Ebola Scare in New York

Is It Worth The Risk Today?

Seems when I wrote my article about limo drivers at risk in the Ebola Scare I was right on target about my fears.  There is a new Ebola Scare here in New York...a doctor from "Doctors Without Borders" who was fighting Ebola in Africa turned himself into medical care this morning when he started experiencing Ebola like symptoms...last night he took a Uber Cab to go bowling.  Guess who the CDC is now looking for?  The Uber Driver, and his/her car.  

A quick question on the topic of Uber...how come these drivers and their cars do not seem to be held to the same standards, rules and regulations that Taxi/Livery cars and companies are?  Shouldn't they be held to the EXACT SAME STANDARDS?  To keep yourself safe from Ebola I would suggest considering a taxi/car service who's drivers have a Taxi/Chauffeur licence, who have been fingerprinted, who have gone through a background check, and who are probably EASIER TO TRACK DOWN IF THEY WERE EXPOSED TO EBOLA!  Seriously, until that driver is tracked down, taken off the road until he/she is cleared and the car sanitized, do you feel comfortable using Uber in New York right now?

UPDATE

The doctor, Craig Spencer has tested POSITIVE for Ebola...!  He was sick last night in the bowling alley, was sick when he was in the Uber cab.  Who are the health officials trying to kid here.  I drive an airport taxi, that doctor could have been in my cab!  Let us do due diligence here...who all was in that bowling alley...CONFINE THEM!  Who did he meet in the hallway or elevator if he lives in an apartment building...CONFINE THEM!  Who rode in that Uber Taxi...CONFINE THEM! His girlfriend, who did she come in contact with...CONFINE THEM!  What time yesterday did he check his temperature?

Question...why is the bowling alley being cleaned and sanitized, but the mayor of New York is not ordering the cleaning of the subway train(s) he was on?

Who are we kidding...an educated doctor trying to isolate himself?  Lets see,,,public transit, Uber taxi, a park, a restaurant, a bowling alley, girlfriend, friends...WHAT ELSE?  Sounds like this doctor deliberately did anything BUT ISOLATE!

They are tracking subway moments, why not UBER MOVEMENTS?  Don't those passengers who got in the car after him deserve to know?  What is the name of the Uber driver?

Rainy Days and Mondays...

It's not Monday, but it is raining out, has been coming down now for well over 24 hours as wind and torrential rains push  leaves off trees before they have  had a chance to claim their fall colors, provide us one final salute to a summer now gone, winter just around the corner waiting to knock upon our door.  Sitting here locked inside my small basement apartment, spirits dampened trying to keep the three big R's in check as I rewind and replay the past few years of my life, ready to move forward, yet trapped in the present waiting for verdicts in  trials I do not want, but cannot avoid.  Feeling very cornered, trapped and abused, my early childhood re-enacting itself all over again at the age of 58, new characters, but the same old story line.  

Sometimes think about loading up whatever will fit in my car, locking the door to my apartment, its treasures and memories and driving away, vanishing into a new space, a new life, a new beginning where no one even knows my name...isn't that what I am being asked to do, dark forces trying to blackmail me into surrendering everything, including my name?  It's funny...one of the last things my attorney said to me was something to the effect of, "Sherwood, think you attract abusive women into your life."   Perhaps she is right...

It is close on to 2:28 in the afternoon and thinking I should perhaps shower, brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair, try in some fashion to motivate myself.  Then that other voice says, "Why bother?"  My car payment is two months in arrears, and I cannot make the payments because a check supposedly written as conveniently vanished in the mail.  If a check does not arrive this week, cannot make the October car insurance payment.  Barely being able to keep my cell phone turned on, letting it ride until the very last moment then paying the bill days before a scheduled termination of my service.   So I sit here, each second seeing me grow more bitter, angry and hurt.  Can someone seriously tell me what I've done that is so wrong to deserve this reality I now find myself in?  

In hind site, when I was asked to leave, when I was told, "It's not you but me, I need to be alone, need space to figure out who I am post cancer" I should seen the writing on the wall, hired an attorney and ended the pain then, rather than suffering, surviving in an outpost barely on the fringe of civilized society.  They say love is blind...

When I left home at eighteen I promised myself I would never again let someone abuse me...well, that is a promise seriously broken.  I was told, "No matter what, I will not hurt you like your first wife did."  Talk about a promise broken.   My entire life has been destroyed, thrown into a shambles that I am not sure I can glue back together, and even if it can be glued back together, not sure any more that I even want to bother with the task.  Oh to have stayed in Northern New York, finished my degree before I was 50, to still have the money I wasted trying to protect someone who in the end thinks nothing of destroying me.  A fool's folly love seems to be for me.

Think I am going to go make a cup of coffee and sit outside to watch the rain fall.  When this is all over, think it is time to write a book.

Cancer Sucks

Last night I got a text from my best friend in the entire world...her closest (BFF) friend had been diagnosed with cancer a few months ago...the hope was that Chemo would allow them to shrink her tumor enough that they could do surgery.  No such luck, and she has been told she has about eight months to live...from July.  That gives her MAYBE until around February, perhaps if she is lucky, maybe stretch it out a bit longer, allow her to see one more spring.   How do you go on living knowing you are about to die?  What do you do when you know you have about four months to live, and a great deal of that time is going to be spent in hospitals dealing with all the side effects of the illness that is stealing away your life all too soon?  Cannot imagine what it is like knowing you are going to be experiencing your last Halloween, your last Thanksgiving, your last Christmas, and maybe if you are lucky, your last birthday.

