Hey all!

As that poppy America song goes, “I’ve been one poor correspondent.”

I’m afraid I let myself lapse into one of those phases in life where I succumbed to the sense that I’m too busy to do the things that’d I really like to do. And this little blog is something that I’ve always liked to do, and also something that is good for me. I collect and refine my thoughts in this little space, and am lucky enough to have people with whom I can share them.

I have been busy, though. I’m still working, and working hard, because, well, our retirement will be more comfortable the longer I work, yes—that’s one reason. But it’s more that I enjoy my work (most of the time) and especially enjoy working with younger people who keep me moving forward. And, having worked at Phius since it was essentially five of us against the world, watching it grow into the force for good that it’s become is pretty damn satisfying.

Besides work, well, doctors. Some are mine, some are Beth’s—we try to back each other up—two heads (and memories) are better than one. But we have reached that age where people say things like “I feel like I spend half my life at the doctor’s.” An exaggeration, but some weeks can feel that way. I mean, just my regular follow-ups take a fair amount of time. For the record, the good thing about all the doctor time is…I’m fine! If I wasn’t overweight and out of shape, I’d be even finer.

As many of you probably know, Beth has been less than fine. She’s OK, she’s still teaching, she’s still Beth, so don’t fret—OK, fret a little. She’s had a couple of vexing issues, one of which has mostly resolved, the other—lowish sodium levels—  still annoyingly stubborn. She flirts with low sodium levels and she’s just not 100 percent.

We’re resolved to figure it out, even if it takes the rest of our lives. And it might, given how long it takes to get a first appointment with certain medical specialists.

Before I go further, let me state outright that we’re lucky: We have good health insurance and we have great front-line doctors. But navigating the “system” is insane. In July Beth got an appointment (earliest available) with one specialist for Mid-September. That appointment was unilaterally postponed until December. Last week she called for another appointment with another specialist—that will be February. (I’ve followed up and nagged and will continue, but so far no luck.)

I hear similar stories from other folks. It makes me laugh (or cry) when I hear people talking about other countries’ health care being inferior. “You have to wait for care over there!” they’ll say. But I better leave that rant for another time.

For now, I’ll just say I’m glad to be back, and I’ll try to be a better correspondent.

Mondays with Mike is back! It’s–about the time I thought I’d get back in the Mondays rhythm, life happened and, well, apologies for the absence.

There’s a backlog of blog ideas, but for today, I’m going to stick with something that maybe has been going on for a while but I’ve just noticed: The proliferation of weird sports.

I kinda thought it had peaked around Covid lockdown when ESPN, desperate for any live content, began broadcasting the American Cornhole League. Now, I prefer calling it bags, but whatever. Anyway, two Cornhole players stood, with surgical masks, side by side and battled it out. I guess I was desperate, too.

Of course, all the major sports have been back for awhile. And that’s plenty—especially football, which is seeming more and more like an all-year thing. But lately I’ve noticed three new sports that one channel or another sees fit to broadcast. One of them is called kick volleyball (also known a Sepak Trakow. Although it’s hard to visualize if you haven’t seen it, it’s exactly what it sounds like: it’s like volleyball except it uses a smaller ball and players don’t use hands, they use feet. Here’s a sample of some highlights from an international match:

I have to say, they pull off some remarkable plays, kind of soccer, volleyball, and acrobatics all in one. There’s also a beach version called footvolley:

Next, we all remember tag, right? You’re “it” until you tag another person, who is then “it.” Little did I ever think as a kid playing tag with neighbor kids that there would one day be a professional tag league. It’s called World Chase Tag and while the whole “tag” thing is the basis, it involves an obstacle course. Once again, you kind of have to see it:

But wait, there’s more! I present to you, the PFC Pillow Fight Championship.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Here in Chicago, tomorrow is a primary election. There are candidates for judges and state’s attorney and property tax board of reviews and, oh yeah, President. The elections with judges always require some research about who’s been approved by the Chicago Bar Association and, depending on your point of view, endorsed by the advocacy group of your choice. I’m still figuring out my choices.

That’s especially true of a referendum on the ballot regarding what’s been tagged as “The Mansion Tax.” It’s a proposal to increase the transfer tax on real estate transactions of $1 million or more. The transaction fee for sales under $1 million will actually decrease.

The ballot proposal is called “Bring Chicago Home,” as the (ideally) increased revenue from the act will be devoted to increasing funding for affordable housing and services for the unhoused.

I originally thought it was a no-brainer but am less sanguine now. For one, I don’t have a ton of confidence in Mayor Brandon Johnson, at least based on what I’ve seen thus far in his term. For two, he and the city council won’t pass  a plan that explicitly spells out how and where any increased revenue will be spent until after the referendum—and that is troubling. (Illinoisans remember that  decades ago when the Lotto was being promoted, we were promised that all of the lottery proceeds would go to education.)

