The Corona Monologues

So you have COVID, now what?

COVID may have taken my sense of smell and my sense of taste (for like 2 days, I'm back on my all carbs, all the time diet now), but I really think it heightened my sense of humor.

This is all my brother's fault. He got COVID, then my sister-in-law got it from him and then I got it from her. I don't blame my sister-in-law...I blame my brother (kidding!). But when I took my first at-home test, I had to mess with her a little.

And by the time I took the second test I couldn't stop!

And I also wanted some feedback because until she tested positive I was really thinking I just had allergies. I NEVER get sick. Runny nose? Allergies. Sore throat? Allergies. Appendicitis? Allergies. 

So I got an official test and it officially ruined my last week of summer.

During my quarantine I have been extremely thankful to live in the suburbs. I know that people are always like "I need to live in a city because then I can use that city as my personality" or "I just have to live in the country because I legally can't drive anymore so I need to 4 wheel everywhere" or whatever. But I have always been a suburbs girl. I like the idea of being able to walk to a friend's house. I like the amenities I want being close to me but not on top of me. Listen, I need parking lots! And I like chains! I know exactly what I'm going to order at Denny's but I don't know why the new hotspot downtown can't 86 the freakin bleu cheese from my pizza. I don't like HOAs, so I realize I will one day have to jump off that bridge when I get to it. But in a quarantine, the suburbs came in clutch.

My parents brought me plenty of popsicles, medicine & Gatorade because I remembered really don't have Postmates money even though I have a Postmates address. And after lots of otter pops, chicken pie, aromatherapy I couldn't smell & Mucinex (TM), I'm healed. Well, sort of. I don't actually feel fully better but I tested negative so-the show must go on.

And all God's people said amask.

Rachel Goes West

Call me Fievel 'cause I went west.

If you don't get that reference, you're too young for this blog. Go to bed.

For the last week of July I headed to Denver to spend some time with my friend Chelsea. AKA-it was her "shift" because summer break is rough for extraverts like me and my NC support team was tapping out. 

Chelsea is a travel nurse and let me tell you, everyone should invest in a friend who is a travel nurse. I first tried to snatch Chelsea up freshman year of college when we lived in the same dorm. A friend of a friend was suitemates with Chelsea and the rest is...a 3 year gap because Chelsea didn't accept my friendship until senior year. Eventually she became my friend the same way all of my other college friends did, dance marathon forced her to (except my Bible study friends & Sarah from J-School, love y'all). 

Chelsea has worked stints in a lot of major American cities and when they are in states that never need a negative sign to report the temperature, I like to visit. In September Emily & I headed to Tampa to kayak with Chelsea and after my east coast version of Wild earlier this summer, I decided to fly out to Colorado.

I also decided to not tell my mother. Missy worries too much.

I knew it would be a fateful journey when NO ONE ELSE was seated in my row of the plane. That's when I knew I was God's favorite. I paid extra for an aisle seat because I am not accustomed to flights longer than 2 hours and also aisle seats are objectively the best do not @ me. 

Things took a turn for the worse when I somehow managed to switch terminals while exiting the airport, but it all worked out. I want to recap some of the highlights of the trip. I won't cover everything and I won't include more pics because I have COVID and honestly I am exhausted. It's been a long day of checking my oxygen levels and messing up sudokus. 

I suppose the first thing of note was when I got kicked out of a store in downtown Denver. When I travel I like to support the local economy, and by that I mean buy a ton of souvenirs that I don't need. I found a good mix of magnets and tchotchkes (passing over all the "mile high" jokes) at a shop downtown and went to check out while Chels waited outside. I had a running tally in my head and figured I would be coming in hot at just under $30. The cashier punched in all my prices one by one and told me my total was $36 (and something because Toto, we aren't in Delaware anymore). I did my quick math, glancing over the postcards for scrapbooking, keychain, and okay, 1 pot leaf pencil for my brother as a joke. No way did this equal $36. 

I told the man that something wasn't right, this shouldn't be $36. (I had only been in the state for 3 hours! I couldn't be wasting $36 on magnets that will sooner or later end up under the fridge.) I was expecting him to look over the receipt, do his own quick math, IDK, something normal. Instead. This man YELLED AT ME. It was a quiet yell, but still. "You don't want to pay? Get out! I've been doing this 50 years!" I wanted to point out that a lot of people have long-term pursuits they are not good at. Look at most senators. Practice doesn't always make perfect bud. But instead I left, mouth slightly agape.

When I came out empty-handed Chelsea was shocked and I had to explain what had happened. For the remainder of the night every few minutes I had to say "what a jerk, right?" (and other, less PG variations of that) just to remind everyone that I had been wronged. We went to literally the next store and got the same stuff for less money. I wanted to circle back to store 1 (I wanna say the name was I Heart Denver but the sign said something else...will have to get the FBI on this) and have a Pretty Woman moment, but my medium size reusable bag didn't really have the cinematic effect I was going for.

Chelsea suggested we scooter back to her place and all of a sudden it was the 90s again but with richer parents. We rented electric scooters and I followed her for about 2 minutes before gaining the confidence to forge my own path. That is, I took a wrong turn when I should have gone straight. And I found myself playing a game of chicken with what I presume to be a homeless man. A game of chicken that I instantly knew he would win. 