Knowing someone with a serious life ending cancer, or in this case your best friend knowing someone who is dying right before her eyes wakes you up to the reality that life is just to short to sweat the small stuff.  Compared to this woman I am lucky...I don't have liver cancer, I am not sitting in the intensive care section of a hospital, and though I have some health issues, nothing that compares to her reality.  At best, she has a few more months, and will leave behind children, a husband, family and friends.

I have a few things I need to settle here in the area...ending a marriage, hopefully sooner rather than later, a pending Personal Injury lawsuit to get through, but think it is time I look at making some major life changes, down sizing my life and spending more time doing what makes me happy, sees me living my life for me, rather than those in my life.   

1.  Sell off my possessions...well, most of them.  Fact is, contemplating any kind of a major shift in my living situation is complicated by STUFF, none of it really all that important to me, other than it looks pretty sitting on a book shelf, or filling an empty space in a decorative way.  Living in my basement apartment I am realizing I can easily live in a pretty small space if I get rid of all the boxes of little momentous  collected here and there throughout my life...old books, some of them picked up in long ago abandoned houses, CD's never touched now that most of the music I enjoy is on You Tube or my Ipod.

2.  Get debt free...with my credit ruined anyway, thinking I should meet with a bankruptcy attorney, find out if that is an avenue I should consider.

3.  Figure out what I want with the rest of my life.   I've always thought what I wanted was pretty simple to find, but sometimes life's twists and turns change things.  Sitting here today digesting the news shared above, and hating the aftermath of Cancer's ugly head rearing itself into my own life, changing everything.  Cancer changes people, and it changes, even destroys relationships.  As the old expression goes, "Shit happens, then you die".  

I've always said, "The best revenge is living well."  Time for me to leave the past in the past and move forward into the rest of my life, working at trying to live well, letting all else go with love.

UPDATE

Saddest text I have ever received..."They purchased plots in the cemetery where she wants to be.

Ebola Scare Here in America...Are Taxi/Limo Drivers At Risk

I drive for a taxi/limo company here in the New York Metro area...probably 95 percent of my runs, the runs of all the drivers in my company are runs to or from the airport, each of us picking up passengers from all around the world.  Some of those clients who get into our small enclosed spaces bring with them coughs, colds, and various sniffles.  With screening protocols for Ebola being put in place at our various and assorted international airports (JFK, Leguardia, Stewart) it begs the question at least for me, "Are taxi and limousine drivers America's first line of exposure to those who may be bringing this deadly disease to our country via international flights.  

Not panicking here, not going to put a plastic sheet up between myself and my passenger, but one can't help but wonder, "Am I at risk?"  Trust me, when a customer is coughing in the back seat, you ask them, "So where are you flying in from?", and you do breath a sigh of relief when they respond with something like Atlanta, or Chicago.  

Guess I should end this and go get ready to transport people to and from their hotels as I contemplate this important topic.

Changing Realities...Turning Over New Leaf

Standing at the precipice of change, staring out into the unknown future that is the reality most of the rest of human society lives.  It is scary to be here today realizing that in two short days I start a real job in the proverbial real world, putting on the uniform of a working man, arranging my life and my schedule around the responsibility of having to GO TO WORK.  

Sure the first thing I will notice is a lack of freedom...I like vegging out in my small apartment, or motivating out the door with my camera to go on a walk, sometimes short, sometimes one that goes on for hours as I wonder here and there around Nyack and it's surrounding areas...Hook Mountain, or under the Tappan Zee Bridge over to Piermont and back, always stopping at a coffee shop along the way for a break.  The flip side of this is no longer having to figure out what I will do with wide swaths of time begging to be filled each and every day of the week. 

Assuming that my wrists hold out, and that the pain is bearable I will be driving a airport limousine (a Lincoln Town Car actually), escorting people to and fro...I have to start in their Taxi division and work my way up, so shall see how that works out...the money has to be there, or the job will not work out for me.  I cannot afford to be spending $20 a day heading over the bridge to the Westchester Airport on a fruitless endeavor.   Spent a part of yesterday getting ready for this new adventure in gainful employment...going to work costs money.  Spent almost $400 dotting my I's and crossing T's to be qualified for the job...who would think you need a background check, and need to be finger printed to drive a taxi?  Yesterday I was out putting together my uniform (black slacks, black blazer, black shoes, black socks, white shirt, and of course a tie) which set me back another few hundred dollars, so guessing/hoping that my first week will recoup the costs to start work.  

They have me working Friday-Sunday this week from 2 PM till around midnight.  I am going to see if I can have Sundays off and pick up another night, preferably  Wednesday, though Monday could work as well.  I would consider picking up another night on occasion, but that depends on how good the money is...am thinking I might be willing to work 5 nights a week leading up into the Holidays, but would want to slide back into a normal 3/4 day week after January 1, 2015.  We shall see.

In the meantime, trying to deal with the emotions of going back to work on this day as the rain falls just outside my door fitting my pensive mood.