It\’s been a while. Last I remember, we were freezing our assets near Lake Champlain, after six weeks of driving across the country in Rocinante, our tiny RV. As I write this, the snow is gone, and so is our lovely lake home. We traded it for a cabin in the mountains barely larger than Rocinante.

The good news? It\’s easy to find everything, from the fly swatter to the cat. The bad news? There isn\’t much left to find. The BMW is gone, so is the canoe, the exercise bike, the dining room, and just about every other comfort. Downsizing is not for the weak, and living small is an acquired taste, but we\’re trying. We\’re taking turns doing the dishes, and today we\’ll do our first laundry run in Lake Placid. We spotted the perfect laundromat in a parking lot with a supermarket, a liquor store and Marshalls.

Guinness trying out her new pack on the Jack Rabbit Trail. We have a deal: She carries the water, I bring the treats. 

The girls are loving it here. Guinness loves chasing chipmunks and playing outside all day long. Paxil luxuriates in the sun, watches the birds and sharpens her claws on trees instead of the sofa. She stole an onion – they live in the basket by the printer – and she played with it like she was a kitten. The tight space forced them together, so they play all the time. Guinness sniffs Paxil\’s butt, and Paxil pretends to bite her nose until she\’s had enough, and she makes the siren noises pissed cats do. Guinness leaves her be, then returns minutes later.

Steve misses his lake, and struggles a little, but he\’s been a good sport. He spends his days fighting with the internet, the falling towel racks and the car issues. I\’m fighting with the bugs, and I must admit they are winning. Since we moved, I spent most of my time scratching, and I\’ve become quite proficient. The other thing I do is write, and it\’s been an absolute blast. Just take a look at my new K-9 Heroes series. Aren\’t they awesome?

Book #1, Becoming K-9, is the heartwarming story of a puppy becoming a bomb dog. It was published in March, and it was supposed to be a standalone, but her friends stole my heart, so the K-9 series was born. 

Book #2, Bionic Butter, will be released this Sunday. It\’s the story of a yellow lab whose life falls apart after being wounded in Afghanistan, and she needs to finds strengths she didn\’t know she had to give her life a new meaning. 

Book #3, K-9 Viper, is now on preorder, scheduled for September. Viper, a Malinois, only cares about his job. Until he finds love.

All three are written from the dogs\’ point of view, and they seem to strike a chord in readers\’ hearts. Becoming K-9 is free on Amazon on June 16.  Try them if you like dogs, and leave a review if you love them. I\’d really appreciate it! 

That\’s it from us. I hope you\’re well. Please drop me a note – I love hearing from you. If you want my updates, sign up for my monthly newsletter at RadaJones.com since Facebook  is not playing nice – I can barely see my own posts.

Have fun, stay well and keep in touch! 

Rada

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email

When the 2020 COVID winter\’s short days and cold nights sucked away at our souls until we started ripping into each other, we knew it was time to go. But where? Good question. Anywhere that wasn\’t here and was COVID free. But that doesn\’t exist. We agreed on a socially distant, health responsible road trip. To where?
\”South.\”
\”West.\”
We went Southwest.

Rosinante, the 22-foot RV we got a dog ago, when we planned to celebrate our Gypsy\’s last winter with a road trip, has been wilting in the driveway for two years. Gypsy didn\’t make it to the winter, and Rosinante didn\’t get to make the trip. But the time had come.

Her better days came when our worst did. We loaded her with everything, from frozen home-cooked meals, Tide pods, bags of quarters, and canned soup, to every junk food known to man. We hit the road, heading South with a vengeance. We rushed towards above-freezing weather and toilet flushing territory. We flew through NY, NJ, and MD into warmer VA, then GA, FL, and T-shirt weather.

Socially distancing was a no-brainer. At home, it was hard to say no to friends and neighbors who wanted to meet. But down south, nobody wanted to see us. In one month, 11K miles, and 20 states, we socialized once. My friend Chris and his family wintered RVing in Texas. They treated us to Ceviche and Pickle Moonshine while keeping six feet apart. All of us, but Guinness and Finn, whose budding romance flourished by smelling each other\’s assets.

Steve never went indoors, except for a couple of hotel rooms when we were too tired to drive. He never bought anything but gas. I masked when provisioning or when talking to people I couldn\’t avoid.

Every day brought a new challenge, from avoiding fire ants in Florida and boondocking in Nevada to finding free dump stations along the way. We ate fried chicken and biscuits for breakfast in Georgia, drank Peach Bourbon in Alabama, and found out that you\’d better like Mexican food in the south. And barbecue.

Interacting with the natives was another challenge. They didn\’t do masks.

In Florida, I ordered take-out from a barbecue joint. I put on my mask and went to get it. A well-fed family of five enjoying dinner on the porch stopped chewing to stare at me. I gave them a wide berth and stepped in. The restaurant was jam-packed with happy people chatting over chicken fried steaks and Texas toast. As I entered, the place fell into silence. You\’d think I was a masked robber with an AR15 rather than a graying woman looking for her baby back ribs. They stared at me with wide eyes. I struggled to stay out of the way. They clearly knew I was deranged; they just didn\’t know what I\’d do next.

Parents covered their kids\’ eyes. Old couples leaned closer to each other. Everyone stopped chewing. I was the life of that party. I didn\’t get an entry like that ever since I went to a fancy-dress party in a full Ebola suit.

My food showed up. When I left, they sighed with relief. So did I.

