Rice with roasted cauliflower and broccoli

May 8, 2020. Gaby and Jane have re-introduced me to healthier eating. In the past eight weeks, other than the daily hourlong walk, life has become pretty sedentary. My Mac is in the master bedroom where I stand to work on it; I use the same Mac to watch Hank Hilton's daily Mass. Cooking, laundry and housework keep me on the feet perhaps another hour each day. The rest of the day is primarily sitting, for rest, listening to Divine Office prayers, watching streaming videos.

So healthy food is a must. Along with washing my hands, avoiding touching my face, and, more recently, wearing a mask on trips to Dick's, good nutrition and good hygiene are much more important, in a way I would never have considered ten weeks ago.

While my brain says I need to eat more vegetables, my stomach keeps asking for meat and potatoes. Gaby, Dena and Jane assure me that, contrary to what I learned as a child, potatoes are not vegetables; they are starch. The whole milk from Feasley's dairy in Eden -- where we'd purchase three gallons every two or three days -- is never in the house. Even two percent milk is rare. But we do have coconut and oatmeal milk, among other non-dairy drinks.

But I do still indulge in a ribeye, about once a week. I also have some hamburger patties in the freezer, but I can't recall the last time I picked up a burger from a fast food place like McDonalds. And while milk is off the table, hard cheeses, ice cream and cottage cheese are usually to be found in the fridge. I like to microwave a potato, split or mash it, then add shredded cheddar and some cottage cheese; pepper to taste and I have a pretty filling meal. But the old idea of steak and potatoes is long past. The steak portion is smaller and rarely do I have a potato with the steak. Instead, it is usually a salad, or a can of green beans, very much like the beans we purchased from the canning factory in Eden: dented cans, no labels, and five sense per can in a case of 24 cans.

My previous auto diet of talk radio has also been pretty well squelched. And you can forget about the national network news. Life is simpler and calmer without any of those things. And in retirement, I can afford to detach from most of the much larger world, to spend more time in prayer and reflection, to dig through old photos or Facebook memories (that's about the only thing good about Facebook now), and to call or text an occasional friend from the past.

Hank Hilton's daily Mass almost always merits a quick email or a brief phone call later in the day. The Lorenzi siblings have twice zoomed, as have the Kimberly, Harrison, Madison and Los Angeles extended Qastin/Lorenzi clan. I tried a few zoom sessions with the UWGB group, but find that I am not informed nor engaged in the local politics and sports scene that dominates their conversations.

I prefer to lightly skim the Wall Street Journal if I read it at all. I almost immediately any article based on the claims or predictions of an 'expert' who seems better suited to confirm the journalist's or the blogger's predetermined bias, rather than offer helpful or positive inform. This pandemic continues to expose problems in mainstream (and not so mainstream) media, 'journalism' in general, higher education and partisan politics.

Recently reviewing a Fulbright specialist candidate with an interest in higher education sustainability programs, I found it ironic that many colleges -- especially those eager to jump on the 'sustainability' bandwagon -- seem unable to recall that the critical part of sustainability for an organization is to have a model of sustainability for the organization itself. Of course, environmental sustainability is important, but that is less than half the issue. Economic and entrepreneurial sustainability are critical, as are the needs to provide benefits that are broadly shared so as to sustain political/social sustainability. About a month or two ago, I reviewed the first few chapters of my sabbatical project on 'managing sustainable development' and found a nit of omniscience on my part. And when going back to David Landes' 'Wealth and poverty of nations,' I agin confirmed that the longstanding threat and possibility of Mother Nature making human sustainability problematic is not only a well-established historical fact, it is even more pronounced today: Disease, earthquakes, locusts, floods, forest fires, insects, and more are constant threats to human life. Only when humankind developed the knowledge and technology to combat these threats has there been some sense of stability. But the threats remain, and new ones -- like Covid -- erupt regularly. We have had at least four significant global pandemics since 1918; what makes tis different today is the presence of the internet and broad globalization that not only spreads the virus faster, it also spreads fear faster.

I don't deny that climate can be changing; I'm just not sure what the 'climate scientists' think that this means: getting colder, getting hotter, getting more variable? I've seen all three of those claims in my lifetime, and the inability of climate scientists to understand the important distinction of standard error, not just an 'average,' in describing weather continues to be a problem. And journalists and politicians only make it worse, making exaggerated claims and repeatedly discounted models and predictions that serve their interest, not science or the truth.

Coming back to dinner last night, with rice and roasted vegetables, the lesson to be learned in the joy of life after the age of sixty-five, is that personal responsibility for personal health begins at home and with individual choices, not in the classroom, not with the government. Good hygiene is relatively inexpensive, preventive, critical healthcare insurance. More important, faith serves as the foundation for all of this, having a purpose in life that focuses well beyond the short-term, the selfish, and the frivolous. This afternoon I'll listen to the afternoon prayers of the Divine Office. I will take one or two walks, alone or with Jane or Dena. I will make a relatively healthy meal. I will do the Examen before I sleep, probably after watching some more lighthearted program from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or Apple. And wake to morning prayer and Mass after a good night's sleep. Amen.