2020 ends with my first dose of vaccine, potential end to our national nightmare

As a volunteer at Englewood Health, formerly known as Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, I was offered a first dose of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine to prevent the coronavirus disease, which has killed more than 340,000 Americans this year. 

After I entered the hospital on Wednesday, I was asked to put on a mask over the mask I was wearing and to sanitize my hands. Other visitors were subjected to temperature checks, and the hospital cafeteria was closed to outsiders, including me. 

We ate healthy and stayed healthy, explored the great outdoors

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- "Lines." 

That is my answer to the headline on the front of The New York Times for Kids section last Sunday:

"If I had to describe my 2020 in one word, it would be _____."

When the quarantine began in March, nine long months ago, I stopped going to the gym and no longer was able to visit patients as a volunteer at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, now known as Englewood Health.

That meant that as an older American, food shopping was my only means of exercise, and on my trips to Costco Wholesale, Whole Foods Market, ShopRite and H Mart, I encountered long lines of masked shopper shifting from foot to foot as they waited to get in.

Monotony

The second word I'd use to describe 2020 is "monotony." 

I pretty much get up every day before 6 a.m.

First, I make coffee, then after showering, I eat a big breakfast of leftovers or prepare an egg white omelet for other family members.

I also go food shopping early during senior hours, take a midday nap, eat or prepare dinner as early as 3 p.m., settle down in front of the TV around 4 or go for a short drive to a nearby town, then go to bed around 10:30 p.m., and get up during the night 2 or 3 times to go to the bathroom.

We spend a lot more money on food than most families of 4 because I am a pescatarian who hasn't eaten beef, pork, lamb or poultry for a decade, and my wife, son and mother-in-law are dedicated meat eaters.

This year also has seen us buying as much organic, pesticide-free food and produce as possible; only wild-caught seafood; and making sure they only eat meat and poultry raised without harmful pesticides and growth hormones.

And as an older American and amateur cook, I also have had to watch out when using recipes from The Times and other sources that are filled with artery clogging butter and cream, excessive sodium and sugar.

Beside covid in 2020, another health concern that was exposed by Consumer Reports magazine is the real danger of microplastics in our air, and our food and water supplies.

That prompted me to replace all of our plastic food-storage containers with glass, and brew our morning coffee in a stainless-steel percolator my mother used more than 30 years ago.

The water never comes in contact with plastic because the Farberware percolator has no plastic parts, unlike the cheap Mr. Coffee machines I used for years.

2021 and beyond

Amid the surge of new coronavirus cases after Thanksgiving and Christmas, I got a lift when I received an email from the hospital, inviting me and other volunteers as "members of our health-care team" to get a first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, and I already have an appointment for the second and final dose.

That means the volunteer program at the Englewood hospital may resume, possibly as early as March, and I can once again visit patients to comfort them and offer words of encouragement after their open-heart surgeries (I got a new heart valve in September 2011).

I'd like to see my wife, son and mother-in-law get the Covid vaccine, too.

The Jan. 20 inauguration of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president also is something to look forward to, and I hope they can speed up the vaccination program nationwide, and end our national nightmare.

Read: Pandemic sees resurgence of family meals

Read: Bored to tears, fearing long food lines

Read: Cartoonists slam Trump's many failures

Read: What about a sudden loss of intimacy?

Panic buying in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic resulted in long lines of older American like me during the senior hour at the Costco Wholesale warehouse in Teterboro, above. Despite signs urging social distancing, below, shoppers with carts had a hard time keeping away from each other.

After I shopped during the senior hour at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, I stopped on the way to my car to take this photo of millenials and other younger shoppers who had lined up to get into the organic and natural foods supermarket.

For our Sunday fresh fish dinner, I often waited on line at the H Mart in Ridgefield, above, until the Korean chain opened a new supermarket in Little Ferry on Dec. 23, 2020, nearly 18 months after the old Little Ferry H Mart closed.

We started off our Christmas dinner with a cooked seafood salad of Alaskan King Crab, Canadian Lobster Tails and Argentinian Red Shrimp dressed with fresh lemon juice, Dijon Mustard and ground cumin.

One of the rare high points of 2020 was the availability of previously frozen wild Sockeye Salmon fillets at Costco Wholesale after the fresh wild salmon season ended in early October. I grilled these portions on the stovetop for 8 minutes and dressed them with a saute of fresh tomatoes and sliced garlic.

