Hopefully all of this will look better in the rearview
You know what is really awesome? When you are just an hour into your horrific, five-hour drive through lower Wyoming and your son (the one you are heading to pick up) texts to tell you a friend whom he sat next to at dinner the previous evening just tested positive for Covid. This normally wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the next three weeks are big for us. There are two birthdays, scuba lessons, graduation, a graduation party at our home, and then a trip to Rome to board a cruise. We would really prefer to remain Covid-free. We kind of need to.
But, sadly, viruses do not give a flying fig about your plans. They’re jerks that way. So, Joe is going to be wearing a mask at home and eating and drinking and sleeping separately (even in the car on the ride home) until he gets through 10 days symptom free and with zero positive test results. Because a car is such a small, enclosed space, I might decide to wear a mask in the car even though Joe is wearing his, just in case the seal on his mask is not entirely optimal.
It’s possible Joe is fine. He was vaccinated twice and boosted last November. He had Covid in 2020. The same is true for all four of us. I know we are being a bit overcautious, but we are committed to doing everything within our circle of control to ensure Luke gets to attend his graduation in person. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
My husband and I are finally finishing Season Two of The Morning Show. Reflecting on the beginning of the pandemic as I watch this show, it’s crazy to think of where we were two years ago. How little we knew about Covid-19. How terrifying it seemed. How quickly we pivoted and changed the way we educate children, shop, and work. How we started sewing masks, stockpiling toilet paper, having video chats with family. It seems so normal now. At the time, though, it was all new.
We moved across town four months into the pandemic. Our oldest graduated high school in a single person ceremony, with a graduation address delivered remotely by one of his favorite teachers in May of 2020. Our youngest spent the 2020-2021 school year going back and forth between in-person learning and video classes. We took my mother-in-law, who had been in an independent living facility, out of that living situation, and she began splitting time between a basement apartment in our home and a townhome next door to my sister-in-law. My husband has been working from home for two years. He has been back into his office three days in that time. Everything is different now. Even as we hit pockets of time when it almost feels we’re back in 2019, our world has been changed permanently.
It’s simultaneously impressive and depressing what we humans are capable of. The good and the bad we’ve seen over the past two years has been something else. We got sick, but created a vaccine. We left the office, but kept the economy going. We did our jobs from home while helping our kids complete their lessons. If you had told me in December 2019 that we would be living through a worldwide pandemic in 2020, I would have rolled my eyes. I couldn’t have imagined what that would be like. If you’d told me then that I’d daily be checking Covid cases on a map on The New York Times web site, I would have laughed. If you’d told me that people would attack each other or be pulled off airplanes because of paper masks or the lack thereof, I would have thought you were crazy. It has been a wild ride.
The world is funny. Not funny, haha, but funny the way we hairless monkeys get ourselves into and out of trouble on an endless loop. We really are something else.
Stop. Just stop. My worldview is dismal enough without your ads about starving puppies and elephants hunted for ivory and motherless tiger cubs haunting my television set, the place I go to escape. I get that it is difficult to get a share of people’s donation cash when Covid has decimated household incomes and some people are sending whatever spare money they have to Donald Trump so he can attempt to prove he unfairly lost an election he fairly lost. But, damn. The whole heartstring thing on top of a global pandemic, a country on the precipice of democratic collapse, and the non-stop drum beat of climate catastrophes? It’s too much. You’re killing me, Smalls. We’re all fighting to keep ourselves afloat right now. Alcohol consumption, drug use, and gun deaths are already trending up. I don’t mean to imply that you are driving people to alcoholism or drug abuse or murder, but you probably aren’t helping. What if we all promise to send you $10 a month in perpetuity? If we do that, will you promise not to run even one more misery-inducing ad? Please. I’m begging you. Getting to the remote in time to change channels is becoming increasingly difficult. I’m old and not as fast as I used to be, but apparently my distance eyesight is still good.
