Category: A penny for your thoughts.

A pleasant surprise today, instead of an opera the Metropolitan Opera is taking us to the artists homes where they perform a short piece of their repertory for a At Home Gala. The entertainment is international and intimate, the backgrounds as different as the artists themselves. Most Opera singers had a piano to sing along, one from Poland had an accordion player to accompany him, another a harp. Unlike the news reporters broadcasting from their dwellings, the walls were lively with art or posters, books were also prominent. A fish tank here, a plant, and furnishings of all periods produced good human vibes and more appreciation for the artists belting arias with very little background music. It’s A patchwork of musicians, playing their instruments from home, filled our tv screen, a virtual orchestra conducted over the bandwidths, the technology of it baffling but welcomed, and  we watched, listened and enjoyed the show immensely.

It kept us entertained for a couple of hours. Afterward we took a well needed walk with the purpose of getting a pie and a couple of loaves of bread from the pizzeria on Main Street. It’s a 15 minutes walk and long enough to open our appetite. We passed by our old house and I was filled by memories of buying a neglected fixer upper, only to sell it only a year after we finished its 15 years rehabilitation. A dwelling becomes part of its inhabitants and the emotions run deep when memories are brought back. The daffodils we planted years ago on the frontage were showing an abundance of yellow against the grey clapboards walls, it was a warming sight on a rather cloudy afternoon.

The pizza was delicious, the thin crust helped by a few minutes on the oven stone to a crispy layer upon which laid a nutritious mixture of cheese and vegetables. Reading, listening or watching covid news I am always finding new facts or new ‘tricks’ to lessen the risk of contamination. Today, it’s the use of nylon stockings fabric as an extra protection for face coverings, making the mask fit tighter around one’s head and reducing air gaps around the face. I will definitely destroy one of Carolle’s pair for the cause. Bad news arrive faster than good ones, infected folks who recovered from covid infections are not immune, according to the experts. That’s distressing and will further people’s anxieties and fears to get back to normal, specially that testing is still far from been adequate, in fact it has been dismal. More alarming news about covid and its killing skills, is that it attacks several organs of the human body, brain included. Covid has a bad effect on blood, the worse adverse effect is unusual clotting sometimes leading to strokes in patient young and old. A young man in our town died last week of a stroke, a strong and reserved teenager well liked by his peers. The newspaper article does not mention covid, but death is always tragic and unjust when young people die, covid or not, and the town is saddened by the news.
Getting precise figure on covid death in our small town of 34,000 inhabitants is a matter of news links gymnastics. As far as I can gather in Connecticut we have seen 24,582 infections and 1,862 deaths. In the micropolitan Litchfield county spearheaded by our town we count 834 infections and 73 dead from covid, and so far 22 still hospitalized. That’s if you trust the numbers in light of the testing fiasco and the underreported deaths at home or elsewhere. With news of another milestone, I am again paying attention to the latest numbers of global deaths. Two hundred thousand folks have succumbed to covid according to the latest data. That’s a large number, but we are bracing for more while covid is on the run, the chaotic responses to the pandemic enabling its spread and, as sure as the sun will set this evening, the numbers of casualties will rise quickly until a magic bullet is found. Thought and prayers are not gonna be enough. After the first reported local death due to covid, March 6, the response of our town officials sums up the degree of urgency they perceived and their reaction to it. “It’s very sad,” the Mayor said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of this individual”.

