Sunday, March 29, 2020

With Your Feet On the Air and Your Head On the Ground


Yesterday, as I drowned out my daily concerns by listening to David Attenborough describe the soothing daily life of penguins, I did that thing.  You know, that thing when you look at your phone news feed in the middle of the day, even though you promised yourself once in the morning and once a night is best. The headlines read something like: Breaking News! - Trump To Issue Draconian Measures for NYC.  In my mind there was an exclamation mark.  I hurriedly go to the video clip.  It's Trump outside, looking pretty casual, stating matter-of-fact-ly, he may issue a 'quarantine' for all of New York City, parts of Jersey, maybe Connecticut, maybe.  He doesn't know, maybe needed, maybe.  That he may announce it later on today. That he hopes he won't have to, but he might.   At this point, I feel we should demand an interpreter travel with this man.  What the hell is he talking about! Even in my head I sound frantic.  And why does it sound like he's threatening us?  But wait, I consider, we already are in a state-wide shelter in place mandate, many are in real quarantines....  Before I can go further he continues, They’re having problems down in Florida. A lot of New Yorkers going down... don’t want that... heavily infected.”  His exact words, as always broken up, unclear. 

I rush to put this through my Trump decoder ring.  I repeat the video, try to piece together a sentence.  And in the end, I agree, New Yorkers should not be traveling to Florida right now unless we're able to test beforehand.  That is one thing.  But a lock down, travel ban on our biggest city?! People are going to go apeshit.  Oh shit, this isn't good, I say to myself as the reality starts to sink in.

Now, some of you living in New York City or L.A. have a common paranoid scenario fire storm forming in the back of your mind these days.  Every now and then you'll throw another fear on it, usually in the form of a what if.   What if the food markets close down. They go on and on and we must minimize unnecessary creation of these little logs.  But one of my biggest what ifs, is what if they restrict us from leaving the city?  Thank goodness, that I was late in hearing the news and Trump in the next hour would clarify, as much as he is capable, on Twitter what he actually meant to say.  Or more likely, after someone told him, he can't do that.  But not before many of us caught a heart attack and started into panic mode. 

Leftover birthday beef enchilada for dinner helped to calm the nerves. Also, one of my favorites, salsa over rice.  

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