Sincerely,
Just kidding
*This piece is tongue-in-cheek and meant to be over-the-top and satirical in nature so before you attack me, please suck some helium and lighten up**
**I don’t literally mean you should suck helium because that is not good for you. It kills brain cells when you lose oxygen, like when you put a bag over your head***
***Speaking of bags, I will take another canvas bag…as long as it doesn’t have starving puppies, tuskless elephants, or orphaned tiger cubs on it
Today I did something I have missed. I got to attend my son’s cross-country meet. As the story goes, when Covid hit, everything stopped. Our oldest son missed out on his last season of track, his prom, and even a typical graduation. Last year, our youngest son, who was a junior then, missed an entire year of normalcy. He spent half the year doing class online from home and the other half sitting, socially distanced, in a classroom wearing a mask. This year, though, most of Luke’s senior class is vaccinated. They are all in person. And, sports are back.
On this lovely almost fall day, I went to a park to cheer Luke on as he ran his 5k. It was a beautiful thing. We’re not back to normal. Not even close, really, with over 2,000 people a day still dying of Covid. But today at the park with the leaves beginning to change and a cool fall breeze making the temperature perfect for running, for about an hour I felt like I had my old, pre-Covid life back. Luke shaved a minute and a half off his last race time, which is about the pace at which he improved during his sophomore year.
Today felt good. I soaked it in. The probability of reacquiring our freedom to move about without concerns about Covid is uncertain. I hope that with each year that passes, we will find a way to live with it. It might take a while to figure it out given our political climate, but I suspect we will get there at some point. In the meantime, I will continue to lap up these brief moments that feel normal because I miss them. I appreciate them. And I will take them when I can get them.
My family and I got Covid-19 last November. We had been careful, wearing masks everywhere, not eating out or going to movies or malls, even having all our groceries delivered and left on our front doorstep. In the end, despite our diligence, we likely contracted Covid-19 when our masked son, who was working as a volunteer, came in contact with an out-of-state visitor who refused to wear a mask while visiting Dinosaur Ridge. Joe argued that asking others, who had blatantly disregarded signage about state mask mandates, to don masks was above his volunteer pay grade. We agreed. So, he got sick first and then we all did. We had mild cases, for which we were deeply grateful. After our two week quarantine period was up, however, we noticed we weren’t bouncing back to our usual healthy selves. Weeks after we had resumed our now normal distanced and masked lives, we noticed we were struggling through exercise and having greater difficulty catching our breath. We were constantly tired, and our senses of taste and smell had not fully returned to normal. Nine months later, three out of the four of us still don’t have our taste and smell back to our pre-Covid experience. Covid can leave a mark.
Despite being a Covid-19 survivor and having had a positive test for antibodies in mid March, I got the vaccine. I had no concerns about its efficacy or safety. I am not a scientist, but I understand how science works. If physicians and researchers who dedicated their lives to eradicating viruses were lining up to get the vaccine, it was safe. I didn’t give it a second thought. I wanted normal life back. I too wanted to get rid of my mask. So, by mid April my husband and I were fully vaccinated, and our teenage sons followed suit by early May. When the CDC decided that vaccinated people could take off their masks, we were thrilled and nervous. We resumed our mask-free lives, relatively hopeful that others would step up for vaccines and we would all be safe from Covid soon.
But that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen because half the nation decided to think about getting vaccinated while the more virulent Delta strain ravaged India. All the warning signs were there. We knew Delta was beginning to increase infections in the US, but the unvaccinated weren’t concerned. And Fox News and Republican politicians like you raised no alarms. You instead bolstered doubt by politicizing the push for vaccines as something dubious that the Democrats had up their sleeves. You pushed the notion that freedom means not having to get a life-saving vaccine or wear a stupid, goddamn cloth mask (which, by the way, most four year olds I’ve seen can manage better than right-wing conservatives). As Delta started turning your state into a Covid nightmare for your hospitals, the CDC had to reverse course on the mask mandate. Masks were needed again because Delta, with its higher rate of transmission, was burning through the population and creating an unnecessary burden on our hospitals and health care professionals.
So, let’s get something straight. The mask wearing the CDC is recommending is about politics. We have to go back to wearing masks because conservatives refused to get vaccinated before Delta took hold. You all had months to do this. Months. Vaccines were being tossed in the garbage because you would not get the shots. People around the world were desperately clamoring for vaccinations, but spoiled, selfish, and self-righteous Americans were turning up their noses at them. And, thus, Delta came calling, you all kept spreading, and now masks are back. This is not a flip flop by the CDC. This is a revision in advice because of a precipitous increase in Covid-19 cases due to a more virulent strain. And that, my friend, rests mostly on you and your unvaccinated acolytes.
