April 11, 2020, Day 33 in our own little Ground Hog Day. At least the sun is out and the ocean is pretty.
Shout Out: Nancy Reneaud, ER nurse at BIDMC Plymouth and mother-in-law to Kelsey. Plus it’s her birthday today to boot! ER nurses and healthcare workers are putting their lives at risk ever day. Even if they haven’t had a COVID surge yet, the possibility (probability?) of it happening soon is almost as stressful. We celebrated with her today on the Cape Cod Canal at socially appropriate distances from each other. It was chilly but very fun. Thanks Nancy.
Oh, and by the way, if you would like to give a shout out to someone who’s out there putting it all on the line, let me know and I’ll add them to the group.
Speaking of Shout Outs: Got to give an extra special big one to Evan and Steve, who showed up on my door step yesterday with cool tools and get-‘er-done attitudes and took a pile of lumber and made it into a deck. Woo hoo!!! Those guys made it look so easy. I pretended to help, but honestly I was probably more in the way than useful. When this pandemic stuff is all over, I’m gonna owe them big time. And, yes, I know I still gotta stain the darn thing…
A New and Different Kind of “Hero”: So, back in the old days, (about a month or so ago), cable news shows would have a bevy of talking heads pontificating on whatever hot topic was currently under discussion. Either they sat next to the host or were located in some other city with some kind of skyline backdrop that was most certainly in another TV station studio. Everybody looked good and clean and awake (even if you couldn’t stand them). Now? All the talking heads are calling in from their homes. And they look awful!!! Doris Kearns Goodwin looked like she died two years ago. Yamiche Alcindor (one of my new hero’s) looked like mush and had a backdrop that looked like someone just ransacked her house. And Lady Gaga sat in front of a blank white wall and must have been using one of those clip-on cameras that were popular 10 years ago before FaceTime existed. Clearly they didn’t read that article on how to look good on Zoom. Who knew how important good makeup artists are? What a difference a pandemic makes!
Ground Hog Day, Part 2: All day Thursday, Barb was convinced (and had convinced me) that it was Friday. Good Friday to be exact. This fiction continued until the end of the night, when, for whatever reason, she realized Good Friday was tomorrow. When made aware, Barb said, straight faced, “But I already did Good Friday. I don’t want to do it again.” Sure enough, the next day was Good Friday all over again. Luckily, today when we woke up, it was Saturday. No need for smashing alarm clocks.
Bump and Testing Updates: So apparently Orange Baby’s crisis bump has dissipated. His meteoric rise to 49% had fallen back to a rather earthy (and rather constant 43%). It may have something to do with his immensely successful strategy for continuous improvement in his (and our?) country’s per capita testing for COVID19. If you recall, a few days ago we were 39th in the world in that category. Today, um, let me check this again, we’re, um, well… Well apparently we’ve dropped a spot. We’re 40th. Faroe Islands continues to lead the way. The good news is that we could move up the chart by simply following through on OB’s desire to buy Greenland from the Danes, as they are doing almost twice as well as us.
And Speaking of OB (to Barb’s chagrin): There is some chatter amongst people in the know that maybe OB’s daily Corona updates are not going all that well. Even some of his republican acolytes are getting nervous. It appears he would like to be seen as a war time president and, like Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, reach out to his subjects and let them know who’s in charge. But FDR only did 30 chats. Total. Over 12 years. While OB may think he’s doing great and getting good ratings, the reality may be that the constant banality of his daily droning will eventually just wear everybody down. One can only hope…
Semi-Thoughtful Musings 