The A to Z of the Year of Covid, Pt. 1

This is the first of a few pieces as we reach the one-year mark of quarantine and lockdowns and social distancing. Yes, all these things in theory started late in 2019, but the rubber hit the road come February, 2020, when it was basically a quick inevitable road to the world that really started in earnest on March 11th, 2020, when Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID, the sports world shut down, the whole world shut down shortly there after.

I truly hope I don't regret writing this at a time when the future is still so unknown. Yes, vaccine roll-out has started in earnest, countries are making plans for a better future. But it is a future. Anyway, if we aren't in a better place come February, 2022, I'll do a second A to Z for then.

A.) Apartment

This lost year did have one fundamental change - one that would've happened either way. In early February, I bought an apartment in Hoboken. I closed in April, a lengthy process delayed partially due to lockdowns making it tough to do inspections and the like, but it happened right before this started. It was a huge life shift, and in many ways doing so during the pandemic was a blessing. It gave me a lot of time to move in - no rush to get going in a new city with less space for social distancing. It gave me a lot of time to furnish the place (more on that in the 'F' section). It gave an escape for our family early on - with an early-COVID Saturday tradition being my whole family driving up to assemble furniture and just laze around in a different setting. Finally, it gave me the chance to enjoy my new house - not having to abscond away to some client site for 3-4 days a week. I was able to get more use out of the apartment than I ever expected. Initially I was very worried, saddled with this big purchase just as the world went into turmoil, but as things settled around May to June (economically) it became such a luxury and blessing.

B.) Bubble

My bubble I kept throughout this process changed all the time. For the first couple months it was basically just my immediate family. Slowly, I added a few close friends that lived close by who were bubbling with their families - this was really needed as it created a nice little group that we utilized throughout the summer. But for me, bubble came to represent all the cleaning and hygiene related changes that took over this year. The constant washing of hands, clorox wiping of food boxes, mail and the rest - even more pointed early in the year when we had to often ask "do I use this wipe or save it" when wipes were sold out day after day. For my sister, little changed as she took a lot of care and precaution prior to the pandemic, but for me this was a life altering change. That said, life will change the other way particularly quick.  

C.) Cooking

I always loved cooking - from starting out making an Oreo Cheesecake probably for the first time in Middle School (I still make it - probably have 100+ times), and moreso throughout my life. That love went into hyperdrive this past year - which coincided with my Mom buying an Air Fryer and then Instant Pot. The cooking started with those two gadgets but quickly became a sprawling multi-faceted throughline of the past year. The first was a routine of cooking a multi-course meal each Friday. It's a week-long affair, of thinking of a main ingredient, rapidly googling, then prepping and cooking for hours. Overtime they got more complex, got more challenging, and to be frank, got better. The other throughline was diving deep into old family recipes, spice mixes and learning to cook my favorites, from Sorpetel to Biryani. Hopefully quite soon I'll be forced to doing something more 'fun' on a Friday night than cook - but to be openly honest, it was quite fun at the time.

D.) Drives

I've long talked about my love for doing random drives. Well, a year in lockdown gave ample time for this activity. The drives weren't anything unique - maybe a few times off the beaten path, but mostly just around my town. It was nice doing so, seeing a community that was suffering and going through the same things we were. There was something so hauntingly serene driving around the town with the air of the situation never really leaving. In most drives in the past I used to stop for a Starbucks or bug around somewhere, but this was not about that, it was just seeing the little slab of world I settled down in, time and time again, because there was so little else I could take in.

E.) Episodes

Here's a show I probably would never have watched if not for the pandemic - being at home giving me more time to just mindlessly scroll through NETFLIX, Hulu and the rest, before aligning on this little magical beast of a show. So damn funny, so endlessly good - a tone that sets itself immediately, and just a brilliant Matt LeBlanc performance that has me rethinking a lot of things about Friends. The show was great, but more than anything this indicated just how much time I had at various points in the pandemic to pick up on a show that aired during the time I was traveling a lot. But not only that, it was a show that I watched because as the fall set in the amount of actual new programming dropped off precipitously - allowing for these random little dalliances. I can't wait for the spigot to turn fully to on again in this era of Peak TV, but glad I got a chance to dive back on these untested masterpieces.