 

On Saturday afternoons, we usually order takeout from nearby restaurants, including Seafood Gourmet in Maywood, above; Lotus Cafe in Hackensack for great Chinese-style seafood and vegetables; and Kinyobi in Hackensack or BCD Tofu in Fort Lee for delicious Korean specialties. We also enjoyed takeout from the U Pie & Lobster Co. in Englewood and Greenhouse Juices & Cafe in Teaneck.

During the spring and summer, we made day trips to Brendan T. Byrne State Forest, above, and Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center in the Bronx, below.

Using a list I copied from The New York Times many years ago, we also visited public sculptures and monuments in Manhattan, including this tribute to Duke Ellington, the legendary jazz band leader, in Harlem.

Closer to home, I was wowed by this dramatic sunrise over Hackensack as I drove down Euclid Avenue on the way to Home Depot to pick up a large recycling bin I had ordered online.

We were walloped with a big snowstorm on Dec. 17, 2020. I grimaced when I was watching TV and heard one of the anchors of the CBS Morning News introduce a report from Suffern, N.Y., and call the town "Sufferin', N.Y."

Nearing end of 2020, we're in good health, thankful for election of sane new president

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: We've been quarantining since March, but all of us are healthy, and we toasted our good fortune on Thanksgiving with French champagne from the Costco Wholesale warehouse in Wayne, N.J. 

WILD SHRIMP SALAD: Our first course on Thursday was a salad of wild-caught Gulf Shrimp, sold frozen, peeled and deveined at the Costco warehouse in Teterboro, N.J., dressed with fresh lemon juice, Dijon mustard, cumin and ground Aleppo pepper. First, I cooked the raw shrimp in olive oil with plenty of thinly sliced garlic, and added diced sweet peppers, celery, onion and parsley.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The presidential election is finally over, and Donald J. Trump's days as our unhinged president are numbered.

He is a loser in every sense of the word -- the worst U.S. president in history.

Happy days are here again.

And on Thanksgiving, amid a new wave of the coronavirus, just the 4 of us gathered around the dining room table, toasting our good health and our soon-to-be President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

She is the first woman elected vice president, and likely will be the first woman elected president in 2024.

Our groaning table

For Thanksgiving, we prepared too much food, as usual: 

For the meat eaters, my wife prepared turkey neck and roasted a boneless leg of Australian lamb, plus rice and peas.

As a pescatarian, I prepared a shrimp salad and ordered a 4-course vegan meal from Whole Foods Market, but didn't have room for my wife's fish course, fried whole Yellow Croaker.

I had vegan leftovers and a leftover fried duck egg for breakfast today, and will probably have more leftovers for dinner and for....

ESCOVEITCH FISH: I went to 99 Ranch Market in Hackensack on Thursday morning and picked up 5 fresh, wild-caught Yellow Croaker. My wife fried them and prepared them with a warm dressing of vinegar, pimento, sweet pepper and onion in the style of her native Jamaica.

ORGANIC VEGETABLES: My wife also prepared organic broccoli and string beans with sliced garlic and a variety of no-salt seasonings.

VEGAN COURSES: For Thanksgiving, this pescatarian also picked up a 4-course vegan meal for 2 prepared by Chef Chloe Coscarelli from Whole Foods Market in Paramus, N.J. The centerpiece was a Cremini Mushroom Roast with Mushroom Gravy. Other courses were Miso Creamed Greens, Sweet Potato Casserole, Jalapeno Corn Bread Dressing and Pumpkin Curry Soup (not shown).

 

Pandemic sees resurgence of family meals, but much of the food we eat makes us sick

McDonald's, Pringles, SPAM and other processed and junk food are featured prominently in the illustration that ran with the article on how we eat in the August/September 2020 issue of AARP The Magazine.

 

AARP article salutes

 rise of industrial farms, 

processed food, multicookers

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The only upside to the Covid-19 pandemic is that Americans in quarantine or lockdown began to cook again and "the family meal -- long threatened -- returned in earnest."

That's the upbeat conclusion of a sweeping review of how we eat by Ruth Reichl, a cookbook author and onetime restaurant critic for The New York Times.  

But in "The Changing American Table" for AARP The Magazine, Reichl acknowledges that Americans' obsession with baking and desserts pushed the percentage of us who are overweight or obese to about 72 percent today, compared to only 10 percent in 1950.

She discusses the rise of factory farms, the widespread use of human antibiotics to make farm animals grow faster, salmonella outbreaks, processed food and even a best seller, "The Can-Opener Cook Book."