Steve was waiting back in the camper.
\”How was it?\”
\”Bad.\”
\”You know that Florida has a 20% positivity rate?\”
\”Only?\”

It was remarkable to be there while we, up North, think there\’s a pandemic. People were friendly, polite, and social, just like we used to be before 2020. They laugh, eat out and behave like this COVID thing never happened. They were even kind to deranged people like me.

It was disturbing to see how far apart are the parallel realities we inhabit. I ponder this as we drive past vans advertising mobile COVID testing and listen to Governor DeSantis reassuring Floridians that their vaccines are on the way. Travel is always an eye-opener, even when you travel in your own bubble, since every now and then, bubbles intersect. Seeing these people, you understand why they don\’t believe in COVID. Nobody else there does, to the point that you question your own sanity.

For those of you interested in traveling, I\’ll answer a few recurring questions. Feel free to ask more. For those of you interested in our trip, stay tuned for more.

1. What was your itinerary?
We went south to Assateague, MD, where wild ponies still roam free. They\’re the great-grandkids of the colonists\’ tax-dodging horses. Then further south through the Chesapeake Bay, dodging suicidal seagulls, then further south through GA all the way to Key West (don\’t bother). Back through the Panhandle, then west, to San Diego, and North to Death Valley before heading back home through Tennessee, WV, and Pennsylvania.

2. What did you take with you?
Frozen and canned food. Dog food and snacks. Fruit. Water – lots of it. Wine and Bourbon. Snacks. The winners were pretzels, boiled eggs with hot sauce, microwavable popcorn and cheese and crackers. The loser: salad. It all went bad.

3. What surprised you the most?
Texas. It\’s clean, generous, and polite.

4. What did you find most useful?
Rada: The unlimited data and the apps. Thanks to them, we found places to spend the night, launder, get propane and dump our black tank for free. I love Campendium, Recreation.gov, and JustAhead. The Lifetime Senior America the Beautiful Card saved us hundreds of dollars in park fees and campgrounds.
Steve: NPR FM radio.

5. What was the hardest?
Steve: Driving between the lines. An RV doesn\’t track like a car. It needs to be steered all the time. Any time I glance away, it goes elsewhere.
Rada: Traveling with a puppy is nothing like traveling with an old dog, especially when said puppy manages to snag herself in barbed-wire. Turns out that I forgot the first aid kit. That was the lowest moment on my trip. Thank God for Duct Tape.

6. What did you enjoy the most?
Steve: Big Bend State Park. I loved sitting in my lawn chair sipping Bourbon and looking at the Rio Grande.
Rada: The change. Every day was a challenge; every night was different. I never got bored. I even fell behind on my writing since I couldn\’t switch off.

7. What did you hate the most?
Steve: Driving through cities.
Rada: I didn\’t love Virginia.

8. What did you learn?
Steve: Propane tanks fill very slowly, and few places do it. Our success rate was 1:3. Three tries before getting the tank filled.
Rada: Sanitary wipes work wonders when there\’s no water.

9. What would you do differently next time?
Steve: Skip Florida.
Rada: I\’d have a first aid kit that could cure cancer. Or close.

10. Would you do it again?
Steve: Absolutely. Will do it again.
Rada: We\’re planning for Alaska this summer.

11. What would you tell someone who\’s never done it?

Rada: Be flexible. Every day is different. Make sure to have paper maps for when the internets get iffy. Be prepared to spend the night along the road.
Steve: Get off the interstate and travel the back roads if you want to see what it\’s all about. It takes longer, but it\’s so worth it.

12. What is a must in your book?

Rada: Assateague. Texas is amazing. Organ Pipe Cactus. Death Valley. Steve:Barbecue. Not that good, but it\’s a must.

13. The best food on the trip?
Steve: Barbecue. Hilton in North Carolina. Boy, did that guy know how to cook.
Rada: Indian food in a truck stop where they played cricket.

14. Any advice you want to share?
Steve: Don\’t hook up hoses when things may freeze. For that matter, don\’t bother with hookups. They\’re nothing but trouble.
Rada: Beware of getting locked in together for a month in a space the size of an elevator. Lots of togetherness with no place to go. But boy, does being home feel luxurious!

Stay safe and stay sane. See you all on the other side.

Rada

P.S. Let me know if you\’re interested in an ARC, Advanced Reader Copy of my new book, BECOMING K-9, a bomb dog\’s memoir. It\’s the story of a puppy\’s training written from the point of view of the dog. You could get a free copy before publication if you agree to leave an early review.

If you\’re in healthcare, this is probably your worst winter ever. Between the COVIDs, scarce resources, shutdowns, homeschooling, bureaucracy, hoaxers, and checking the in-laws\’ rashes online, you must feel cooked.

You\’re frustrated. Your patients die calling COVID a hoax. People refuse to wear masks. So many loved parents die alone. Bureaucrats don\’t prioritize people\’s lives. Even some of our own sold their soul for fame or money.

You\’re tired of being strong. You care for others\’ families, while your own must fend for themselves. You\’re tired of fighting COVID, ignorance, administrators, even your relatives over the Thanksgiving virtual table. You\’re tired of the mask burning your face, filthy gloves, people shrinking when you hug them. You\’re tired of being treated like a pariah whenever you stop to get coffee at the gas station. You\’re tired of your scrubs shrinking since the gym\’s closed and you live on junk food.

You miss your parents. But they\’re old, frail, and COVID-prone, so you avoid them. So much so that Dad asked if that new Ancestry test taught you something he should know about, and Mom apologized for mentioning your ex that last time you visited.