F.) Floorplanner.com

From March through maybe May or June, I had a nightly routine trying to figure out how to furnish my new apartment. It was a steady little project, traipsing through Wayfair, overstock, and so many others. What really underpinned that mining exercise was a little site called floorplanner.com, which has a free-to-use CAD software to build out a 2D/3D replica of a house/room if you have the measurements, and then little pieces of furniture of all sizes that you can add with specific measurements to generate a view of how it will all look. I spent more time on this site than maybe any other in 2020 - definitely in the first half of the year. It was the sight that made me rething the whole way I was laying out the apartment, the way that let me test out all my hairbrained ideas - and in the end came fairly close, I would say.

G.) Grocery Stores

Early on in the pandemic, back in April and March, it was truly a sick adventure any time you left your house. There was so little open and so little normal. It was in that environment I started being my family's main grocery store runner, and I was never so happy to do so. Those weekly visits have still extended but early on it was just a huge haze - one of unstocked shelves of house products, limitations on meat, runs on random goods and so much else. In our area it never got too bad and settled down in short order, but those early trips to the Grocery Store were just an adventure. Also, let's pour one out for all the grocery store workers, truly essential workers, who sacrificed and risked so much the entire time.

H.) Home

For many years, I lived at "home", in that home means where my parents live, where I grew up. While on its face it may seem weird, the big caveat is for most of the past four years (basically 2nd half of 2016 through Feb, 2020) I was traveling four days a week for work. I spent most Fridays and then Friday Nights in New York City. I was barely "home". Well, for a good year now I've been home. I spent something like 180 nights in hotels or AirBNBs or not at home. That number dropped to 359 nights in the past 12 months, 225 of which were in my parent's house. For a year, it absolutely was home. And I loved it - it helps that this house is a lot bigger than my apartment. It wasn't just the extra room though, it was being around people I love for this time period. It was the Friday Cooking, which my Mom's kitchen afforded me significant choice of meals to make. My basement was a refuge at all times. I could enjoy my Mom's amazing garden sitting on our patio. It was a great placed to be cooped up far longer than I ever would have thought.

I.) Instant Pot

The one kitchen item that changed my life during this pandemic was none other than the instant pot - the thing that allowed me to make everything from rice, to pork belly, to short ribs to boil pound of pound of goat, to confit to so much else. Overtime, I stopped using it as much as I got more refined in my cooking and got honest to its limitations (curries will be better on the fire, for instance), but even in this cases it damn helps start things off. Others focused on bread baking, some on air frying, for me it was instant pot-ting, from everything down to soups, to central portions of my most complex meals. Its a truly life-changing gadget, especially when you realize what it can and can't do. The latter is a pretty short list, which is nice.

J.) Justified

This was the first show I binged, starting way back in March or April. I don't really know why I never watched it while it was running. It was on FX, which I usually blindly trust. The one almost running joke was how loosely the show played with the idea of what US Marshals do, but man did it not matter. Such a good show in mixing a spotlight on 'rural' America in all its faults, and crazy long list of full characters, and really well structured 'bid bad's for each season. Olyphant's performance as Raylan is one of the best leading performances I've seen - but the brilliance was so much of the cast, from Goggins to Art to everyone else. Justified was a fantastic watch, and while it was plot heavy, the real magic was the care it took to tell a true Southern story. What I really loved about the show was it categorically did not make Raylan a 'good guy.' There was a lot wrong with him, and right with Ava and the rest. The show also was unabashed in its authenticity for Southern life, be it religion to so much else. To me it sits right below The Wire and Breaking Bad, heading that next tier of all time drama classics that I've seen.'

K.) Karen 

Karen in my sister. We lived in the same house the first 16 years of my life - right until she went to college. We lived in teh same apartment for a year when she started work which overlapped with my Junior year at NYU. We probably thought heading into this year that we were done living together - but COVID forced us back under one roof: and it was great! It helps that we've gotten past all petty childhood sibling squabbles (helps that there are enough TVs to go around!), but it was great to live as a full family again, even in such strange, sad circumstances. We would never have expected this time to be around each other so much again. It likely won't happen again, but it will always be a little gift that 2020 gave us.