That’s nice, everyone should have thoughts and prayers, even the fiercest atheists should. But in my opinion, a strong alert to the pandemic should have been raised in our town, instead of sticking to the president’s playbook of diminishing the threat of infections and adopting the do nothing or do little (too much government) often seen from conservative politicians. When I contacted town hall to raise my concerns of an inadequate first page in pandemic times, I did not do it out of political reasons, I really could not care less whose party is running the town, progressives or conservatives, none of that mattered, what was important was the education it would have provided town folks, because many are still not respecting the protocols mandated by the health officials. It has been over a week since I contacted the mayor’s office when I was told:
“I have our city clerk working on the page modification. Again, many thanks for the suggestions! It’s all about the message!!”
You would think that a week time would be enough, in light of the seriousness of the message. After all, as a crude example on how quickly and with rudimentary knowledge of html, one can create a functioning website in less than one hour, and that’s with securing a new domain name. I know because I did just that once on the way to a show in Allentown, my friend was driving and I built the website on my mobile phone. By the time we reached our destination, we had a searchable front page. And I am not a wizard at html, been self taught, but the task of adding information on a page should not take more than ten minutes once one knows what to publish. Why is there reticence to inform the citizens of our town to pay attention to the severity covid presents to all, and to advise them of the proper protocols? Some politicians are walking the line not realizing that lives could be spared by raising awareness in the public when catastrophes fall upon us. At least our elected local leaders are not pushing for bleach injections, that would be more deadly than the unfortunately inadequate warnings to our citizenry.

My two requests to the company managing our building have so far received no response. The brick holding our front gate open, a gate made of heavy steel with a rather recalcitrant lock that unlocks only when the key is in a certain position, has been taken away twice. The brass handle shines from its constant daily use by the dwellers of this 120 units complex. Some folks want to keep that gate open, thus eliminating contact with possible traces of covid. Granted that copper alloys have germicidal properties, according to science, any brasses were almost completely bactericidal at 4 °C within 180–360 minutes, still the immediate danger exists. Thankfully, the rear of the parking lot has a good pile of bricks left over from a long over project.  But aside the tenants and units owners precautionary steps, no other means of protection and no cleaning in the common areas has been done since our confinement. Can the neglect be called a dereliction of duty?

The number of covid related deaths will soon surpass the numbers of American deaths during the war with Vietnam, in less than three month. The sad part, besides the lives lost and all the misery around it, is that we are in the mist of the pandemic, this is our war and it is not over, it only started, and we can expect more deaths from covid. The more I write about covid, the more repetitive I sound, not by design, but because the news keep on publishing the same alarming informations of supplies penury and shortage of already exhausted first responders.

Our Sunday was busy, and for the first time since our lockdown, we did not watch Opera. We spent time tying up the loft, rearranging and reorganizing the pantry, keeping busy to spend time. The weather is not getting better, intermittent sleet and rain kept us inside and with nowhere to go we are creative with our time in the loft. I finally wired a new outlet to the pantry, and took advantage of the easy access under the staircase to change a recessed single outlet to a quad. The small distance between the new quad, the feed for my new line, and the closet made it easy to conceal the line in the wall, an esthetic must for Carolle. She keeps a part of her shoe collection on the pantry’s top shelf and 21 shoe boxes have filled the shelf. She took the opportunity to cull some, a pair of Ralph Lauren bought in the 70’s, resoled at least once and showing quite a bit of wear, another pair of RL, this one pink sandals sporting thin high heels, together with another dozen pairs she does not care for, or should I say, she cares less for. There are more shoes stored in the various bins still unopened since we moved. For a woman with only two feet, she sure has a lot of shoes. Notice that I am only mentioning shoes, we did not get into boots this time, we still are in a lockdown, time is on our side.
When I went to buy electrical supplies for my closet/pantry project, the store at the hilltop was adhering to the recommended precautions, people wearing masks and keeping distances, same for the employees except one happy go lucky greeting shoppers around the aisles. I told him he ought to wear a mask. The public was respectful keeping distances as well as was feasible, all in a courteous way. I took advantage of  my roundabout to stop by the large store nearby to get milk, fruits and batteries. Most folks wore mask, except for a couple of youngsters, but the  most disturbing was mothers or couples with children shopping together. The employees, except one tall guy, were wearing masks and there was an employee cleaning carts as they got back from the parking lot. It made shopping way less stressful when all people are aware of their environment in the time of covid. The view outside our windows would be gloomy if it was not for our tree now in full bloom, its white flowers and greenery more visible against the grey sky. The good thing is, no one wants  to frolic around in bad weather, staying inside is not so bad.

With more folks wearing face coverings we are becoming a faceless society. Strangely, now people are looking more like me, as I have worn a mask for six weeks. Then my attire must have made a strange image in some folks minds, but now I am part of the norms. There is something satisfying about that, a new sense of belonging, something I had not felt in quite some time, before covid.