You love your kids. You\’d die a thousand deaths for them, but homeschooling? Oregon Trail and core math? Having them home every hour of every day? They don\’t know you need to sleep after your nightshift.  And you just can\’t watch Frozen three times a day.

Your spouse?  Things weren\’t that bad when you both worked and the kids went to school. Family time was sacred but limited. Now, you struggle to bite your tongue and stick those fists in your pockets. No more date nights to rekindle a flailing relationship, no more vacations to break the monotony, no more nights out with your buddies to blow up steam.

How can you survive this winter holding on to your temper, family, and job?

Look out for #1.

That\’s you. To care for others, you must care for yourself first.  Like the in-flight safety videos say: \”Put on your own mask before you help others.\” You won\’t save anyone if you run out of oxygen. To care for those who need you, you must keep afloat. You\’re everybody\’s keeper. If you get sick, they might too. If you go crazy, your family will suffer. If you fall apart, who\’ll care for your elderly parents?

That\’s not selfish. That\’s smart. To protect those who need you, you must stay healthy and sane.

How? These are my tips.

1. Set rules for others and for yourself. Your sleep should be sacred. So should whatever time off you can schedule.
2. Enlist help. There are so many grateful folks who want to help the healthcare workers. Your neighbors may be glad to walk your dog, run some errands, or grab a gallon of milk.
3. Prioritize yourself. Pay someone to plow, buy groceries online, hire a housekeeper to save time for the things that really matter.
4. Schedule time for yourself. To exercise, meditate, pray, journal –  whatever helps fill your well.
5. Shut off the TV. Whether you\’re Democrat or Republican, you won\’t enjoy the news. Watch Hallmark, the nature channel, or the food channel. Watching food is fun, and it won\’t make you fat.
6. Go outdoors. There\’s magic in nature and sunlight, whatever\’s left of it. Hike, snowshoe, and allow your lungs to breathe real air instead of the reconditioned germs they allow you in the hospital.
7. Say no. That\’s a survival technique. Say no to parties, to hugging strangers, to doing things you shouldn\’t, in order to protect other\’s feelings. Let them take care of their feelings. You take care of yourself.
8. Cut yourself some slack. You aren\’t perfect. Nobody is. You\’ll make mistakes, gain a few pounds, step on some toes, maybe even lose it at times. So what? Just do the best you can.
9. Read a book. Remember those things made of paper? You turn a page and land in a new world? These three always make me happy: The art of Racing in the Rain, Holes, and Because of Winn Dixie. What works for you? Please share.
10. Be careful with alcohol and substance use. They may feel good at the moment, but you\’ll be worse off in the long run.
11. Watch old movies that make you laugh. My favorites: A fish called Wanda, Hopscotch, and Naked Gun. And MASH. It\’s on HULU. How about you?
12. Take a break from social media. Picking fights with random strangers won\’t help your mental health. Sadly, not everyone posts sunrises and puppies. Cut off those who hurt you.
13. Get a cat. They have nine lives; That\’s why they are masters of survival. They ignore all unpleasantness, from dogs to COVID, and they\’ll show you how to do it too. And they\’re the best nap helpers.
14. Communicate. Ask your coworkers how they handle the stress. They may teach you something, but even if they don\’t, sharing the burden will help you both.
15. Seek help before you lose it. Check out the CDC resources below.
16. Pat yourself on the back. You\’re a darn hero! In recycled PPE instead of shining armor you saved fair maidens of all genders, ages, and persuasions. With a vaccine in sight, there\’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Wishing you all health, joy, and happiness. See you all on the other side.

Rada

Rada Jones is an ER doc. She lives in Upstate NY with her husband Steve, Paxil, his deaf cat, and a tsunami named Guinness who loves brushing her teeth.

Rada authored three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays

Free confidential resources: 

• National Suicide Prevention:  1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255
•  Lifeline Crisis Chat, free, will connect you to a counselor in your area.
• Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 and TTY 1-800-787-3224

If you\’re in healthcare, this is probably your worst winter ever. Between the COVIDs, scarce resources, shutdowns, homeschooling, bureaucracy, hoaxers, and checking the in-laws\’ rashes online, you must feel cooked.

You\’re frustrated. Your patients die calling COVID a hoax. People refuse to wear masks. So many loved parents die alone. Bureaucrats don\’t prioritize people\’s lives. Even some of our own sold their soul for fame or money.

You\’re tired of being strong. You care for others\’ families, while your own must fend for themselves. You\’re tired of fighting COVID, ignorance, administrators, even your relatives over the Thanksgiving virtual table. You\’re tired of the mask burning your face, filthy gloves, people shrinking when you hug them. You\’re tired of being treated like a pariah whenever you stop to get coffee at the gas station. You\’re tired of your scrubs shrinking since the gym\’s closed and you live on junk food.

You miss your parents. But they\’re old, frail, and COVID-prone, so you avoid them. So much so that Dad asked if that new Ancestry test taught you something he should know about, and Mom apologized for mentioning your ex that last time you visited.

You love your kids. You\’d die a thousand deaths for them, but homeschooling? Oregon Trail and core math? Having them home every hour of every day? They don\’t know you need to sleep after your nightshift.  And you just can\’t watch Frozen three times a day.

Your spouse?  Things weren\’t that bad when you both worked and the kids went to school. Family time was sacred but limited. Now, you struggle to bite your tongue and stick those fists in your pockets. No more date nights to rekindle a flailing relationship, no more vacations to break the monotony, no more nights out with your buddies to blow up steam.

How can you survive this winter holding on to your temper, family, and job?

Look out for #1.