L.) Local Eating

It became almost a cliche for people to follow the line of 'eat local' and 'support local businesses' through this pandemic. Luckily for us, we lived in a town where very few local restaurants have been forced to close. I'm sure they've been through hell and back (probably not even the 'back' part yet). I'm sure we aren't nearly out of the woods yet. But through the year I was able to support a few - especially early on in the pandemic before I started spending more and more time in Hoboken. A quick shout-out here for Asian Halal & Meat (Great biryani and curries), Persis (ditto), Tiger Noodles (good for a lot more than Singapore noodles), Taco Rito (always great), Maria's Tacqueria, Small Bites Greek, Diesel+Duke, Shanghai Bun, Ricky's Thai, and so many others. They helped make the pandemic a yummy time - even when it wasn't home cooking do the work.

M.) Maine

It actually didn't take long to leave the state - the first Saturday after my first week at home - so around March 20th or so - we went for a walk in Philadelphia in Franklin Park. I left the state a couple times to go to New York City. But from March through September that was it. I went from flying from Newark to Raleigh to Toronto back to Newark in a five day stretch to not leaving 60 miles from my house. The first time we broke that was a boys' trip to Maine - though one that was a lot less 'boyz' than normal. A couple brewskis at night, some poker, some hiking, some great food, some breweries. Portland is a great city, one that I had been to previously with my parents, but one that with my friends group we may never have gone to otherwise. It was the one 'trip' I took from March onwards, and one that was just exotic enough to classify - a perfect encapsulation of what that was like that year.

A Year of Quarantine Binging and Watching

TV Shows:

4.) Letterkenny

I'm not finished with it, so Letterkenny still has some potential to surprise me. Yes, it takes a few episodes to even understand what people are saying, more to do with teh speed and pace of dialogue than the Canadian-ness, but man when I started to get a hang of it, all of it, teh show came to life. So many great running gags, from the Canadian phrases, to Squirrely Dan appreciating Katy for various reasons, to all the hockey lingo, to the weird dog-in-hand intro. This is a blindingly sharp show with the veneer of something far more farcical. I like making comparisons to other shows, and to me this is something like the Canadian version of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia', with teh farm stand in place of the bar, the skids, hockey players, and other townies in the place of the McPoyle's and Ponderosas and the rest. I'm about halfway through (granted the show in theory is still going on) and I can't believe I missed this little Canadian gem.

3.) Schitt's Creek

I mentioned when I ranked the 6th season as one of my best for 2020 that I did watch the first couple episodes many years ago. It didn't connect with me then, the premise a bit too absurd and the characters a bit too over the top. I don't think that was a wrong reading, but what I didn't see then is what I saw when I watched all of it now, that the beauty of a small town would bash down the ridiculous veneer of the Rose family. Yes, so much of the laughs of the show was heightening the ridiculousness of the personalities of David, Alexis, Moira and the rest but when they turned the noise down and focused on emotional moments, the show got even better. I still am surprised how emotional that final season was, given how silly the premise was at the start. Just a great run for a truly great show.

2.) Episodes

I think it was because I was turned off so much at Joey that I never really gave Episodes a chance when it was on. The show, a somewhat live-action version of Bojack Horseman (from a plot perspective) was at it best at exposing the ludicrousness of the real day-to-day Hollywood. Matt LeBlanc playing himiself was a revelation - his acting and performance just brilliant from start to finish. The characters they created were fewer in number to a Bojack but equally as well written and created, from both English showrunners, to Merc and Carol as the network execs (let's not forget about a truly Bojack-esque name of Elliott Salad being the network head), to Morning and everyone else. Episodes was fantastic, and I truly wish it could have gone on for a few more years.

