, after enduring an onslaught of my obsessive behavior Chris finally relented and told me his question. He’d asked about our happiness. This perplexed me. How could we travel the world AND not be happy. Those two don’t go hand in hand, in my mind.

A rational person might forget these fortunes; they’re hogwash after all. But, I’ve never claimed to be rational. For whatever reason, I believed in them. It wasn’t until our return, however, that I fully grasped their possible meaning. My fortune was about our travel and Chris’ fortune was about our return. His fortune foretold employment, economic, and relationship hardships—all things we are experiencing now.

Divided by nearly 3,000 miles, Chris lives on one side of the coast and I on the other. It is difficult to be separated after spending 24/7 together. We were never apart during our travels, not once. My friends joke that if we can make it through spending every day together and now 24/7 apart then we can make it through anything. I sort of think that’s true. This year of our return will be a challenging one. We’re both unemployed and living frugally while watching our savings dwindle. Perhaps, it will be more challenging than our year spent traveling but I’m confident we’ll make it. In the meantime though, I hope our fortune changes.

What about you, have you ever had your fortune told? And, did you put any stock in it?