That\’s you. To care for others, you must care for yourself first.  Like the in-flight safety videos say: \”Put on your own mask before you help others.\” You won\’t save anyone if you run out of oxygen. To care for those who need you, you must keep afloat. You\’re everybody\’s keeper. If you get sick, they might too. If you go crazy, your family will suffer. If you fall apart, who\’ll care for your elderly parents?

That\’s not selfish. That\’s smart. To protect those who need you, you must stay healthy and sane.

How? These are my tips.

1. Set rules for others and for yourself. Your sleep should be sacred. So should whatever time off you can schedule.
2. Enlist help. There are so many grateful folks who want to help the healthcare workers. Your neighbors may be glad to walk your dog, run some errands, or grab a gallon of milk.
3. Prioritize yourself. Pay someone to plow, buy groceries online, hire a housekeeper to save time for the things that really matter.
4. Schedule time for yourself. To exercise, meditate, pray, journal –  whatever helps fill your well.
5. Shut off the TV. Whether you\’re Democrat or Republican, you won\’t enjoy the news. Watch Hallmark, the nature channel, or the food channel. Watching food is fun, and it won\’t make you fat.
6. Go outdoors. There\’s magic in nature and sunlight, whatever\’s left of it. Hike, snowshoe, and allow your lungs to breathe real air instead of the reconditioned germs they allow you in the hospital.
7. Say no. That\’s a survival technique. Say no to parties, to hugging strangers, to doing things you shouldn\’t, in order to protect other\’s feelings. Let them take care of their feelings. You take care of yourself.
8. Cut yourself some slack. You aren\’t perfect. Nobody is. You\’ll make mistakes, gain a few pounds, step on some toes, maybe even lose it at times. So what? Just do the best you can.
9. Read a book. Remember those things made of paper? You turn a page and land in a new world? These three always make me happy: The art of Racing in the Rain, Holes, and Because of Winn Dixie. What works for you? Please share.
10. Be careful with alcohol and substance use. They may feel good at the moment, but you\’ll be worse off in the long run.
11. Watch old movies that make you laugh. My favorites: A fish called Wanda, Hopscotch, and Naked Gun. And MASH. It\’s on HULU. How about you?
12. Take a break from social media. Picking fights with random strangers won\’t help your mental health. Sadly, not everyone posts sunrises and puppies. Cut off those who hurt you.
13. Get a cat. They have nine lives; That\’s why they are masters of survival. They ignore all unpleasantness, from dogs to COVID, and they\’ll show you how to do it too. And they\’re the best nap helpers.
14. Communicate. Ask your coworkers how they handle the stress. They may teach you something, but even if they don\’t, sharing the burden will help you both.
15. Seek help before you lose it. Check out the CDC resources below.
16. Pat yourself on the back. You\’re a darn hero! In recycled PPE instead of shining armor you saved fair maidens of all genders, ages, and persuasions. With a vaccine in sight, there\’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Wishing you all health, joy, and happiness. See you all on the other side.

Rada

Rada Jones is an ER doc. She lives in Upstate NY with her husband Steve, Paxil, his deaf cat, and a tsunami named Guinness who loves brushing her teeth.

Rada authored three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays

Free confidential resources: 

• National Suicide Prevention:  1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255
•  Lifeline Crisis Chat, free, will connect you to a counselor in your area.
• Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 and TTY 1-800-787-3224

I hate 2020. It\’s the worst year I can remember. Between the pandemic, the shutdown, the plunging economy, the overloaded medical system, the mask debate, and the looming elections, I can\’t remember a worse one.

And it\’s not over yet.

From doctors to politicians, all those who know what they\’re talking about, and some who don\’t, think that the coming winter will be worse. And, unlike the calendar, winter doesn\’t end with December. We\’re talking months of the 2020 misery compounded by short days, bad weather, and socially isolated winter celebrations.

How will we stay alive and slightly sane until it\’s over?

That\’s what I asked myself as I listened to the news while struggling to zip my raincoat to take the dog out in the nasty rain – after cleaning the puddle in the dining room.

Organized as always, I made a list you may find useful. If you happen to be one of those who don\’t need a social life, don\’t worry about money, and don\’t long for spring, feel free to share your recipe with us, the humans. We\’ll all think of you lovingly. As for me, this is my list.

