Have a Cigar - 6 Feet Apart or 6 Feet Under

Covid has a way to surprise us daily and if it wasn’t for the reality of it, one could find humor in our predicament. We hear and see leading proponents of the magic potion our President was promoting, the drug with a name no one can pronounce, backpedaling at Olympic speed, to refute its benefit. The President, after pushing for the reopening of States, reprimands a republican governor for declaring he would reopen his state. A political volte-face, a tool to deny accusations of having enticed militias and citizens to disobey governor’s authority? Another tragicomic episode of the Apprentice displayed on national news.

A southern newspaper in France reported that only 5% of hospitalizations due to covid were smokers, and studies are been done now with nicotine patches. For something that usually kills you to develop into a life saver is a though concept to grasp, an alternate reality, a macabre Russian roulette each and everyone is faced with since covid took over our daily lives. The old magazine advertisings with the good doctor encouraging smoking, before tobacco ads were verboten, may be revived. Think of the money tobacco companies could rake in, forget the death warnings printed on the pack, all replaced with the product’s benefit to fight covid. Lawsuits against the companies tossed on merit in light of the new beneficial use of nicotine. Have a cigar.
Not so fast, the FDA has contradictory guidelines. Other news are more worrisome, concerning individuals with high blood pressure and their medications. Covid seems to use the same path as drugs designed to treat hypertension and that could facilitates infection, according to the author of an article in Infection Control Today “hypertension may be a primary risk factor and driver of the severe symptoms of COVID-19”.
I am on the dangerous side of the scale and thinking about changing medication and I am seeking advice from my physician.

Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann first scenes displays a bit of flesh, and promises of magic eyes glasses. The main character’s view through theses magic glasses alter his perception of reality. I am afraid a lot of folks are wearing the same glasses today, with all the dissent around the best way to combat covid, and living in an alternate reality. That’s my view from the bottom of the pile, and I am fortunate. Daily checks on the bank account we use for tax returns have not changed, we are still waiting for the check.The official website just gives us a canned answer. On the other end, dead folks have been receiving checks, perhaps the admin is waiting that we croak, after all, we both are in the critical age group vulnerable to covid.
We are not anxious but for all the talks of getting the money ‘soon’, so far we are on the side of ‘later’.

Carolle is very creative with food and cooking, and it comes in handy during our lockdown. The bulk of our trash is recyclable, the rest is minimized to a few vegetable peels and dinner plate scraps. Leftovers become another dish when judiciously combined. No need for magic glasses, the meal is real and delicious. Looking at the food again, I probably was conservative in my need to visit the store again, my food anxiety must have kicked in.

Another day gone and another bad news, Remdesivir, the drug I had so much hope on to fight covid, is not giving hopeful results, in fact, it seems that trials involving the drug are closing.
But there is still hope for new solutions, the most genius minds are digging at all possibilities. There is no limit to the thoughts our president gather to find a cure for covid. His sources for research are deep and complex, his advisory newsfeeds totally attuned to covid and how to get rid of it. Covid is not so tough against a myriad of ordinary cleaning products like chlorine. We know how much our president abhors germs, all gold has to shine in the tower, wouldn’t want it to look like dull brass. Gold, the warn shiny metal that makes him mellow, and chlorine, the wonder and miraculous killer of germs, two of the best human invention after the horse, both yellow, must have untapped benefits ready to be reaped. It’s not a coincidence that they share the same spot on the rainbow, perhaps even the intention of the creator, the one who works in mysterious ways, chlorine may be as good as gold. After his disappointment with chloroquine, in part because it seems to kill the patient, the president’s stable genius went into full gear, and faster than a Tesla, proposed a well thought train of ideas.

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
Donald Trump

What an idea! All it took is a little thinking. None of the virologists thought of that, no wonders scientists are the first folks sent to the scaffold during uprisings and change of regime, all a bunch of useless alchemists! All it took is the smartest president we ever had, a studious reader of Dr. Mengele’s textbook on human experiments, to come up with the brilliant way to cleanse covid. The only missing detail is, how are they going to inject the wipes with the chlorox.
Now the official word is the president’s quote was meant as sarcasm, that’s food for thoughts. A bit of search and one finds presidential sarcastic quotes, I did not verified the veracity, but they seem to fit:

From Jimmy Carter, after his presidency.
“My esteem in the country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now that when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.”
That’s witty and quite humbling.

From Ronald Reagan, during his presidency, oh man do I miss him, I did not know at the time that we would get any worse:
“I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”

From Abraham Lincoln debating Stephen A. Douglas:
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Pretty good for a rail splitter!

Or course, comparing these three good Presidents to the one we have now is like comparing apples to bitter oranges (pun intended). Sarcasm without wit is just….hard to come up with a word…but it could be all the words the thesaurus web site offers, the most pertinent at the top of the list:

Take your pick. I like corrosiveness, goes well with chlorination. Following the thesaurus words brings you into a maelstrom of mostly unflattering traits tied to “sarcasm”.
It is surprising that the Republicans, usually so crafty with words, very good at branding with words that stick, would have chosen that word to repair an already chattered image, a president uttering nonsense on prime television time, during a pandemic unseen in a hundred years. Perhaps they’ve had enough, and may be they are looking ahead and have no appetite to govern in a deep recession. It would not be the first time, the scenario has been played before. But the damage is still not done, covid sees to that.

Renée Fleming will entertain us in The Merry Widow, by Franz Lehár. The stock market is up, I have ceased to to look at the covid numbers, just another day in confinement.