Eating is learned behavior

Reichl, who has written about food for 50 years, acknowledges her own articles about eating fewer carbohydrates, exercising more and drinking less or not at all.

"The real answer, I think, is staring us in the face," Reichl says. "Eating is learned behavior, and from the moment our children are born, we began teaching them that the most delicious foods are filled with fat, sugar and salt."

Organic farming

Although Reichl is one of the most respected food writers in the nation, her AARP article is weak when it comes to discussing the benefits of eating organic food, and the harm of pesticides and the antibiotics used to raise poultry, meat and farmed fish.

"People who care about the environment ... have driven the cause of organic farms, whose numbers have doubled in the past 10 years," she says, adding:

"But the most revolutionary changes in food production revolve around meat. Research has shown that a meat-based diet increases the risk of heart diseases and cancer."

Excerpts

Here are excerpts from Reichl's article for older Americans, and I think you can assume that the "average Americans" she mentions aren't eating pricier organics, antibiotic-free food, wild-caught fish or 100% grass-fed beef:

• "The food on my table -- and yours -- does not resemble in any way what our ancestors ate."
• "Food prices have come down so dramatically that average Americans spend a mere 7 percent of their budget on it -- less than people spend in any other nation on earth."
• "Three-quarters of us are overweight, and 6 out of 10 of us suffer from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and hepatitis."
• "Does our cheap food have anything to do with that?" (Her answer is yes.)
• "After the war [World War II] ended and the Cold War began, our government decided that growing bigger, better and substantially more food than the Soviets ... would be a great way to spread democracy."
• On family summer road trips, regional specialties were replaced by fast food.
• "By the mid '50s ... housewives filled their freezers with three iconic foods of that moment: TV dinners, fish sticks and Tater Tots."
• "Instant mashed potatoes, freeze-dried instant coffee, Pop-Tarts, Tang and, of course, Carnation Instant Breakfast began to line our cupboard shelves."
• "Mom bragged she could get dinner on the table in 15 minutes flat."

The coronavirus

"The coronavirus disrupted the American food supply, and it changed the way I shop, cook and eat," Reichl says.

"Indeed, across the country, people in lockdown began to cook again" and "many who had never before put their hands into dirt planted gardens ...," she says.

"People like me, who live in rural parts of the country, began buying our food straight from the farm, just like my mother once did," Reichl adds. "I know I'll be doing that for the rest of my life."

To read Reichl's piece in its entirety, click on the following link:

A foodie reflects on 50 years of change

Shopping for organics

During most of the year, the closest my family and others in northern New Jersey get to the farm is Whole Foods Market in Paramus, where I buy as many organics as possible.

Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and ShopRite supermarkets also are good sources for organic produce, organic pasta and other organically grown food.

I grew up in a kosher household in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the family meal was sacred, and I've been cooking all my life, both when I was single and after I married.

That has continued during the pandemic.

I'm a pescatarian living with a wife, son and mother-in-law who eat meat and poultry, so we cook more than most families and find it challenging to order takeout once a week.

For ideas on preparing family meals, see my cooking and food shopping videos:

Victor's Healthy Kitchen

Hysterical voters denounce mail-in ballots weeks before Nov. 3 presidential election

We received our 3 mail-in ballots in late September.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- I've long believed America has some of the laziest, most apathetic voters in the world, but now I see they are also some of the dumbest.

In New Jersey, vote-by-mail ballots for the Nov. 3 election are being sent to every "active registered voter," according to an executive order signed by Governor Murphy.

That order was cited by Bergen County Clerk John  S. Hogan, one of three county officials in charge of the election process.

The governor's executive order "aims to ensure that voters preserve their constitutional right to vote while upholding the priority of public health during the Covid-19 public health emergency," Hogan said.

But statewide voting by mail has unhinged at least one Maywood woman, who called for a class-action lawsuit against "our illegal, demonic governor."

Voting by mail

I and tens of thousands of other voters have used mail-in ballots for years in Hackensack school and City Council elections, in statewide primaries, and in general elections for governor, state Legislature, Congress and president.

We received our 3 mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election yesterday, and all registered voters should receive them by Oct. 5, Hogan said.

On Nov. 3, voters have three ways to cast their vote-by-mail ballots:

• Complete and return your ballot by mail in the postage-paid envelope provided. If postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by Nov. 10 at 8 p.m., the ballot will still be counted.
• Drop your completed ballot at one of "the secure drop boxes" located throughout Bergen County by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.
• Bring your completed ballot to your polling place by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.