1. Accept reality. No matter how much you wish, it wasn\’t so, this is the reality we all live in. Denying it won\’t make it go away. It will just make it harder to deal with it.
2. Get ready for more shutdowns. That\’s what happened to France, Great Britain, and others. It may happen here. Stock what you\’ll need, besides toilet paper. A generator? Your medications? Batteries? Hair dye?
3. Behave like you may have the virus, even at home. Don\’t share your cutlery, your glass, your toothbrush. Wash your hands often, and don\’t lick the kids\’ ice-cream.
4. Make a plan in case you get sick. How will you self-isolate? Who\’ll care for the kids? Walk the dog? Speak to those who\’ll have to take over.
5. Start a project and set deadlines. Whether it\’s cleaning the pantry, training the cat, or becoming vegetarian, committing to a project will make time go faster. And give you something to brag about.
6. Rest. Tired people make mistakes, get compassion fatigue, and lose touch with the joy in their life. Say no to that extra shift. Health trumps money.
7. Learn a new skill. The internet is full of online courses. You can learn anything, from dog training to poker, as you sit on your sofa. Whether it\’s photography, knitting, or getting a degree, use this time to enrich yourself.
8. Do something you enjoy every day. Watch a movie, quilt, take a hot bath. Doing something you love will lower your stress and help keep you sane.
9. Work out every day. Whether it\’s kickboxing, chair yoga, or walking the dog, working out will make you healthier, stronger, and happier.
10. Do something to make others happy. Bake a cake for your coworkers, grab some groceries to help your neighbor, or call Grandma, even if she\’s not sure who you are. Making others happy will give you purpose and joy.
11. Watch your weight. Few say it, but obesity is a substantial COVID risk factor. Not great for your heart and joints, either. If you\’re overweight, losing weight will help keep you healthy.
12. Connect with people. Call your high-school buddies, look up your old friends, send a birthday card to your ex. Connecting, even virtually, will help keep you grounded.
13. Make a plan for the winter celebrations. Avoid large gatherings. Look for alternatives: a Zoom Thanksgiving dinner, mailing stocking stuffers, meet for a hike. But if you must meet in person, don\’t go if you\’re sick, social distance, and keep the windows open.
14. List your happy memories: Your first time fishing; your son\’s graduation; your wedding (or your divorce). Make a list and put it on the fridge for those pesky low days.
15. Stay in touch with your doctor. No matter who says what, your doctor wants you to be well. If for no other reason, because they\’re already overworked. Follow their instructions, take your medications, and call them if you\’re having trouble.
16. Take time for yourself. Find a couple of hours every week to check on your inner self. Are you hanging from a thread? If you\’re losing it, seek help. It\’s not wimpy. It\’s smart.
17. Turn off the news. No matter what, half of us will feel broken after the elections. There\’s no point in rubbing salt in the wound – yours or others\’. If you lose, remember that that\’s democracy. Everybody\’s vote counts. In four years, you\’ll get a redo. If you win, remember that so many are mourning. Don\’t be a sore winner. Let them grieve.
18. Wear a mask. It will protect you not only from COVID but also from the flu and pesky colds. The flu season is here, and the flu sucks. You\’ll be even more miserable if you get sick.
19. Be kind to others. Most people aren\’t evil. Their mistakes are born of ignorance, anger, or hurt, and we can all use some learning.
20. Finally, remember that this too shall pass.

Good luck, stay safe, and stay sane. As always, I can\’t wait to hear from you.

Rada

Rada Jones is an ER doc in Upstate NY, where she lives with her husband and his deaf black cat Paxil. She is the author of three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays.

I miss Thailand and my Chiang Mai friends. I miss the spices, the heat, and swimming before the pool opening time. I miss the orange-clad monks collecting alms as I returned from the market loaded with fruit, vegetables, and the meat-du-jour: anything from beef tongue to pig head via fried chicken. I miss the jasmine leis around my neck and the orchids, an armful for one dollar. I miss always trying something new: spiky fruits, stuffed bitter cucumber, crispy golden triangles with a spicy-sweet sauce. It took me months to learn they were fried tofu. I miss the back massages at Kad Suan Kaew, coffee with Steve, and chatting to my writer friends. I miss Thailand.

But that was then, and this is now. We got back for the last golden days of the fall, the final lawn mowing, the last hauntingly beautiful kayak trip before fall falls apart into winter.

We hugged our son that we hadn\’t seen in a year, petted old Paxil, who looks younger thanks to his care, found friends we missed. We raided the wine shop, I savored my best burger in a year, and I got back to Instagramming the sunrise. I try to focus on the things I missed: Cheese. M*A*S*H. Our cabin in the woods.

But nothing is the same. Gone is our Sam\’s membership. Gone are my ski pants. Steve dispoed them with most of my clothes. Gone are my skis, my pots, even the San Marzano peeled tomatoes.

I wasn\’t pleased, and we had a few rough days. It was hard to forgive and compromise, but we did. We had to. It looks like we\’ll be here for a while.

So much happened. COVID 19 – the mourning and the hoax. Fighting over masks. The economy. The elections. Neighbors fighting neighbors. The hate.

We try to make sense of it, and we struggle to deal with it, whether it makes sense or not.

We have to. Thailand is closed because of Covid. So is most of the world these days. Between the growing anger and raising Covid rates, Steve isn\’t into RVing, and I can\’t disagree.

Many have it worse. The sick. The mourning. The jobless. The mentally ill and isolated. The health workers, living in fear for their families. We are lucky, even though it doesn\’t feel that way.

The news suck. Struggling to close my raincoat around the new curves I gained, feasting on Turkish Delight isn\’t as much fun as eating. Looking at the skunks hunting for grubs in the back yard makes me wish they smelled better. Or not at all.

Instead of a birthday party, I took a 20K walk to think about the future. What should I do with myself?

I could spend my time writing a book, reading, watching old movies. Wait for the world to come back to its senses. After all, a year is no big deal.

But there\’s no guarantee. Even less these days. This year may be the last we can still enjoy life. How can we make the most of it?

We\’ll get a dog. We\’re dog people. We\’ve been orphans since Gypsy died two years ago. A dog will fill our hearts and our lives.

We adopted Guinness. She was born to a Mennonite family in Pen Yan twelve weeks ago. She LOVES people, dogs, and cats, but walking? Not so much. She\’d rather be carried. She has a taste for horse manure, grubs, and dead fish, but she\’ll eat whatever she can find, from crocs to carpets—anything but her food.

Gone are the days I wondered what to do with myself. Thanks to Guinness, I ran out of time to watch the news and complain.

So we go on, hoping that once the elections are over, we can be a nation again. Like all of you, I know that my choice is the best. And I hope we win. But, whoever wins, remember we\’re all in the same boat. Bragging, shaming, and humiliating the others, is uncool and unAmerican. Let\’s get ourselves together and move on.