1.) Justified

This was the first show I binged, starting way back in March or April. I don't really know why I never watched it while it was running. It was on FX, which I usually blindly trust. The one almost running joke was how loosely the show played with the idea of what US Marshals do, but man did it not matter. Such a good show in mixing a spotlight on 'rural' America in all its faults, and crazy long list of full characters, and really well structured 'bid bad's for each season. Olyphant's performance as Raylan is one of the best leading performances I've seen - but the brilliance was so much of the cast, from Goggins to Art to everyone else. Justified was a fantastic watch, and while it was plot heavy, the real magic was the care it took to tell a true Southern story. What I really loved about the show was it categorically did not make Raylan a 'good guy.' There was a lot wrong with him, and right with Ava and the rest. The show also was unabashed in its authenticity for Southern life, be it religion to so much else. To me it sits right below The Wire and Breaking Bad, heading that next tier of all time drama classics that I've seen.'

Moderately Old Movies

5.) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988, 89%)

4.) Chinatown (1974, 99%)

3.) A Clockwork Orange (1971, 86%)

2.) The Sting (1973, 94%)

1.) Apocalypse Now (1979, 98%)

Old Moves

10.) On The Waterfront (1954, 99%)

Marlon Brando is a genius, and this was maybe my favorite non-Don Corleone role for him. The movie itself was fairly small in size and scope, but just expertly made. An organized crime movie before it became a popular thing, to me this was a precursor to movies like Mean Streets, more 'slice of life' Crime stories compared to more sprawling and plot heavy ones. The dialogue was sharp, but the setting and the tone was just great from the start.

9.) Streetcar Named Desire (1951, 98%)

Honestly, this probably works better as a play. The acting and dialogue was amazing - as most Tennessee Williams plays would require - but it was just a bit too small and too slow to really make it sing. Of course, it still is a masterpiece of acting for both Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh were incredible. I didn't get the setting and a lot of the other side characters, but that central performance was great enough to make it special.

8.) The Apartment (1960, 93%)

It's seen as a classic, and I get it. The story is incredible amusing, mixing easily the levity of Bud's situation, playing host to all of his superior's affairs, with the seriousness of Bud and Fran as characters. The movie was really well crafted and acted, even if the story gets thin at times. Jack Lemmon is just great at being the schmoozing careerist, and Shirley Maclaine was appropriately cute as the love interest. In a way, despite it being one of the more 'recent' movies by year in my Top-10, it evoked maybe the most clear 'old' feel.

7.) An American in Paris (1951, 96%)

Just a really fun, light movie. Set in Paris after the war, the story of an American trying to make it as a painter in Paris, getting caught up in a love triangle with one of his friends and the girl of their dreams. The sets were great, the costumes and the look was fantastic. The energy was special throughout, and of course Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron were fabulous, with instant chemistry. Kelly is just a true star - another one of his entries is still to come - and he carried that memorable 15-min dance and dream sequence at the end, which was a piece of perfection. Layering Gershwin's music on top just was a cherry on a beautiful, musical little sundae. I am surprised it won Best Picture, beating out 'Streetcar', but it was truly memorable.

6.) North by Northwest (1959, 99%)

This was the second Hitchcock movie I'd ever seen, and the second Cary Grant movie - oddly enough the first one for each is another movie a bit higher up on my list. In this one, the plot was excellent, a wild series of multiple capers and cons around a man thrust into a scene he would never want to be, but who through sheer guile and Cary Grant-ness, excels anyway. The acting all around was great, even if the final set-piece at Mt. Rushmore was a little too 'old' for someone who's used to CGI and the like. Still, a really fun story, if one that was hard to follow - in the best possible way.

5.) Witness for the Prosecution (1957, 100%)

Yup, this is just a really well made court drama, with a brilliant performance from Marlene Deitrich as the cold, but eventually emotional, wife who went to great lengths to save her husband despite knowing he's guilty. The story was very well crafted, hiding muiltiple twists that were revealed in great detail. But the performances of Deitrich, and Tyrone Power and Charles Laughton as Leonard and the lawyer, were very well handled. The dialogue was great, the pacing was great, slowly revealing the ultimate secret that Deitrich's character was hiding in excruciating focus. Just an excellent movie.