You see, this man had failed to hang onto the majority of his teeth and his pants were clearly going to be the next to jump ship. I was focused on not scooting into him AND him keeping his pants on because it was apparent he had no underwear. In the brief moment that our parallel paths reached their closest proximity, this man SWIPED AT ME. I don't know what his end game was, but I jumped off the scooter once I was out of the intersection. In retrospect, dismounting the scooter only made me slower and caused me to re-injure my favorite Crocs. I scanned the streets for Chelsea and soon saw that the pants were officially down. The man's, not Chelsea's. Luckily I could only see his butt from my side of the road, but as he continued on his way, yelling something, he also took a swipe at Chelsea! Only this time he managed to touch her! To try to knock her off the scooter. And we may never know why. But as Chelsea said later, there aren't enough showers in all the world.

Now the next point of interest came Tuesday when I wanted to visit Wyoming AND Nebraska because why not? No one else does, they were probably lonely. Honestly, had the census been a headcount on July 27th, we would have gotten them more congressional representation just by being in state lines.

Wyoming was pretty chill, we went to a bison ranch and then had bison burger! That's not a typo, Chelsea's a vegetarian. After that we toured the huge boot statues in downtown Cheyenne and got invited to Frontier Days by everyone we saw. 

Now in Nebraska, what I wanted was to visit Panorama Point. This is the highest point in Nebraska. You can look down on Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska literally and not just judgmentally. I had read on the internet that this place was hard to find and after 3 miles on a dirt road with nothing in sight but crops and windmills, it wasn't looking good. We weren't so much concerned that we wouldn't be able to find it as we were that it was all a hoax orchestrated by some small town cult to lure in unsuspecting tourists and use them as human scarecrows. As if I needed to leave North Carolina to find myself in some Children of the Corn shit. (sorry mom) (also I suppose it bears explaining that the second film was shot in NC)

But we eventually DID find it and it was, in a word, underwhelming. Okay one more picture. There's a notebook at the lookout for visitors to sign and as we were leaving our mark on Nebraska, we found a touching note.

After my near-death experiences out west, I pray that we all go home and tell our Edens that we love them. 

(and also that that mean man's business fails, amen)

The Hadzic Hazard

This week I want to take some time to provide a brief explanation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics sports.

There are 9 basic divisions of Olympic sports: gymnastics, cycling, basketball, canoe/kayak, baseball/softball, swimming, volleyball, wrestling & equestrian. Though now that I am typing this I am realizing that diving wasn't mentioned in the source I used (Wikipedia..y'all gotta start giving $5!). But - what's done is done. Would diving go under swimming? Or maybe even climbing, those things are high! That's a lot of ladder.

The next infographic is, I swear, no shade no tea. These are just the other sports, some that I find very cool and others that I tend to ignore if any other Olympic event is airing. And as you will see, I think it wouldn't hurt the IOC to create a new category of martial arts. Karate, taekwondo & judo are martial arts, no?

Now that we're on the same page about the Olympics, let's get on the same page about sexual assault.

Alen Hadzic made the U.S. fencing team for the 2020 Olympics as an alternate. Two of his fellow Olympic fencers sent letters saying Hadzic should not represent the United States due to not 1, not 2, but 3 open sexual misconduct cases against him.

Luckily, he was suspended from international competition during these investigations. However Hadzic fought the suspension and was allowed to travel to Tokyo! But don't worry. Everyone is safe because he wasn't allowed on the same plane, in the same hotel, or at the same practices as the female fencers. Women the world over breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing says "you better learn your lesson buddy" quite like free air travel and hotel accommodations, a slew of USA-themed swag, and a place on the world's stage. All for an ALTERNATE. A freaking alternate.

And for my readers (likely male readers) who are thinking wait just a minute, we can't assume these accusations are true. Let me just say that rumors of sexual misconduct have plagued Hazdic since his undergrad days of 2010. This certainly does not seem like a case of he said, she said or it's all a misunderstanding. The 3 other members of the men's épée team wore pink face masks to protest Hadzic's presence. When Hadzic pushed back against his restrictions in Tokyo, every member of the U.S. fencing team signed a letter demanding the Hadzic-specific protocols stay in place.

Keep in mind that the organization in charge of what I am referring to as "the Hadzic hazard"TM, is SafeSport. An internal organization. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is also an internal organization. An internal organization that banned sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson from Tokyo due to a positive drug test. Not steroids or whatever "allergy pills" the Russian Olympic Committee claims are harmless, but marijuana.

Now. I am very anti-marijuana. Even more so after a recent trip to Denver. Sha'Carri knew the rules, broke the rules & she has said as much. In my opinion she has handled this situation gracefully and accepted responsibility for not complying with a rule that as far as I can tell, is arbitrary. I am a paranoid rule-follower myself, but this is stupid, right?

So is this the line our country draws? We won't allow smoking pot from a record-breaking runner but we're fine with sexual misconduct from an alternate fencer? It's almost like one of them is rich and male and white.