Remember that love trumps hate, kindness trumps judging, and we\’re stronger together.

I wish you health, safety, and love. See you on the other side.

Rada

Rada Jones is an ER doc in Upstate NY, where she lives with her husband and his deaf black cat Paxil. She is the author of three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays.

After five days spent chasing Mehmet the Conqueror\’s shadow in a scorching Istanbul, haunted by moody cats and hungry carpet sellers, we left for dusty Edirne. The second Ottoman capital is a sleepy town in the tiny, bland European Turkey, and renting a car was a challenge, since they hadn\’t heard of one-way rentals, but we eventually lucked out with Budget.

Our automatic Renault Clio had no power windows or seats, nor GPS, but it did have a Check Engine warning. That got us worried, but the young Turk who set us up couldn\’t care less. He shrugged, bent over his volumes of paperwork and waved us off an hour later.

We made good time on the excellent, empty roads. We caught the ferry across the Dardanelles with minutes to spare and got to watch the cars rolling in. Ferry loading in Eceabat is nothing like the orderly ferry loading on Lake Champlain; it\’s more like Walmart on Black Friday: cars, trucks, and pedestrians wrestle to get in, while the attendants smoke on the dock.

Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and half an hour later we landed in Asia at Canakkale, near Gallipoli, the bloodiest battle of the first world war. There, the allies suffered more than 150K casualties, mostly ANZAC, trying to secure a passage over the Dardanelles. They failed. His career over, the Lord of Admirality, Winston Churchill, got demoted to an obscure cabinet post, resigned, and joined The Royal Scots Fusiliers to fight on the Western Front.

Canakkale\’s other claim to fame is its neighbor, legendary Troy of Homer fame. We saw the Trojan Horse leftover from the 2004 movie, but failed to get in. We acquired some adventurous Turkish wines instead and headed East to Anatolia.

Untouristy Manisa used to be one of the provinces designated as training grounds for the Sehzades, the young Ottoman princes. Here, Mehmet the Conqueror started his governorship at age 5. He came supervised by Huma Hatun, his mother – his father\’s third wife – and some of the most learned people of the day. Muhammad Shams al-Din bin Hamzah – let\’s call him Ak – was a doctor, a philosopher, and a theologian who wrote about germs hundreds of years before the West started washing its hands.

\”It\’s incorrect to assume that diseases appear one by one in humans,\” he said. \”Disease infects by spreading from one to another. Infection occurs through seeds too small to be seen, but still alive.\”

We\’re talking 1400\’s here. Hospital museums in Turkey still display his utensils, books and prescriptions. More than five hundred years ago, he used music and aromatherapy in the care of his patients – alongside using cautery for headaches and dislocated hips. Not sure if that works, since that procedure hasn\’t made it into modern medicine yet.

After Manisa, we proceeded East to Pamukkale, where the ancient ruins struggle to compete with the white travertines and fail. Mineral hot springs coated the hills in calcium, creating a white wonderland. Barefooted tourists crawl over each other, taking unmasked selfies with their new two hundred close friends. Unlike Hieropolis, the place to see, Pamukkale is the place to be seen.

But the place to be is the ancient pool, where ruins meet the mineral waters. You swim in the warm, fizzy mineral water over sculpted marble columns,  you caress ancient artifacts, and immerse yourself in history.

East again, to conservative Konya, the heart of Anatolya, where women are scarved, restaurants dry, and pigs absent. This most conservative Turkish town happens to be the home of Rumi, aka Mevlana, a famous poet, mystic and philosopher. Before he died, eight hundred years ago, Rumi spoke about love and tolerance and taught us to look for God inside ourselves.

\”Looking for God, I went to the temple, where the magi chant for fire. He wasn\’t there.
I went to Jerusalem to see if he was on the cross, but he wasn\’t there either.
I went to Mecca, but he wasn\’t in the sanctuary.
Then I looked into my heart.  And there he was, and nowhere else.\”

His message inspired the Whirling Dervishes, whose mesmerizing dance is a meditation and a prayer to commune with God. Inspired by Rumi\’s uplifting message, we tried to feel love for the vocal carpet sellers harassing us. We failed, so we headed further East.

Capadoccia\’s otherworldly landscape is like nothing else on earth. Thousands of years ago, overactive volcanoes spewed tons of lava that cooled to become tufa, a soft volcanic rock. Winds shaped the tufa into a phallic landscape that guidebooks call \”fairy chimneys.\” Less romantic and more anatomically inclined, I see no chimneys. What do you see?

People dug the soft rock into mazes of dwellings and churches, some still in use. You can walk, ride a horse, or take a four-wheeler to explore, but  THE thing to do is a balloon ride. Hundreds of outfits compete for your business. They\’ll pick you up before sunrise and take you to the launch site, where you watch the balloons come alive, full of flame-heated air. You tumble into the bath-sized basket with your twenty closest new friends. Then, for an hour, you get to ride the wind.

Still further East, perched upon an imposing cliff, the Tokat castle used to be a prison where the ememies of the Ottoman Empire spent miserable years hoping to die. Five hundred years ago, its dark, dingy dungeons hosted Vlad Tepes, the teenage Wallachian prince who, thanks to Bram Stoker\’s morbid imagination, was to, someday, become Dracula.

To find his steps, I navigated us through narrow back streets past scarved women scrubbing Persian carpets, bald angry roosters, and wide-eyed kids. We pushed through until we could go no more. Then, unable to turn, we backed up, until Steve stuck the car sideways. I got to watch, wondering if helicopters can lift cars, as Steve managed to turn it in only two dozen swift moves. Tokat watched breathlessly as a new legend was born.