4.) The Maltese Falcon (1941, 100%)

I'm just shocked a movie this good could be this old, but still fairly fresh. The story is just really well written and crafted (of course, the source material helps). Humphrey Bogart is as good as ever, as was Mary Astor. The side characters were all well scripted and acted. It was just pure magic from a plot and story perspective. The movie to some degree invented film noir, but to me it could get as much credit for inventing complex plots and expecting the viewer to pay attention.

3.) His Girl Friday (1940, 98%)

What a script, what an energy. I've long liked hard-boiled stories but this one was different in that it had all the trappings of a normal hard-boiled detective story, but one that just leaned fully into comedy. The performances were great too, with both Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as leads being so good at reading those lines in that pace and that tone to brilliant effect. The story itself gets a bit convoluted and ultimately exposes corruption in the police system, but the real story is Cary Grant relentlessly trying to hold onto his ex-wife, but doing so not appealing to her beauty and their relationship, but her skills as a reporter. That part makes more sense when you realize the play version had that character as a man. It still works well in this incarnation and I was surprised how effortlessly funny a black-and-white movie could be.

2.) To Catch a Thief (1955, 96%)

Not sure why this one appealed to me so much above the four all-time classics that I put right before it (granted, it's not like this isn't a reputed classic). It some part of the incredible scenery and locations they used in Italy. It's of course for the chemistry between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (man, Grace Kelly). The story is well told, with the ultimate twist of who the robber is a complete surprise, for me at least. By the end I cared less about finding out who the killer was, and just wanting to spend more time with Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, and the rest, from the dance to the resort beach to everything else. Just a fantastic, tight movie.

1.) Singin' In the Rain (1952, 100%)

Just a masterpiece; a great story, of the end of the silent-film era and the impact it had on the stars of the day, mixed with brilliant songs and performances, with the right mix of comedy and drama. It works because to be honest, even with no music the story itself is fairly entertaining - what does happen to actors who, let's say don't ahve great voices, when you have to start talking. What truly separates Singin' In the Rain was the incredible music as well. Songs like "Moses Supposes", "Good Morning", "Make 'Em Laugh" and of course the titular "Singin' in teh Rain" are all great, but all also fit in well with teh story. It isn't set-pieces, it wasn't ham-fisted. It was just pure excellence.

The Nostalgia Diaries, Pt. 25: The 2009 Australian Open Final

 

Coime with me, and you'll be in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see into your imagination. Bacck when tennis was not overrun by GOATs and slam chases and envy, here we were, the last slam, before it all went away.

Maybe you can say it all seemed inevitable, but if we go back to the 2009 Australian Open Final, it was the last slam before our three GOATs took over tennis history for good. It was the first slam where Federer had the chance to equal Pete Sampras's record of 14 slams (hilarious to think that was the record). He would do so in the next slam at the French, then break it at Wimbledon. Now, Sampras is in 4th place. The guy Federer shares his lead with won his sixth slam that fateful night in Melbourne. The guy hot on their heels with 17 slams to Fed and Rafa's 20 had just one at that point. It's amazing how absurdly dominant the Big-3 were for the duration of the 2010s, but at one point it was all so different - a point where Nadal won a forgotten classic, a shotmaking delight and made Federer break down in tears in defeat. It was a stunning, memorable night in Melbourne.

Let's start at the end, the sight of Roger Federer in tears. Federer has always been an emotional person - over the years we'd come to realize so was Nadal. He had cried multiple times in victory, and let out a few small tears when Nadal beat him in Wimbledon in 2008, but this was different. Here he bawled. As someone who was very much anti-Federer at the time, and very much pro-Nadal, this was amazing. And I'll admit I loved it.

I have a friend who is a die-hard Federer fan. Years later in 2014 we made a bet for $200 on who would end up with more slams (the count was 17-14 at the time). I have another good friend who was a big tennis fan who hated Fed like I did. There are few more lasting, running jokes in our friend trio than the "Oh God, it's killing me!" cry that Federer let out right before he lost control of holding back. At the time, we made fun of him being whiny, being someone who just couldn't handle losing. Over time, as Federer himself would increasingly accept Nadal as not only a rival, but fully an equal, we would also learn to appreciate that moment. 