As to your hyperbolic complaint that we will be forced to wear masks indefinitely, no one knows if that will come to fruition. But viruses do have time to mutate and become more deadly while their hosts are busy hemming and hawing about vaccine safety and using politics to cast doubt on science. So, if there does come a day when we all have to wear masks indefinitely to stave off deadly, airborne viruses, I will be looking at you, Senator. Well, the part of you I can see under your mask, anyway.
“This is the first time in history when you can save humanity by just sitting on your couch and watching tv. Don’t f*#k it up.” ~timely Internet meme
We are spoiled Americans. As a family, we are fortunate enough to be able to afford most of what we want when we want it, within reason. I mean, we don’t drive new Jaguars or BMWs. We do not live in a huge, stately home in a golf course community. We don’t take yearly trips to Europe. But we are able to buy a movie on our Apple TV without considering if the $20 is a waste, and the four of us can dine out a few times a month at decent, sit-down restaurants without being unable to pay our other bills because of it. If our sons need new jeans, they get them. If I want to buy a $75 concert ticket, I do it without guilt or stress. I know it is a gift to be in this position. And I do realize it makes us unlike most other American families. We are the lucky ones.
The ghost of avocados past
A few weeks ago, when I saw the writing on the wall regarding this pandemic, I went shopping. I didn’t panic buy or hoard multiple packages of toilet paper, but I was able to purchase about two weeks’ worth of groceries in advance knowing we wouldn’t be going to the store as often once the virus began to spread widely among our population. Perishables were mostly off the table on my stock-up trip. Not a problem, I told myself as I bought some frozen fruits and vegetables. Then this morning I decided I would love an avocado for my bagel. Alas, there were none.
In my past life, I might run out to Safeway and grab a few of those bumpy-skinned babies to satisfy my craving. But, that past life was in the olden days two weeks ago. Now, I honestly have to look at a trip to the store differently than I did then. Now there are exponentially more people walking around unknowingly affected by COVID-19 than there were two weeks ago. My risk of contracting the virus is much higher, at a time when the hospitals are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. So I had to have a long talk with my fortunate self about going without. I suspect that over the coming days and weeks I will have to lecture myself many more times about the importance of remaining at home. I need to learn the delayed gratification I have been delaying learning. To that end, I made myself this flow chart, which I can refer to in the future replacing, as necessary, “avocado” with whatever thing it is I think I desperately need but really don’t.
On voluntary house arrest, there is time to create flowcharts
This is our new normal. It may be our normal for eighteen plus months. I need to adapt to these temporary restrictions. They will be short-lived and my efforts could save lives, including my own and those of my husband and sons. I’ve lived a fortunate and entitled adult life, thus far, traveling freely through the world, buying grass-fed tenderloin steaks when I felt like spoiling myself. Now it’s time to do with less. In the grand scheme of history, what the times are asking of me is not a lot. It’s simply the matter of a small adjustment.
Someday the virus will run its course. Someday we will have a treatment or a vaccine. Someday we will once again be able to run to the store on a whim for that one topping we wanted but didn’t buy the first time through. When that day comes again, you best believe avocado toast will feel like the decadent treat it is and always was. We just didn’t realize that our last avocado toast would be our last avocado toast for a while. Live in the moment, my friends, and make sure to appreciate what you have today because tomorrow you might not have it. I’m grateful for the opportunity to remember and appreciate my great fortune and teach my sons to do the same. And when this is behind us, we’ll celebrate. We’ll don toilet paper togas and feed each other avocado toast just because we can. And then we’ll fold up the toilet paper and tuck it safely away for a later crisis because you just never know what tomorrow might hold.
I took a break from writing yesterday because I was sick of thinking about, hearing about, and whinging about COVID-19. I needed a mental health day from this health crisis. So, I turned off the television, stepped back from the social media, and spent most of my day completing a brightly colored, 500-piece puzzle of African mammals instead. While my husband worked in his office and my sons were in their lair building in Minecraft while using FaceTime to chat with friends, I sat at our dining table trying to line up the stripes on a zebra and make sense of a lion’s mane. It was precisely what my soul needed, a balm to cover the uncertainty and overwhelm.