There will be a limited number of polling places open on election day "with voting machines exclusively for blind and disabled voters," Hogan said in a flier sent to every residential postal customer.

Hysterical voters

On Nextdoor, an online community forum, one Maywood woman referred to Governor Murphy as "very evil" and called mail-in voting "nonsense."

She also referred to mail-in ballots as "voter interference" and "election intimidation," and claimed they are "criminally illegal."

She called on other voters to join her in a class-action lawsuit to sue "our illegal, demonic governor."

She complained a sports arena in Newark was being used as a voting place to intimidate voters like her, because the people who live there "believe in garbage movements" that are "nothing short of anarchist attempts to overthrow the government" -- an apparent reference to Black Lives Matter.

But she denied that she is a racist.

Sadly, she was not alone in trying to sow confusion about mail-in ballots, and cite conspiracy theories and other nonsense, echoing President Trump.

Nextdoor usually is a forum for the exchange of helpful information, goods and services. 

Track your ballot

Mail-in ballots have become easier to use in recent years, and for the Nov. 3 election, you can actually "track your ballot" and see if it has been received by the Board of Elections.

The return envelope doesn't require postage as in the past -- it's postage paid.

The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 3 presidential election is Oct. 13, 2020. Visit njelections.org.

That is also the site where you can track your ballot.

Watch this short video of Hogan demonstrating how to fill out and mail your ballot.

 

Read: Mail-in ballots boosted

 turnout in school election

When is the last time you got a $197 credit on your gas and electric bill from PSE&G?

SUNNY SIDE UP: Solar panels on my home in Hackensack, N.J., were installed in 2009 and 2012.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- I printed out my utility bill and stared in disbelief at a credit of $197.50.

I have solar panels and electric storage batteries on my home so I couldn't understand why since May I was receiving what I consider high bills for electric service.

Before 2020, my solar panels generated enough electricity to run my home for 4 months to 5 months every year so I didn't have to use or pay for any electricity from the grid.

Today, I called PGE&G and learned that during the Covid-19 health emergency bills have been estimated (starting on April 6, 2020), and the reading of meters didn't resumed until Sept. 3.

The bill I printed out this week is for March 7, 2020, to Sept. 3, 2020.

I received a total credit for those 6 months of $1,249.09 for overcharges on my gas and electric bills.

Hallelujah!

Where the millions of plastic bags recycled at ShopRite go and what becomes of them

RECYCLED INTO WHAT? My cart at the ShopRite in Paramus, N.J., is nearly filled with plastic shopping bags that are stuffed with more bags and lots of plastic food wrapping and plastic film destined for a recycling plant in Elizabeth, N.J. 

PLASTIC BAG BAN: After Paramus banned single-use plastic bags, ShopRite, Whole Foods Market and other supermarkets in the borough began bagging food purchases in paper, above. ShopRite's paper bag contains 60% recycled content and is itself recyclable.

Materials collected at supermarkets

turned into community playgrounds

Editor's note: This post has been updated with ShopRite recycling statistics, and a photo of Costco's recycled plastic carton that prevents the breakage of 9 million eggs a year.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The massive recycling effort at the hundreds of ShopRite supermarkets in New Jersey and nearby states yields new community playgrounds.

You can learn about the many tons of plastic and cardboard ShopRites recycle in a 2-minute video on "sustainability" from the Wakefern Food Corp.

Wakefern is the retailers' cooperative that owns and operates 344 retail supermarkets (see a link to the video below).

Recycling them into new plastic bags doesn't make sense as more towns and cities ban those bags, and as alarms are raised over microplastics poisoning our food and water supply.

What are microplastics? Here are 2 paragraphs from "How to Eat Less Plastic," the June 2020 cover story in Consumer Reports magazine:

"Cracking open a brand new plastic bottle or tearing a wrapper off a sandwich releases fragments of plastic that we might end up ingesting.

"Reliable research now shows that tiny bits of plastic -- called microplastics -- are in our food, drinking water, the air we breathe, and, yes, inside our bodies."  

ShopRite statistics 

Here are some of the recycling statistics for Wakefern's Elizabeth, N. J., processing plant:

1. Recycled more than 2.6 million tons since the 1970s.
2. In 2019, recycling totals include 135,873 tons of cardboard, 4,667 tons of plastic, 428 tons of newspaper and 762 tons of office paper.
3. In 2019, the plant composted more than 11,000 tons of food waste, and donated more than 5,000 tons of food to food banks.

Can more be done?

