Guess Who's Paid Me A Visit

 

Jeff–Saturday

 

The following paragraph is what I wrote two and a half years ago in introducing my then monthly Corona Chronicles column for Athens Insider Magazine:

 

“The last century had its ‘Roaring 20s,’ and I suppose someone will label this century’s third decade with a similarly catchy moniker tied to Covid-19. But it’s still too early to say for sure. We’re only four months into the first year of that decade, three months beyond the nascent worldwide acknowledgment of the pandemic, two months into a generally underplayed game of catch-up, and a month into watching infections and deaths skyrocket.”

 

We’ve all been through a lot in the years since then, including the various stages of personal denial that come from overconfidence at how we’ve successfully negotiated Covid-laden national and international venues without so much as a sniffle—fully vaccinated and boostered, of course. 

 

But, alas. Guess what.  That spiky little golf ball is out there waiting to tee-off on us the moment we give it the chance.

 

For example—just in case you can’t tell where this post is headed–I’m the tough guy who survived two masked summers packing into loaded Greek ferry boats, sitting aboard crowded nine-hour flights, and walking down countless cramped Manhattan and Mykonos streets. Surviving one close encounter after another, while friends and family with us proved not as lucky at missing the isolation experience…and all that comes with it.

 

Deep within myself I somehow came to believe that the world was ready to emerge, and it was (obviously) safe to go with the flow.  What I missed was that the key word in that revelation... emerge…means to go out from.

 

Mistakenly, I felt it safe to go inside.  Bad move.  Covid is waiting for the cool weather to bring us all closer, because closely bunched targets are easier to hit.  So, whether it be an indoor Texas-size celebration or an intimate Manhattan dining soiree, Covid is waiting for us to drop our guard.  Don’t take the bait, stay masked and socially distanced.  If you still contract the disease, take Paxovid or whatever other drug medical science has blessedly made available to battle this scourge.  Including appropriate vitamins.

 

I’ve just finished my five-day run of Paxlovid, and am feeling as fine as one could confined by Covid, and targeted by those pesky routine country-life allergens that always seem to find me at this time of year. 

 

Bottom line, I’m doing fine, but if there were a soundtrack to this story, it would be a relentless hacking cough.  Something I’ve come to realize is a sort of the battle cry for we new guys who never thought we’d ever become part of the “sooner or later everyone’s going to get Covid” crew.

 

I don’t even want to think of what could have happened were I not fully vaccinated and boostered.  Stay alert, stay strong, stay safe.

 

Oh, there was an upside to my isolation—aside from being lovingly tended to by my still fully healthy and negative testing Barbara (puh, puh, puh).

 

I finished a relatively polished “first draft” of my most complex CI Andreas Kaldis novel yet– both from a plotting and subject matter perspective.  Or so it seems through my Covid induced haze.

 

–Jeff

 

Jeff’s upcoming events

 

Friday, November 18, 2002 @11am

ICELAND NOIR

Reykjavik, Iceland

Where is My Mind? Madness and Obsession
AUTHORS:  Louise Mangos, Paul Cleave, Jeff Siger, Thomas Fecchio
MODERATOR: Ewa Sherman