This week that has felt like a year has been eerily similar to the couple weeks my husband and I spent at home directly following the birth of our first son. Our oldest arrived early and weighed only 5 pounds. He was, thankfully, fully developed and healthy in all respects. Despite our trepidation, having been crowned as parents seven weeks earlier than we expected (damn the miscalculated due date), the doctors and nurses told us it was time to go home. We lived only a half-mile from the hospital, but Steve came to pick me and baby Joe up, recently unwrapped infant car seat in hand. Trying to finagle and then secure a scrawny, 5-pound newborn into the seat took at least fifteen minutes, even though we would be in the car for less than two minutes on the slow drive home around the park with our precious cargo. We were overwhelmed, overtired, and overly cautious. And despite all the reading we had done, we felt we were flying blind. Everything was scary, awkward, and new.
That is where we are again. We are questioning everything we do. Should we have made that last trip to the store? Did we get too close to that clerk? Should we have wiped down every item we brought into the house? People were wearing face masks and gloves; should I have been doing that too? How many times a day should we be disinfecting surfaces? Should we eat what we have at home or order take out to support our favorite local restaurants? Do we have an adequate toilet paper back up plan? Why didn’t I buy and stash more candy and Cheetos from my teenage sons? We suspect we are overreacting about everything, but it is the only thing that feels appropriate. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We’re nervous and inexperienced. And we desperately want to do the “right” things.
We’re bound to fumble as we navigate a period of time unlike anything any of us have experienced before. Like parents of newborns, though, we need to trust that we are doing our best and that is all we can do in a changing environment with a novel disease that scientists are learning about on the go. You take precautions. You follow the current advisements and adjust when they change. You think critically and act prudently. And then you live your damn life — inside your house as much as possible and outside when you can be safe. Time will pass and, at some point in what will feel like a million years from now, we will be healthy, free, and confident again. In the meantime, we keep calm and carry on, but with an extra packet of antibacterial wipes, just like we carried when we had a newborn. At least this time around, we should be more well rested.
“When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.” ~ The Sound of Music
My little succulent reaching for the light
Throughout the day yesterday, I took sizable mental health breaks from updating myself on the news on television and social media. In between those breaks when I tuned in, however, what I saw and heard hurt my brain. First it was a post by a friend who offered an update from a health care worker reminding us that this virus can be indiscriminate, killing younger people along with the elderly and immunocompromised. Later I came back to see another friend had shared video of crowded beaches in Clearwater, Florida, a sight alarming in itself, but worsened by comments her friends made claiming the story was Fake News. Finally, after my son’s educational, evening presentation on a battle between Julius Caesar’s Roman army and the Gallic army led by Vercingetorix (you really can learn something new every day), I turned on the news and caught a couple minutes with New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio as he discussed the potential need for military intervention to deliver food during the pandemic. The notion of military food drops in New York City sent me over the edge. What fresh hell is this? I started to cry, turned off the television, and began doing the dishes because at least that was something my brain and I could handle.
The news is bad. It is very bad. And it is, sadly and most definitely, going to get unimaginably worse over the coming weeks and months. Death tolls will climb. The world economy will tank. People will lose jobs, and the unemployment rate will rise. Families will find themselves in dire circumstances. Like the virus itself, these negatives will grow exponentially for a while. No part of this is pretty.
I woke up this morning determined to hit reboot on my positive attitude in the face of this global nightmare. I started thinking about the reduction in emissions northern Italy has seen since their country lockdown began. Not the way we planned to cut global emissions, but still that’s a pretty positive side effect of this nightmare scenario. I thought about the way I have seen others reaching out to shop for the elderly and help strangers find child care and offer extra rolls of toilet paper to those unable to find any. We’re starting to remember we’re part of a something bigger. I considered the amount of time together families will have now. Just before my son was getting ready to head to college, for example, I get uninterrupted time at home with him, which is an unimaginable gift. As with all things in life, where there is a yin, there is a yang.