Federer had long lost to Nadal on clay, but for 2004-2007 that was about it. Finally, he lost on grass, but not to fear, he was still peerless on hard court. And now, in excruciating circumstances, in a match that by and large he outplayed Rafa, he lost again - lost the last surface that had been his refuge. And he did it in his first chance to equal the record. Nadal was too taken aback by the scene, of Federer truly unable to stop from crying. He said his normal "sorry, Roger" that got some laughs, but then turned the poignancy on, saying "I'm sure you would pass the record of Sampras", but at that time it felt so far away.

To go backwards, the match itself was amazing,. I watched it on DVR (amazingly, was already a thing by 2009) as it starts live at 3:30 AM in New York, but from the start, a thrilling 20-or-so shot rally, it was pulsating. It didn't have the overwhelming storylines of the 2008 Wimbledon Final, but it was about its equal in terms of pure shotmaking. Nadal hitting running forehand after running forehand. Federer perfecting his own cross-court forehad that would kill Nadal. There were crazy rallies, incredible slices and drop-shots. It would culminate in a shot a good three hours in that would symbolize everything great between these two.

The match started with back-to-back breaks. While this is not so normal in the Federer v Nadal rivalry as it is in the Nadal v Djokovic one, it was another great sign to show how different Nadal could play Federer compared to everyone else. Nadal had played a dramatic 5-set, 5-hr win over Fernando Verdasco in the semifinals - a match with such ludicrous degree of shotmaking. Federer cruised all two weeks and beat Roddick in three easy sets in his semifinal. One service game for Federer into the match it was clear this was different.

Nadal won the first set 7-5 and the third 7-6. He was winning close - Federer was not, winning 6-3 and 6-3 in his two sets. But deep in the fourth set, they played maybe the best single game of the rivalry, with Federer leading 2-1. It featured four break poiints, six deuces, a dropshot winner, two aces, a huge forehand winner from each player, and add to all that maybe the ebst single point the two ever played against each other. 

Words can't describe the point the two played on their 4th deuce. After three or so cutting shots, Federer hit the crosscourt forehand taken early that dominated opponenst all tournament. Nadal somehow got to it in-time to hit a cutting forehand down the line that hugged the line. Against anyone that was a clear beautiful winner. It wasn't, since Federer got to it and hit the 'squash-shot' that he made famous. That too was hit perfectly cross-court. I'm still not sure how Nadal made it all the way over in time, especially with a delayed start after he rightfully assumed he hit a winner. But he did, sliding into a backhand jab that was hit to the baseline. Federer hit another cross-court forehand and Nadal just got to hit with an outstretched racket and hit a down the line winner. He threw his hands up in exalted desperation. It wass beautiful, it was the point of their lives. It was everything tennis was during the height of the Nadal and Federer rivalry, two opposing players pushing each other to limits never before seen.

The only dour part of the match was the fifth set, that Nadal ran away with. I still don't know how Rafa, fresh off a 5-hr semifinal (with one less day of rest, with the Oz open playing the two SFs on different days) was the fresher, the stronger, the faster player in the fifth set, but he was. Federer was no match, seeing his chance at #14 slip away. That wasn't as meaningful, and didn't lead as much to the tears, as the fact he lost to Nadal again. Nadal would always be there. In time he would learn to accept it, much like me as a Nadal fan grew to accept Federer's brilliance as well (helps we have a joint enemy in Djokovic - somethign that seemed unthinkable twelve years ago). But at that moment, this amazing moment in tennis history, the rivalry reached its simultaneous low and high.

Federer crying is the moment we will always remember - that or Nadal's incredible shot on that play, befitting an "Unbelievable!" from Dick Enberg, and a "That was insane!" by normally chill Darren Cahill. But what I will remember is it was the turning point in how we view the rivalry, the image of Nadal, trophy in hand, consoling a crying Federer. We didn't know it at the time, the long road to 20-20 would start at that very moment, even if it felt so far away at the time.