Monday, June 01, 2020

Day 79


Day 79, self quarantine

Welcome to week twelve of the apocalypse.

So what’s next?  Swarms of locusts?  A thousand ton meteor hurtling out of control toward earth?  Leprosy?

Right now I’m wondering if the building where Gary worked for twenty-five years until the pandemic hit is still standing.  Last time we checked, the neighborhood was under siege.

If it’s not, what a metaphor that would be, huh.

I dunno.  For once I have no words.  For once I have no fucking clue what happens next.  No idea.  It’s terrifying.

Once again, I am rethinking everything.

I don’t know how to fix things.  I’m a mom.  Fixing things is what I do.  

I don’t understand how you can hate someone based on their race or religion.  My mind doesn’t work that way.

I hate people for other reasons 😎.

I do know this.  105,000 Americans are dead.  Forty million Americans are out of work.  We’re hurting and we’re exhausted and we’re scared.  Instead of addressing the nation yesterday and appealing for calm and unity, that ridiculous, vile human garbage five time draft dodger in the White House cowered in his basement bunker, sending out inflammatory, insane Tweets.  Tweets meant to INCITE more violence.

“FAKE NEWS!”

(You wish, Tubby)

“OBAMAGATE!”

(Wtf?)

“LAMESTREAM MEDIA!”  

(Ooh clever.  For a ten year old)

PUSSY!

(That’s you, Donald)

You’re a PUSSY, Donald.  An international laughingstock.

As are your supporters.

I hope every sane American calls for your resignation today.

I’ll start first.

RESIGN, DONALD JOHN TRUMP.

The National Guard is in Philadelphia and I woke up to my city on fire.

Three months into the apocalypse, everything in my life has totally changed.  I’m not even going to address the last three and a half years, that’s a given.

I think about everything differently now. 

Everything.

I’ll tell you one thing, though. This is not a good time to have an overactive imagination unless you can channel it to make art.

On a lighter note...

I was watching a rerun of Saturday Night Live and everyone was hugging at the end like they’ve done for 45 years and I shuddered, both from realizing that this sweet tradition would never happen again and from the thought of deadly coronavirus germs spreading.

Within five minutes I wrote an obituary for everyone on that stage.

So great, now when I see anyone touching or too close to each other I cringe and think of death.

Like I needed any help with thoughts of death.

Okay, enough of that.  Life has to go on, and now, more than ever, we have to make the best of it.  We’ve had plenty of time to reflect here at Casa Slick, and we’re focusing on trying to make this world a better place.  We’re old.  We have that luxury.

We spent hours last night discussing ways we can help.

But for now, because there’s still a PANDEMIC going on, we’re concentrating on the garden.

I’ve never seen Gary happier.

He outworked me this weekend.

Our yard may be tiny but it’s a really pretty space.  It’s full of both sunlight and crazy shadows.  I took some pictures of the yard in progress and noticed a flash of red.

“I think there’s a family of cardinals living in our tree,” I told Gary excitedly.

“What?  Where?”

Gary talks to birds.  It’s really extraordinary.  They answer him back.

I showed him the pic.

“You knucklehead, that’s our rosebush!”

The rose bush we planted twenty years ago and totally forgot about?  Whoa, it’s now blooming in the highest branches of our tree.

Excuse me for not knowing roses did that.

But too cool that they’ve been out there blooming all these years independently without any help from us.

I kind of like the idea of a freak aerial rosebush in our apocalypse garden.

Of course I also googled pruning rosebushes just in case we want normal ones, too.

I went back outside and took a better picture.  It still doesn’t do it justice.

But I will say this.  That bizarro climbing rosebush made me smile for the first time all weekend.  It is so “us.”  

Talk about a metaphor...

Be crazy, be different, and be beautiful.

And always reach for the stars.

Unfortunately for me this morning, that means climbing the stairs to Julie’s former bedroom now my office.

For now.

Later, apocalypse dudes.