Through this quagmire, the universe will provide us with an opportunity to rise. To do that, though, we are going to slog uphill through mounds of shit. We are currently at the bottom of that hill, mired in muck, and we may be stuck here for a while. It’s overwhelming. So, give yourself permission to cry, to tantrum, to stress, to feel all the feels you are feeling. Those emotions are as important to our future recovery as action is, but perseverate not solely on what is happening but continue to imagine where we might be able to go later because of this experience. Horrible, tragic events have occurred since this rock we live on started growing life, but incredible recoveries have also occurred. Make yourself a promise to look for the good. Wake up and take a few deep breaths. Compose a list of positives. With concentrated intention, recognize and be grateful for the good you can see. Step outside, turn your face towards the sun for a minute and ruminate on its warmth. Not everything is bad, even if it feels that way. We can and will do hard things, my friends. For now, though, put down the unbearable load of the future, go wash some dishes, and open a damn window.
Today marks my sister’s last treatment. It’s been almost a full year since the day she called and told me she’d found a tumor. I’m an internally positive, intuitive person, so when my sister called that day I had no sense of impending doom. I told her that she would not have to face this alone. I told her I would help in any way I could. And I told her I knew I would see her healthy on the other side of all the shit she was about to endure. I believed it with all my heart.
Less than three weeks later, I was with her in Connecticut as she started her chemotherapy. I was there as she shopped for a wig. I witnessed the beginning of her hair loss. I scheduled the appointment to have her head shaved, and I stood there as her beautiful hair fell. I sat with her when the side effects were piling up, creating new problems in an immune system already under attack, and I did what I could to bring her a measure of peace in the midst of her physical and emotional misery. I never felt it was enough. But I also never had a doubt that, like her high-school-varsity-cheerleading self, she would jump high enough and kick hard enough to send cancer to outer space. I left her five weeks later in the caring hands of our middle sister and returned to my family.
Sisters
When the six chemo rounds were finished, the tumor in her lymph node was shrunken enough to operate. The post-chemo scans were flawless. I flew again to Connecticut to be there as she underwent a five-plus hour, life-changing surgery. Being the strong-willed Aries she is, she emerged from it like a boss, bouncing back more quickly than most. I stayed another month with her while she was stuck at home, recuperating, unable to work or drive, waiting to get the all clear to resume her life. One cold winter afternoon, while we were in the midst of another binge-watch marathon, the call came in. The removed tissue had been examined with a fine tooth comb. They found nothing. Not a trace. The cancer was gone.
Still, my sister is not one to do things halfway. She continued with the prescribed course of treatment, which meant 25 radiation sessions followed by months of additional immunotherapy treatments. She did this all while dealing with daily shots of blood thinners to combat a clot she developed from her chemo port. She did this all while working full-time at an impressive new job, moving into a new home in a different town, keeping up with her two dogs, and continuing her workouts. She blew my mind, the literal embodiment of how much a human can endure.
Today before she began her last treatment, I sent her the only appropriate thing I could think of. I sent her this song because she didn’t just do it, she fucking did it. As Jason Mraz points out at the beginning of the video clip, you can tell someone you did it and they might not hear that. But if you tell someone you fucking did it, they will probably hear that shit. There are times when swearing is more than just appropriate. It’s imperative.
Yeah, you did
So, I send this post out today to all of you who have been killing it. To all those of you who have slayed. To those of you who have faced something that seemed insurmountable that you still, perhaps to your surprise, overcame. I send it also to those of you who are starting to think you can’t do it, believing you might not persevere, suspecting it’s all too much for you. Don’t believe a word of the negativity you’re feeding yourself. Keep fighting. March forward. One foot in front of the other. One damn day at a time. And, soon enough, you’ll too be celebrating that you fucking did it.
Editor’s note: This is not the first time I have written about this song because I love it that much and sometimes it’s just that appropriate. Those earlier posts can be found here and here.
A year ago, I received clinical affirmation about a problem my body had been alerting me to for years. I started having severe stomach pain episodes at 25. After several attacks that sent me to the emergency room for answers, doctors shrugged their heads and told me to take Zantac. The attacks kept getting worse, and I was checked for ulcers I didn’t have. At 32, I had my gallbladder removed and was told the trouble should subside. It didn’t. In my mid 40s, I found myself eating Tums like M&Ms. After watching some documentaries about our food system, I began eating primarily whole foods. Little by little, my symptoms abated, and I understood what had been causing the problem. I had been living with severe food intolerances for decades.