After Tokat we turned North. Amasya, the city of apples and another former training groung for the Sehzades, is now a quiet small town where the only remnant of its glory days is the well-restored 9th-century castle.

Why all this princely training, you may ask?

Unlike Western states, the Ottoman Empire didn\’t recognise primogeniture. As in, the firstborn son didn\’t walk away with the loot. When a Sultan died, it was all about the survival of the fitest. His sons from many wives would compete for the throne, killing each other and weakening the empire. That went on until Mehmet legalized fratricide, and had his eight-months old brother drowned in his own bath. After that, each sultan\’s death meant immediate death for all their sons, but the one who took the throne. That\’s why Sultan\’s mausoleums all over Turkey are full of tiny coffins.

That makes two thousand miles through the heart of Turkey, before we headed back to Istanbul. As for my highs and lows,

My highs

1. The Turks. From the man who picked us on a dark stormy night in his rickety car and drove us to our hotel, to the one filling up our gas, they all ask: \”Where you\’re from? America? New York?\” and their eyes fill with longing. We can hardly communicate, since their English is no better than my Turkish – yok – but their friendliness always comes through.

2. The sweets. Sweet stores are everywhere, clean, bright, and tempting. Decadent confections like baklava and cataif drip with butter and honey, making your mouth water. Turkish Delight filled with nuts, pistachio, and chocolate cream comes in wobbly cubes or in wiggling sugar-powdered snakes that you cut with scissors to taste before you buy. Sold by the kilo, (2.2 pounds,) they glue your teeth, coat your fingers and stick to your hips.

3. Bathing with the columns in Pamukkale and immersing myself in history. I hope I never forget.
4. Finances. Prices got better the deeper we got into Turkey. So did the exchange rate from 6.9TL for 1$ in Istanbul airport, to 7.65 in last night\’s hotel. Outside Istanbul, a comfortable hotel room with wi-fi, parking, and impressive breakfast runs around $40, a decent dry dinner $25, a good Turkish red wine $10, an ice-cream cone $0.5.
5. The fruit. One fruit stand after another, we ate our way through Turkey: Succulent peaches, golden grapes and fleshy figs gave way to walnuts and crisp green apples, then to wrinkled yellow melons. We\’re back to grapes now, but I can\’t wait to be back in fig land. Fresh figs are to the dry what grapes are to raisins: luscious, decadently delicious, and full of flavor.

My lows

1. Gender segregation. One could be forgiven for thinking that Turkey is a country of men. Men only, wherever you look. They chat on long benches in shaded parks, smoke in front of old houses, mind the stores, ogle you in the street. Women are rare, hurried, and shrouded.
2. Pizza. My worst food memory was a Chinese take-out twenty years ago in Cairo, but our Tokat pizza is a strong contender. Loaded with dry cheese and sliced hot-dogs, it had sticky dough and no tomato sauce. It came with ketchup, mayo, and one set of cutlery. For Steve.
3. Unilingual tourist businesses. People in the street don\’t speak English – why should they? But those working at TI, rental cars, and money changers should.
4. Cardboard policing. At intersections, cardboard police cars flash their lights, fooling drivers, while policemen are nowhere in sight. The locals know it, of course, but we don\’t.
5. Masks. Like everybody else, Turkey struggles with them, too, though they are mandatory in public unless you\’re sitting in a restaurant – we even got stopped to put them on while driving in our car. But people take them off to smoke or take selfies; they wear them around their chin, and they poke holes in them to breathe better.

That\’s all I\’ve got for the heart of Turkey. Sign up if you want the updates. Next time: Turkey\’s many capitals. Hope to see you soon

Rada Jones is an ER doc in Upstate NY, where she lives with her husband and his deaf black cat Paxil. After authoring three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays, she’s now working on a historical novel featuring Vlad Țepeș, his gay brother Radu, and Mehmet the Conqueror.

A couple months ago, when Steve left Thailand to get our home on the market, we thought Thai borders would soon crack open, to allow him back. We were wrong. These days in Thailand, whoever\’s out stays out. If I wanted to see him again, I had to join him. So I did.

I flew out via Turkey to research my new books. Steve joined me, and we met at Istanbul Airport.

Besides eight boring hours in the empty Bangkok Airport, my trip was excellent: no crowds and no delays. In Doha, I even got a shower.

Twenty hours into my trip, I stepped in the business lounge carrying my old backpack and many worries. The attendant glanced at me.
\”Would you like a shower?\”
I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind.
\”Yes, please,\” my mouth said.
I loved the private shower with hot water, clean towels, and nice toiletries. I came out happier and better smelling. Sadly, that effect was mostly gone when I landed in Istanbul, but it didn\’t matter. Steve didn\’t smell any better.

We recognized each other despite masks, shields, and the Sauvignon Blanc Steve admitted to. Our hired car took us to our two-star hotel in Istanbul\’s heart with a splendid view of the Marmara, outstanding breakfast, and lousy Internet, and our hosts dragged us to our first overpriced Turkish dinner at their family\’s restaurant. Here, it\’s all about the family.