Although ShopRite, Whole Foods, H Mart and other supermarkets in Paramus provide paper bags to shoppers who don't bring reusable ones for their purchases, Tous les Jours, the bakery concession inside the Korean supermarket on Route 17, charges 30 cents for each paper bag.

And Aldi supermarkets in New Jersey have never provided plastic or paper bags to customers, but you can purchase a reusable bag for 10 cents.

A LOT OF YOLKS: Costco Wholesale officials say cartons made from 100% recycled plastic prevent breakage, saving more than 9 million eggs a year from landfills.

Recycling at Costco

Sustainability programs at Costco Wholesale, a global retailer, also are impressive.

"In some cases, we've been able to eliminate plastic altogether," Sheri Flies, Costco vice president of global sustainability and compliance, wrote in the May 2020 Costco Connection magazine.

For example, Costco swapped plastic for paperboard in sheet-cake trays, removed plastic hangers in some clothes and replaced plastic bags with compostable ones.

"If we can't eliminate plastic, we try to use less of it, through redesign," Flies said. "We reduced our plastic packaging by 6 million pounds in 2019."

Another goal is to use recycled plastic in plastic packaging, "such as increasing the recycled content in our Kirkland Signature 16-ounce water bottles to 50% in the U.S."

When plastic makes sense

"Kirkland Signature egg cartons ... reduce food waste, also a priority for us," Flies said, adding:

"These plastic cartons prevent breakage, saving over 9 million eggs a year from landfills and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"They use 100% recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which makes them 40% lighter than pulp cartons.

"These lighter weight and sturdier cartons enable our shipper to pack 50% more cartons on a truck, reducing truck trips from the farms to our locations and therefore reducing carbon emissions."

Read: How To Eat Less Plastic

Watch: ShopRite's Recycling

 and Composting Programs 

Watch: Plastic Wars from FRONTLINE

Monotony of 150 days in quarantine leaves me bored to tears, fearing long food lines

EXCUSE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE: To break the monotony of staying home during the Covid-19 pandemic, I pack up all of the plastic bags and food wrapping we accumulate and take them for recycling at the ShopRite in Paramus, a few miles from my home.

Plastic in our food and water

 adds to worry over coronavirus

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- As an older American, I know the quarantine is blurring time when I have to check my pill organizer to know what day it is.

The Covid-19 death toll continues to climb, but all my family and I can do is try to eat healthy, stay safe and limit our trips outside our home.

Still, with our quarantine nearing 150 days, the monotony, broken mostly by food shopping, is getting to us.

Our days and nights at home have a sameness to them -- punctuated only by horrifying news of the devastation and death caused by the coronavirus.

The United States has passed 5 million confirmed cases of the virus, more than any other country, The New York Times reported.

Food shopping

I've developed an unnatural fear of lines.

Lines that double, triple and quadruple, such as those I saw in mid-April at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

Or, even the long, single line of masked shoppers I once stood on at the H Mart in Ridgefield, a Korean supermarket offering a large selection of fresh, wild-caught fish for our Sunday dinner.

Now, I go to the smaller H Mart in Paramus, where there is never a line to get in on weekends, but lately a short line to check out with my fresh fish and prepared dishes like stewed tofu or pollock with sweet and hot peppers.

I've encountered other long lines, especially for returns, at Lowe's and Kohl's, both in Paramus.

Weight gain and loss

In the 5th month of the quarantine, food shopping -- my only form of exercise -- has become a chore instead of something I delight in.

Still, I am trying to buy more and more organic and non-GMO food that is free of pesticides for my family of 4, not only at Whole Foods Market, ShopRite and H Mart, but at Costco Wholesale, where an increasingly large variety of organic products and produce are available.

In the first few months of the quarantine, I gained 6 pounds, but I've been able to lose them and a couple of more by eating only breakfast and an early dinner, and watching my carbs. 

MAY 24, 2020: The line to get into the H Mart in Ridgefield, above, brought wartime rationing to mind. The line continued inside the store, below. 

PROTECTION: The H Marts in Ridgefield and Paramus consistently provide disposable plastic gloves to customers.

APRIL 23, 2020: Customers of Whole Foods in Paramus lining up to enter the supermarket after the hour reserved for shoppers who are 60 years old or older.

Shame on news media

Having spent nearly 40 years as a reporter, copy editor or food writer for 3 daily newspapers, including The Record of Hackensack, I've been so ashamed of the news media's surrender to President Trump.

