RATLINKS: The Pandemic's Fiscal Year-End
____ showers bring May flowers | ____ Fools | _____ O'Neil
SNAPBACK TO REALITY
Does the date really matter anymore? Now no, but it will in a few weeks, as the weather and your social calendar warms up.
Look
If you had / One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted / In one moment
Would you capture it / Or just let it slip?1
It is shocking to think that it has been only a year since COVID-19 hit, upending our lives.
Remember April 2020?
Who had any idea what was going on? Trying our best to flatten the curve from staying home, masking up and scrubbing everything that entered your home from food to the plastic bags it came in.
Now that we are reemerging from our caves what do you have to show for it, besides your love of daily naps?
MASTER OF YOUR DOMAIN
You likely watched all of Netflix, but who didn’t. After a year mainly indoors you obviously learned a new useful skill. Maybe a new way to cut an avocado?2
You had to have mastered something. It’s been a whole year. All that time helped you turn a hobby into a vocation. Right?
If not, don’t worry fam, I got you.
Juggling Priorities
As the year progressed work from home slowly transitioned to live at work. Unfortunately, your long hours and the resulting presentation failed to win you a promotion or more humane working conditions.
The good news. The time is almost here for those valuable spontaneous networking opportunities that occur only by being in an office.
Returning to work also means multi-tasking is back!
Really impress your coworkers by showing off your newest tricks like juggling. Rather than sitting stoically during a boring zoom call, you now can toss multiple balls in the air with impunity.
Toss em up. Juggling builds hand-eye coordination in ways that improve reaction time, reflexes, spatial awareness, strategic thinking, and concentration. This helps improve confidence as well as athletic ability. It may, if juggling enthusiasts are to be believed, even promote reading skills.3
Beach-Body-Ready
As you prepare to reemerge from your one-year cocoon. You need to shed the quarantine-15, but might not be ready to return to a gym. Don’t fret. Inspiration is everywhere.
Take a non-stationary peloton bike for a scenic ride around town. Be forewarned outdoor rides lack a live leaderboard, an instructor, a curated playlist, and the ability to give virtual high fives.
Tight on time? Try 8-minute abs.
After rigorous testing, it appears you will likely get the same results from the new and improved 7-minute abs.
Inhale | Exhale
Breathing is something you are doing right now, but are you doing it right? Well are you, mouth breather?
Each way we breathe will affect our bodies in different ways. Some methods of breathing will nourish our brains, while others will kill neurons; some will make us healthy, while others will hasten our death. Nasal breathing alone can boost nitric oxide six-fold, which is one of the reasons we can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen than by just breathing through the mouth.
The key to optimum breathing, and all the health, endurance, and longevity benefits that come with it, is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in a smaller volume. To breathe, but to breathe less.
How does your garden grow?
Growing plants show you are responsible, action-oriented and climate-conscious
“Gardening is not outcome-oriented. A successful harvest is not the end of a gardener's existence, but only a phase of it. As any gardener knows, the vitality of a garden does not end with a harvest. It simply takes another form. Gardens do not ‘die’ in the winter but quietly prepare for another season."4
EAAAAATS
When indoor dining closed your impending hunger forced you to learn to cook. Restaurants are now reopening and as a newly minted Top Chef, you are standing at the ready, to take command if a crisis in the kitchen occurs.
While boiling water for pasta strike up conversation around “your” core cooking philosophies, adopted from Chef Massimo Bottura, like evolving tradition, evoking memories and emotions, and zero-waste cooking. Don’t forget that your dishes obviously draw inspiration from contemporary art and music, and use ingredients from your own terroir.
If all else fails just deflect because “if tradition doesn’t respect the ingredients, you must change the recipe.”
Don’t forget to point out you grew the fresh basil used in the sauce.
Dance Monkey, Dance Monkey, Oh Oh Oh
Weddings are back!
2021’s season is shaping up to be one of the busiest ever. Combining 2020’s postponed weddings, 2021’s scheduled weddings, and pulling forward 2022’s shotgun weddings.
Prepare to reconnect with people you love and some you don’t, at multiple-hour or multi-day affairs. While enjoyable it is likely you will at least once silently debate if life was better when you were forced to social distance.
You weren’t the only one watching 12 hours of TikTok daily. I’m not sure what it says about society but most wedding bands this summer will likely play a block of viral social media hits, allowing you and all your friends to perform multiple choreographed dances that will obviously be posted, dueted, and then reposted on TikTok. How meta!
Zen and the Art of Binge Drinking
As we get to the end of the pandemic things have gotten a bit weird. Cryptocurrency is en fuego, NFT’s are having a moment and everyone seems to be an entrepreneur.
Celebrities, remember them5, have shown their business savvy. Especially when it comes to drinking.
After George Clooney’s Casamigos sold to Diageo for over $1 billion dollars, every celeb got in the game. Ryan Reynolds next sold Aviation Gin to Diageo for $650 million dollars. Last month, Jay-Z sold Armand de Brignac aka Gold Bottle with the Ace of Spades for $610 million to LVMH.
These sales led to more celebs creating copy-cat brands to monetize their fame and influencer status in order to sell-out to Diageo.
A few recent launches include:
Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila
Rock “The Dwayne” Johnson’s Tremana Tequila
Nick Jonas’ Villa One Tequila
Bay Area Rapper E-40’s E. Cuarenta Tequila (Espanol for E-40)
Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston’s slightly differentiated Dos Hombres Mezcal
All-around good Guy Fieri and rocker Sammy Hagar joining forces to craft Santo Tequila Blanco
Michael J. Jordan’s $100 a bottle small-batch Cincoro Tequila
After a year in quarantine, no one can blame you for wanting to get out there and let your hair down. Maybe quarantine taught you new skills, brought a new vocation, or gave you a new lease on life.
With over 3 million COVID-19 vaccines administered daily, it’s almost time to spring out of the house and get busy living.
Starting April 1, most states will provide vaccines regardless of age. After you shoot your shot, shoot a shot of your favorite celebrity-branded liquor, follow your curiosities or just stop and smell the flowers.
If you are good enough, you can show off your new juggling skills at the national convention: The Gathering of the Juggalos
According to Author James Cares, there are two types of games: Finite and Infinite Games
Celebs are just like us as seen in last month’s Ratlinks profiling celebrity justice