What I learned as the result of food sensitivity testing last year has changed my life. Within two months of altering my diet to eliminate trouble-causing foods (gluten, soy, and dairy were the primary culprits), I lost ten pounds without counting calories or heaping on tons of exercise. My gut no longer was bloated after a meal, and the stomach discomfort disappeared. I weaned myself off the Zantac and Tums that had become my daily norm. I got sick less often and the colds I did catch were less severe and shorter lived. I recovered more quickly after strenuous exercise and had less muscle pain. I slept better. I found my skin getting clearer. I had fewer sinus headaches. I didn’t run out of energy midday and crave afternoon caffeine. Now at 49, I feel better and weigh less than I did at 29, all because I jettisoned foods that were doing me more harm than good.
There has, however, been one unexpected negative side effect from my lifestyle change. My food intolerance issues have suddenly created issues with other people. If you have food restrictions, you know what I mean. So, on behalf of those of us who live with dietary caveats, I present eight things to keep in mind before you judge or complain about people living with food intolerance.
Our food issues are not a choice. We are all unique. Our bodies have different strengths and weaknesses. People with food sensitivity didn’t chose this path just as people with asthma didn’t choose to suffer with difficulty breathing. It is something we live with, not something we asked for or enjoy.
Food insensitivities are a real thing. We are not making this up and we can’t just eat like you do. If we eat foods we shouldn’t, our bodies suffer and make us pay for it. It’s not a joke and it’s not an invention, fad, or stunt to garner attention.
Following our diets is a lot of work. Eliminating multiple food groups or worrying hidden ingredients that may make us sick is a formidable task. We are constantly vigilant. I recently went to a ubiquitous lunch spot with my mom. After checking the ingredient listings for menu items online, I realized there was only one meal (a salad) I could order and even with that I had them skip the cheese and snuck in my own homemade dressing. No lie. I’ve become that person. Meal planning, grocery shopping, and eating out require research. It’s not something we undertake lightly.
We often miss the foods we avoid for our health. I miss cheese, and sorbet is not a great substitute for ice cream or gelato. I miss being able to drink a beer without doubling over in pain. I miss French bread, birthday cake, and shortbread cookies. I miss stuffed manicotti, chile rellenos, and cheese enchiladas. And the loss of peanut M&Ms and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is still heartbreaking. It is what it is. We deal.
This has nothing to do with you. We’re not eating differently to annoy you or cause trouble. We’re not trying to ruin your dinner party or stress you out about what to serve at your barbecue. We don’t see how this has anything to do with you. Stop telling us that the preponderance gluten-free foods and gluten-free friends annoys you. We get it. People like us once annoyed us too. Now we have perspective.
Stop attempting to goad or guilt us into eating what you want us to try. People often tell me, “One piece won’t kill you” or “You just have to try this.” Stop it. Maintaining my proper diet requires willpower and dedication to my health. I absolutely want a crab rangoon and I would kill for a bite of your donut. I cannot have it. Stop asking me to do something that will only hurt me. It’s unkind and not helpful.
You could do it if you had to. If I had a dollar for every time a person without food issues told me, “I could NEVER give up gluten (or sugar or soy or dairy),” I’d be living in a yacht in the Mediterranean. Trust me. You could eat the way I do. I never thought I could either until it became a necessity. It takes time, but you’d adjust.
We don’t expect you to change for us. When I go to someone’s house, I do not expect them to accommodate my issues and prepare special foods for me. I often ask the host if I can bring a side dish because then I know I will have something to eat and share, which alleviates both our fears. When it’s not appropriate to bring my own food, I carefully choose from what is available. I have been at a party and consumed only carrot sticks and mixed nuts at dinnertime. Sometimes I pull out a Lara Bar or apple I have stashed in my purse. I expect to compensate for my issue because I understand my dietary needs. If I don’t eat anything at your house, I promise I will not fade away. You are not responsible for me. I’ve got it covered.
I know it must be frustrating to people who are unaffected by foods to feel they have to tip-toe around people with food intolerances and allergies. You don’t. It would be nice, however, if you didn’t treat us like circus freaks either.
Physical demonstration of one part of what gluten does to me The left photo shows me 30 minutes after ingesting three, tiny petit-fours I thought my body might be able to overlook. Oops. Not so much. The right photo was taken 72 hours later when the gluten had worked its way out of my system and my belly no long made me appear six months pregnant.
Live Now and Zen 