For days and days we dragged our achy feet on the cobbled streets of Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, sweating under our masks, to find the history I came here for. We got lost looking for toilets in Topkapi. We stared at incomprehensible Turkish inscriptions of monuments, and we turned down more carpets than I can count. We petted cats, chatted with locals, and fumbled through Istanbul without GPS or a map. No GPS to avoid roaming. No map, since Steve dropped it in a Turkish toilet. You know Turkish toilets? Imagine a toilet without a toilet: two porcelain footprints and a hole in between. The hole is for the maps. Works for pens too. Your legs must be strong enough to hold you in a low squat as you do your business, then stand up without touching the walls. It\’s an experience worth a Turkish lira, about 15 cents, I thought, until I saw people crawling in under the turnstiles. The other way to free pooping is finding a mosque. They provide free toilets and a live show: there, proper black-clad ladies tie their skirts around their waist to keep them from touching the floor, then wash in the sink for the ablution before prayer.

After four days of Istanbul immersion, we left to see the rest of Turkey. We\’ll be back, but for now, these are my highlights and lowlights of Istanbul.

The highlights:

1. The waters. Istanbul lives around its waters. The Bosporus Strait, running from the Black Sea to the Marmara, is alive with ships. Fishing boats, yachts and tankers frolic together over the turquoise (Turkish style) water. The Sea of Marmara starts its day blood-red. The Golden Horn, a dagger of water slicing the old Istanbul from the new, turns yellow at sunset.

2. The cats. Istanbul belongs to cats. Dignified, standoffish, and well-fed, they sun themselves on top of fences and socialize around ruins. They talk back when you speak to them, and show you where to put it if you try to pet them. Just ask Steve, who never met a cat he didn\’t try to touch.

3. The food. The scrumptious breakfast spread in our modest hotel, prepared by a smiling Turkish lady that speaks no English, changes every morning. Fresh pitta, warm pastries, five kinds of cheese, cold cuts, green and black olives, roasted eggplant with red peppers, solid chunks of translucent green cantaloupe, and bright red watermelon with black seeds – they all call your name, delicious and hard to resist.

4. The people. Black-clad women with just a slit for the eyes rub shoulders with tourists exposing soft midriffs and sporting shorts too short to matter. Elderly men drink tea from tulip glasses watching screaming kids throwing water bottles at each other. Istanbul has room for people of all kinds.

5. Pigeons. On Sundays, pigeon lovers meet at the bird market by the old Theodossian walls to sell, buy or trade birds. Tumbling pigeons, doing tricks as they fly, like planes at airshows, cost thousands of dollars for the bird with the right breeding. Sellers outdo each other singing praise for their birds, and negotiations mean long hours of happy shouting, checking every feather of the bird, and drinking tea.

6. Turkish baths. I had my first Turkish Bath in a fifteenth-century hamam, bathhouse built for a long dead Sultan\’s mother. The attendant, a Turkish lady with fading charms loosely packaged in a skimpy bikini, scrubbed me with a rough glove until I turned white, covered me in soapsuds and massaged me, then scrubbed me again. By the end, I had no dirt left and hardly any skin. Her no-nonsense efficiency reminded me of that one time when our cat Paxil got skunked. I washed her in the sink with abandon, dedication, and dishwashing detergent. Unlike Paxil, I didn\’t bite.

The lowlights.

1. The carpets. If I never see another carpet seller, I\’ve seen too many. They lay in wait to leap on you, anytime, anywhere. In the mosque, over lunch, as you cross the street. \”Where are you from? Where are you going? You want to buy a carpet?\” Being polite doesn\’t work. Being rude is rude. And it doesn\’t work either. As they see it, you\’re only here to buy what they sell, so you might as well make yourself useful. They shout at you from far away, they get in your face, they follow you in the street, and they won\’t take no for an answer. I prefer mosquitoes.

2. The Blue Mosque. Whatever there\’s left of it isn\’t blue, it\’s covered in scaffolds and shrouded in cloth. That appears to be its new permanent condition now, since the Turkish government uses eternal restoration projects to keep people employed.

3. The traffic. Istanbul\’s 15 million people – twice as many as NYC – spend up to five hours a day in traffic if they live one side of the Golden Horn and work on the other. The endlessly blowing horns made me wonder if cars here navigate by audio-location, like bats.
4. Hagia Sophia. The 1500 years old former Orthodox Church became a Mosque in 1453, when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople. Half a century later, when Ataturk, the creator of modern Turkey, separated the state from the mosque, it turned into a museum. Then, a couple of months ago, she went back to a mosque. No wonder she\’s struggling with an identity crisis. Posters with Mohammed\’s sayings hide thousand years old Christian Mosaics, while scantily dressed tourists wrapped in hooded paper gowns scramble to find their shoes and stern police officers try to keep men away from the women\’s mosque, while nobody knows which is which.
5. Cold French Fries. There\’s something perverse about the Turkish infatuation with stale fries. They\’re served everywhere, all the time: at breakfast, alongside chalky Turkish yogurt, spicy red pepper paste, and scrumptious sour cherry preserves, stuffed into wraps for lunch, and with the mezze for dinner. BUT WHY?
6. The COVID factor. It isn\’t crowded, and that\’s nice. But walking with a mask in 90 degrees heat gets old soon, and we\’re avoiding public transport to socially distance. And, since our flights to the US  have vanished, we\’re here for now.

That\’s my first take on Istanbul. There\’s much I haven\’t seen, and more I don\’t understand, but I wanted to share my wonder to those stuck at home. Sign up for my update if you want more, since Facebook is not my friend.

Güle Güle – bye-bye for now.

Rada

Rada Jones is an ER doc in Upstate NY, living with her husband and his deaf black cat Paxil. She authored three ER thrillers, Overdose, Mercy and Poison, and “Stay Away From My ER,” a collection of medical essays.