In only the last month or so, it seems, reporters who cover the White House have started pushing back against Trump's endless stream of lies about the pandemic, the Obama administration, the environment, and Joe Biden, the Democrat who is running for president.

Meanwhile, Biden put his foot in his mouth a couple of times last week, including when he referred to CBS correspondent Errol Barnett, who is black, as "man." 

He also compared the reporter's  question about the candidate taking a cognitive test to asking Barnett if he "used cocaine." 

"Are you a junkie?" Biden said.

So, it's best to focus not on the candidate, but on what he stands for, and I'll take Biden's progressive platform over Trump's destruction of our democracy -- fueled by racism and greed.

A cartoon about President Trump by Steve Sack of the Star Tribune in Minnesota was among the most popular of the week (Aug. 1-8) on Cagle.com.

Plastic and food

After reading the June cover story in Consumer Reports magazine -- "How To Eat Less Plastic" -- I've replaced all of our plastic food-storage containers with glass, and stopped using a cheap coffee maker made mostly of plastic.

Now, I brew coffee in a Farberware Superfast Fully Automatic Percolator that my mother used about 30 years ago in our old Brooklyn home.

If Covid-19 doesn't get you, microplastic in our food and water likely will.

To make matters worse, the vast majority of plastic with a recycling symbol never gets recycled -- it ends up in garbage dumps, leaching into our reservoirs, or pollutes the ocean, where it is consumed by fish and other seafood.

The widespread notion most plastic is recycled is false, part of an elaborate, multi-million dollar ad campaign by the same petrochemical industry that pollutes our air and profits from the widespread use of plastic to bottle water and wrap food.

Watch: "Plastic Wars" from FRONTLINE

TWO MENUS: I'm a pescatarian, but the 3 other members of my family are dedicated meat and poultry eaters, so our food bills are unusually high. And we always have leftovers, such as this Atlantic Halibut Filet from Costco Wholesale I poached in Roasted Chipotle Salsa, and had for breakfast over leftover organic quinoa.

HEALTHY TAKEOUT: Wild Salmon BBQ Turmeric style was one of the 5 meals I ordered from Planted Eats, a health-food cafe in Hackensack.

Daily routine

I'm usually up before 6 a.m. to brew a pot of coffee, then shower (and shave every two days) before putting on my summer outfit -- shorts and a T-shirt, plus flip-flops around the house or a pair of Vans, red to match my Tesla Model S.

Breakfast is leftovers or I'll make a stuffed egg-white omelet with grated Parmesan cheese, smoked wild salmon, Mexican-style salsa and organic arugula or baby spinach, cut into 3 pieces so my wife and mother-in-law can have some, too.

If I don't have food shopping to do, I go online to print out credit cards statements or buy something at AmazonSmile.com or another site (nearly every day, it has turned out), and monthly spending on my Amazon Prime credit card has doubled during the quarantine.

I'll putter around the house or snip fresh herbs from the garden, read leftover sections from The Sunday Times under an awning on our deck, then go upstairs for a nap in the early afternoon, with my phone in my pocket to count steps.

I can easily do a mile or more around the house.

In the early months of the quarantine, I tried to walk in my Fairmount neighborhood every day, but that ended when I tripped over an uneven sidewalk and cracked or broke a rib. 

Early dinner

One of us cooks dinner and when my wife does, I usually have leftover fish or prepare a large dinner salad with raisins, slivered almonds, pitted Greek olives and fresh fruit.

We've been eating dinner as early as 3:30 in the afternoon, then settling down in front of the TV, having tea, roasted almonds, fresh organic fruit and no-fat yogurt until 8:30 p.m., when my wife goes upstairs to sleep.

I usually try to stay up until after 10 p.m., but TV, Netflix and Amazon have become so boring I barely make it.

I did double our Netflix DVD plan to 2 discs out at one time, and movies like "1917" and "Bombshell" have helped.

During the night, I get up 3 times to go to the bathroom, and start all over again before 6 a.m.


What's ahead?

In June, we started picking up takeout food from restaurants, including Lotus Cafe and Art of Spice, both in Hackensack.

And we spent a delightful evening enjoying dinner with wine and a pair of cabaret singers on the patio outside the Papermill Playhouse in Millburn.

Also in June, we drove into Manhattan to visit public statues and sculptures.

But only a Covid-19 vaccine will start us back on the road to normalcy, and allow me to volunteer again at a major hospital twice a week, as well as return to the gym, both for more exercise and the social contact.

I can't wait, even though I've always felt the definition of a "volunteer" is an older American who has nothing better to do with his or her time.