Betsy's Blog

  Restaurants are practicing the new ‘smize’ with their waitpersons. They are perfecting the smile with their eyes only. Some even wear a photo of themselves smiling without a mask on.  My Birthday Wish came true! In addition to my usual wish for health and happiness, I wished to see my children and grandchildren. It sounded so easy, but nothing is easy these days. They live a four- hour drive away in another state where COVD 19 is rampant. We have a new granddaughter who is almost three months old who we haven’t seen yet. In order to see her, the pediatrician said we needed a negative COVID Test, a booster DPT shot, and be quarantined for 14 days. We did the first two items, but not the quarantine. We just moved into a new house in a new state and have too many daily errands to quarantine. What to do? A birthday strategy was planned. We drove straight to our daughter’s condo. Then we put on our masks and entered her locked gate with the code, walked down a long sidew...

  Today I drove by a lady in a pink convertible with matching pink hair on Flamingo Road. She is only one of the many flamboyant characters who live in Las Vegas. This desert oasis attracts tourists who like to eat at buffets pre-COVID, drink, live big, and gamble. Paul McCartney recently explained why he would never do an artist residency in Las Vegas. Sir Paul said he avoids the city “because you only go to Vegas to die.” That made me think about my recent move here. I guess we chose to live here for the quality of life and not the opposite. Unpacking boxes seem to consume our days and nights. We have a moving system down that seems to work after living on five continents. We open the boxes, unwrap the items, and sort them into three piles: ‘keep it, take it to the dump, or donate.’ When I make my daily run to Goodwill, the parking lot is full of customers buying each other’s treasures. Yesterday, a homeless man asked if he could have my big, red suitcase with a broken wheel as...

                                                                           I am a big fan of the film “Gone With the Wind.” I went to see it at the Michigan Theater on my 14th birthday. My favorite character was the sweet, but strong Melanie Hamilton. She exuded a calm demeanor but kept all the other characters on the right track. She could even calm down the fiery Scarlett O'Hara and served as a role model for all. Olivia de Havilland recently passed away at 104 years old. She won an Academy Award twice for Best Actress. I was talking about Olivia’s career with a friend this morning. We both felt that Olivia was someone to emulate in our daily lives.  My mom was a mixture of the best character traits from both Melanie and her sister in law Scarlett. My mom w...

Why do I need one? That is everyone’s question. Well, let’s see. I am in the ‘ancient’ age group, I flew back from overseas, took a cross country drive and ended up with a sore throat and my husband got a fever. My husband already passed his COVID-19 test here and is germ-free. So today is my turn! It is not as easy as it sounds to get tested for the virus in Las Vegas. Even though the test is free at many drug stores and hospitals, it is difficult to get an appointment. First, we tried to get the drive up test from the drug store CVS through their online registration. There were no appointments available at any of the stores in the whole city of Las Vegas. So I marched into the pharmacist and asked how I can get a test. She said the CVS testing slots are full, but to keep trying online. We tried repeatedly, but there were no openings. Meanwhile, my husband ended up in the Emergency Room for another health issue. He asked the doctor for a COVID-19 test and got one on the spot. ...

I’m a huge fan of Glee! I wrote a blog about it every week when it was on TV from 2009 until 2015. Well, almost every week. Did you know the term ‘Blog’ was first invented in 1997? I sent out my almost weekly Glee Blog by an old school email to my family and friends. I hope they looked forward to reading my weekly observations about a fictional high school Glee Club and often responded with funny feedback. I would even take notes during “Glee” about the characters, plot, actions, and fashions that sparked my interest. I had tears in my eyes during the final episode and Glee Blog. I joined the group that suffered from  “Glee Withdrawal.”  During this time, I was teaching in Florence, Italy when my teacher friend told me about the TV show, “Glee.” We discussed the weekly episodes over school lunch and then again over pasta and wine at the local pizzeria. Rachel was the diva with her beautiful voice and dance moves. The show costumes and musical numbers were over the top. Tee...

Take a deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. I don’t think my husband and I have COVOD-19, but we signed up to get tested just in case. That is not as easy as it sounds. We are living in a new city in a new state and have to find doctors and hospitals. I have asked neighbors, realtors, and friends for recommendations. I have multiple lists of doctors and not everyone agrees on the best medical facilities in Las Vegas. After many phone calls, we finally found a doctor who could see us, but not in person. She does consultations on the internet during the pandemic. This was an adventure in itself. After multiple trials to connect with us, phone calls with her staff, and then IT, we finally reached her on Skype. She asked my husband a series of questions and then prescribed him an antibiotic for a sinus infection. She also suggested that we both get a coronavirus test just in case. Just in case! The alarm bells went off. We quickly found out how difficult it is to get a C...

Happy 4th of July! I said this holiday greeting to my children and grandchildren by phone today. However, is it really a happy day in the pandemic? Where are the fireworks, the barbeques, and the parades? Family traditions are turned upside down again. We already celebrated Easter in unique ways during the coronavirus. I spent it in a Thai condo with my husband where we ordered a Thai meal delivered to our door. We called our families on Skype and thought life would return to normal soon. Instead, times have gotten even stranger since then. We are all still staying close to home. The first confirmed COVID-19 case was in November 2019 in China and spread to Thailand and then to the U.S. by January 2020. The first American coronavirus death was in February 2020. We moved back home to the U.S. in April on one of the last flights out of Thailand. The U.S. now has the most number of recorded worldwide COVID-19 cases as of today, July 4th. Our country needs to trace and track people who ha...