So here we are on pandemic day one hundred seventy-nine of staying safer-at-home. This life in a pandemic is proving to have it’s challenges and unique demands. Winnie and I are fortunate that at least we still have adequate income, stable shelter, and food on the table. That’s more than too many people in this country currently don’t have.
All the same, I’d just as soon have this over with and life go back to some semblance of pre-pandemic times.
So let’s see. The world is in the grip of a one-hundred year pandemic that’s raging out of control in the world’s nominally most advanced nation. (That would be us). Forest fires are burning up California while a category four hurricane wipes out Louisiana and Texas. We have more wild protests in our cities due to yet another black man shot by police on-camera. Meanwhile, the Doom-and-Gloom Republican National Convention enters it’s fourth and hopefully final day, bearing a message that electing the other guy means a dystopian American future of plague, pestilence and violence in our cities.
Time for some music.
Our grocery shopping patterns have dramatically changed in the age of the pandemic. In the before times Winnie would go grocery shopping every several days, using a variety of mostly Asian food stores. Since we’ve started staying-safer-at-home, we shop every several weeks using either Costco or Walmart curbside pickup. The ripple effects of this change includes not having enough space in our freezer for meat, and other stuff needing freezing to stay edible for long periods of time. So a few weeks ago, we (Winnie) decided we needed to buy a small chest freezer to store our stuff.
This should have been an easy purchase. But in this pandemic age, even internet shopping has proven to be adventurous.
I’ve become a regular contributor to the ever-amazing Quora social media site. I enjoy following the various answers to off-beat questions, and can keep engaged for hours if I let myself. I routinely provide my own answers and commentary.
Most recently, I answered the Quora question: Have you ever been to a restaurant that made you say “You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me!” when they brought out the food?” My answer related a fine-dining restaurant experience from years back.
During difficult economic times the “Success Gurus” seem to crawl out of the woodwork. These gurus are happy to share the secret of how they made millions of dollars with little-to-no-effort/overnight/the easy way. For just a few dollars they will happily share some of their secrets. For a few dollars more they’ll share all of their secrets.
The secret they don’t share is the secret of showing up.
Yesterday we had the extraordinary privilege of one great man praising another great man. The man doing the praising was former President Barrack Obama. The man being praised was the late Congressman John Lewis, who sadly passed July 17, 2020.
One adage I use often is “Careful What You Wish For.” It has a lot of significance for me, a reminder that too often the one thing a person thinks they really want, really need, and work hard to obtain turns out to be the curse that keeps on giving.
In this case, I think the adage applies to the Republican Party as a whole. It applies to the 2016 election as they collectively worked hard to get trump “elected” to office. It applies to the years since, as one after another key republican officials have sworn undying loyalty to trump as the far better 2016 presidential candidate over the She-Devil BENGAZI! email-abusing tyrant-in-waiting Hillary Clinton. It just seems to me; the Republican party would be far better off right now if Clinton had become president.
Not to mention, the entire country.
So another July Fourth celebration has come and gone. This year, the year of the pandemic, was a rather muted celebration. We had the obligatory fireworks in my neighborhood, but there were no concerts I know of anywhere around. No big celebrations south of Washington, D.C.
But of course, in Washington, the Mango Mussolini had to have his party, just because. I wish those party-goers well.
So today is day one hundred-eleven (111) for staying safer-at-home against the novel coronavirus that’s taking over the world. Or more properly, the novel coronavirus that has taken over the world. I can’t help noticing that 111 plus 888 equals 999, which is supposed to be the symbol of the beast. There might be something numerologist about this, but I really don’t want to spend too much thinking about it.
I really just want this zombie apocalypse pandemic to end.
My Remembrance of September Eleven
Yesterday was another “9/11 Remembrance” day. I saw a considerable amount of flag-waving yesterday and a lot of “Never Forget.” The appropriate people paid appropriate amounts of attention to the nineteenth anniversary of our day of ignominy. All-in-all, another day to remember when a group of Really Bad People attacked Our Greatest City and killed Three Thousand People. Never Forget.
I have a different take on yet another remembrance of 9/11 Day.
Opinions & Commentary
New York City Remembrance september eleven