Blog #161

I know we’re all feeling as miserable as the winner of the Moms Mabley look-alike contest, but just imagine what this would be like if we didn’t have phones or the Internet or Netflix or Zoom.  And now Bernie is gone.  Did you even remember that we are in an election year?  I think we’ve all forgotten the election amidst this terrifying and confusing period.  Do we even know what’s happening?  Wear masks.  Don’t wear masks.  200,000 deaths.  50,000 deaths.  To me, it’s disturbing and alarming.  But move on we must.

Hi there and welcome back. Are you ready for Easter?  It’s next Sunday.  Easter is the day when every chick is fuzzy and yellow, every little bunny is cute and cuddly and every turkey is laughing because it’s not Thanksgiving.  It’s the day when 90% of Americans will celebrate the re-birth of Jesus in the spirit of goodness and cooperation and salvation to all.  The next day, they will go back to hoarding toilet paper and stealing hand sanitizer.  What a world!  If it didn’t have all of you in it, I’d move somewhere else.

Soon after Easter comes April 15^th, the day you need to pay your taxes to the IRS (Income Redistribution Service).  But not this year.  The tax deadline has been postponed, along with the Olympics, the baseball season, weddings, bar mitzvahs and your facelift.

And the world is still sequestered:

·        With nothing else to do, Americans have been sanitizing every square inch of their homes.  The country is more immaculate than a Joel Osteen sermon and Mr. Clean now has higher approval ratings than Trump or Biden.

·        Gatherings of ten or more people are prohibited, so the Elizabeth Warren Fan Club can still meet.

·        Still social distancing.  Better six feet away than six feet under.

·        I just finished my second book of the Quarantine.  The first was a 70-year-old novel called Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.  It’s a library book I was reading when the Library closed.  It’s about rich British people in the 1930s.  I liked it.  The next was a 30-year-old travel book about Yemen called Motoring with Mohammed by Eric Hansen.  I am weird!  I had purchased it earlier because no library carries it.  I am really weird.  I liked it a lot. 

·        Now they want us to wear bandanas.  I tied one on, looked in a mirror and decided I looked like an extra in a Hopalong Cassidy episode.

·        My distaff* companion has a plan for when we run out of toilet paper.  We’re going to use my wardrobe.  She never liked the way I dressed.

·        I took a 30-minute walk outside.  Everyone was out walking alone or with their dogs.  There were more people in the streets than there were in Tiananmen Square.  And every walker avoided every other walker as if they had the plague.  An apt metaphor. 

·        There is good news, however.  Your checks are in the mail.  The government will be sending out lots of checks to help people get through this crisis, and in a brilliant move, President Trump will be signing each check.  That will save a ton of money because if you love Trump, you will frame the check and if you hate him, you will burn it.

·        Nadia, the tiger at the Bronx Zoo, has tested positive for coronavirus.  Now, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about, we have to stay at least six feet away from tigers!

·        A study shows that wearing hospital gloves makes it 70% easier to open those thin grocery-store produce bags.  I hate those things.

·        Hallmark has asked me to write another card, this one for a Pandemic Wedding Night:

I’m excited and thrilled, I must say

To consummate our Wedding Day

But, Dear, I must ask

That you wear a mask

And stay at least six feet away.

Message from Shakespeare:  All you humans are whining about being stuck in your house.  I’m stuck in the house every day.  Sometimes, for entertainment, I sit by the window watching the birds and the insects.  You should try it.  Today I saw two bees, maybe it was three, or was it two?  Two bees or not two bees, that is the question. (Hamlet).

Weekly Word:  Distaff:  the female branch of the family.  No, Honey, the branch part does not mean I’m comparing you to a monkey.  Geesh, I can’t do anything right.

Last night was Passover, the celebration of Charlton Heston leading the Jews from slavery in Egypt.  I did some grocery shopping for our Passover dinner, called a Seder, but before I shopped, I put on my bandana mask and hospital gloves.  Can you picture that?  I looked like I was going out to rob a blood-bank.  During the Seder we traditionally talk about the ten plagues, but this year we have an 11^th plague, don’t we?  I’d trade this one for a bunch of frogs any day.  We also ceremoniously ask four questions.  This year we had a Fifth Question – How do you eat Brisket through a bandana?  But we did it; we celebrated and upheld the tradition.  No, we couldn’t be together with the whole family as in previous years, but, as Moses parted the Red Sea, we parted the distance between us with FaceTime and Zoom and love and longing and tears.  I’m proud of us all.  May the borsht be with you.

I have something sad to tell you.  A very close friend died this week from causes not related to coronavirus.  His initials were LK, and he was a kind, generous, loving and selfless man.  Our families were very close; we traveled together often.  I am his son’s godfather.  What makes it even sadder is that, in the middle of this pandemic, we cannot console his family with hugs or tears or stories.  The funeral was for the family only.  Carol and I went and stood outside the gates to the cemetery.  It is a hard time to live and a hard time to die, and there is much sadness afoot these days.

So stay well and count your blessings.  I know you have many and suggest you count them often.  And stay six feet away from coughing tigers.  I’ll see you next week.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com