For three, a similar measure has been something of a disaster in LA (so far). That’s owed partly to the phenomenon where the high-end real estate market froze up after a flurry of activity in advance because there are legal challenges and some people are holding off selling, hoping that it gets repealed.

I’ve found a bunch of stuff about how luxury real estate got hit and how people dodged it (Brad Pitt and Mark Wahlberg sold their places before the act went into effect). I really don’t care about a minuscule bit of pain for that sector.

I’m more concerned about any backfires from unintended consequences. My biggest concerns locally is that the $1 million threshold will include some relatively modest multifamily rental properties. That whole “mansion tax” thing is great propaganda but lots of relatively small rental building transactions will get hit. And that’s not a good way to make housing more available.

And the commercial real estate market is already pretty bad here post covid—in LA, the prices of commercial buildings took another hit with the transfer tax increase.

Those and other commercial properties then are appraised lower, and then you have less of a commercial tax base, and that could lead toward ultimately costing more of our sub-million dollar home taxpayers footing the bill on their annual property tax bills. (According to Crain’s Chicago Business, commercial properties are a disproportionate number of the properties sold over $1 million, at a ratio of 9-to-1.)

Which would, in my view, make it a shell game. If the revenues were spent wisely and it made a permanent positive difference to the plight of the unhoused, I can live with the shell game I guess.

All that said it’s a coin toss because I’m at that point where I say, “Well, it might not work but we have to do something.”

But it might not be until I’m at the polls that I decide.

Under the heading of unimportant, I mentioned in an earlier post that I got a kitchen range with an induction cooktop. I have been asked by at least one person how I liked it, so I’m going to bore you all.

I love it.

Boiling water is like a parlor trick. I measured 4-1/2 cups of water for a recipe, and it boiled in just over a minute. Stuff comes up to heat faster than any gas stove I’ve had, and it cools faster than turning off a flame

It’s freaking magic.

It does require adjustment, because you know, it gets hot faster and gets cool faster. Mise en place is not a nicety, it’s a demand. But the cooktop doesn’t really get hot so it’s easy to clean.

And, I can boil water in no time—did I say that?

I had to get rid of two pots that don’t work with induction but they weren’t great, so that’s not a negative. But there is one—a Swiss Diamond no-stick pan—that’s killing me.

But I’ll get over it.

Two days ago our friend Ruth drove my Seeing Eye dog Luna and me to the Admiral At the Lake, a retirement community where I lead memoir-writing classes every Wednesday. I wasn’t there this time to lead a writing class, though: we were there to answer questions from third-graders who attend Goudy Elementary, a Public school for children of immigrants that is located near the Admiral in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

My group’s graduation picture from the January class, 2020. I’m so lucky I got matched with Luna before the pandemic.

The third graders are part of a Friday “reading buddies” program at The Admiral, and on certain Fridays the third grade teachers and their students walk from Goudy Elementary to the Admiral so each third-grader can read out loud to an assigned Admiral resident, their “reading buddy.”

Luna and I were invited there last Friday because the third-graders had all read my children’s book “Safe & Sound” and they wanted to meet me. I gave a short presentation to explain how Luna had to go to the Seeing Eye School to learn to lead me around safely, and each child was encouraged to ask me a question when it was their turn.

Every single child told me their name, then introduced their question a la, “Hello, my name is Sunil, and here’s my question…”. I made a point to repeat each question so the Reading Buddies in the audience could hear them, too. Some examples:

-How do you know what you are wearing?
-How does your dog know where he’s going?
-Is there one place you go with your dog every day?
-Did any dog inspire Luna to help you?
-How do you lock the door?
-How do you come up with ideas of what to write?
-How old is your dog?
-How do you cook?
-How do you find the doorknob?
-How old are you?
-Did anything scary ever happen to you when you were with your dog?
-How do you grab things? How do you find them?
-You said you had five Seeing Eye dogs – which one is your favorite?

Dora, Hanni, Harper, Whitney…you’d think it’d be hard to choose, but for me this question is easy to answer. “Whichever dog is working with me right now is always my favorite,” I told them.

“So right now Luna is my favorite.”

The kids really were very, very well-behaved. The afternoon was delightful, everyone had a chance to participate and our interaction wasn’t limited to the most vocal in the group. Each one got a turn to ask their question.

Their reward? I took Luna’s harness off and invited them to pet her when it came time to head outside and walk back to Goudy Elementary. The Admiral had provided cookies for everyone, and the kids saw to it that our friend Ruth got a few on her way out. Everybody won!