Today, March 26, the headline in my Google newsfeed, tells me that Global cases reached at least 416,686 and Global deaths about 18,589. Here in the USA, the Center for Diseases Control, claims that total cases of infected individuals is 54,453 with 737 death.
Of course, the nation is still short of tests kits and the numbers of people tested is still very low. When more testing is available, we can expect the curve on the covid-19 graph to rise considerably, just as it did in China, Italy and Spain. That curve on the graph will continue to rise until folks really take this illness seriously, or, when scientists find a vaccine or a cure. So far, there are no projected time when that will arrive. We have no vaccine and we have no pill. The healthcare community is despondent in face of this pandemic. Our President, who I am pretty sure has no training in medicine, advances hopes that a medication for malaria could well work against covid. It has already lead to one death, a couple on hearing the name of the drug decided to self medicate with a bacteria killer used for Koi’s, because the product shared similar ingredients with the meds mentioned by the president. The wife lives to tell us that they got the idea watching the daily briefings from the White House. Her husband died. The daily briefings continue, although a couple of news networks have dropped them from their broadcasts on account of the blatant lies and the propaganda the President of the United States is delivering us. His constant hyperbolic rhetoric, and the grim faces, some often looking at their shoes, of the various experts on the podium with him, together with the body language, shoulder down or hands held prayer like, is anything but reassuring that this epidemic will be gone in two weeks, as he is inferring. Most experts warn us that it’s not so and from the ways some folks are acting, literally putting the community in mortal danger, this lockdown will eventually last much longer.
So here we are , waiting for the bump, we are watching the covid graph, the chart with the curve determined by the health data generated by the spread of the virus. The important curve, the one on the graph pertaining to the number of folks infected, must reach its apogee before we can expect any sort of grasp on the disease. We are looking for the bump on the graph and hope it will show up sooner than later.

Another day, another chore, today is shopping. Usually Carolle does the shopping, she knows what she wants and practically do all the cooking, and even if I tag along from time to time, I am not a savvy shopper and I need a list. As it turns out, making a list of the items you need before leaving the house is what is recommended to do, as a precaution. The gist is, if you have a list, you can zoom to the item, grab it, place it in your caddy, and go on to the next item on the list, saving store time exposure. That’s pretty good in theory, the practice is chancy.

Shopping requires special precautions like gloves and a mask. It’s uncomfortable but I believe very prudent. In this environment, real Monk would not go out without a hazmat suit. The gloves are utility gloves that I sanitize with alcohol after use. Call me crazy. Perhaps. Anyway, here I go, list in hand, to the big box store up the hill. As a club member, I am greeted by two employees, one with mask, the other not. I zoomed to the first item on the list and went on according to a well laid plan. It turns out the list probably cost me more time in the store. I really had no idea where anything was and had to wander around aisles, two or three times, before I could spot the item I was looking for. Then I spotted an item on the list, tucked in on a refrigerated shelf in one corner of the store, the chicken section. I was looking for chicken thighs to complete my list, and had to hold back on account of five or six people definitely not six feet apart, taking their time in that rather confined space of the store, a corner. It’s the last item I laid in the caddy that by that time, was already full of stuff. I didn’t not spent anymore time on the carrots Carolle asked for, small and with the leaves still attached. I did not opt for the finger like orange plugs that stores bag as carrots, never trusted they were, and really never enjoyed eating them. I did not get the soup either as I could not fit anymore in my caddy. I could have, if I had a larger caddy, or if I had shopping bags, but I forgot to bring bags. Could have had more room to spare if the items I was buying were not family sized. Six chickens were sacrificed for the only size package left on the rack, the two dozen eggs package and the two double size cereal boxes practically filled the caddy with little room left.
Most shoppers tried to stay away from each other, with various amount of success and sometimes caught in a spot, like it did by the chicken shelves. There was a young man wearing a construction mask, often on the phone and probably asking advice, shopping, and seeming as disoriented as I was. I saw a young couple wearing latex gloves. I had already seen them in the parking lot, cleaning the store cart handle with wipes. I saw an older person do the same on my way back to the car. Otherwise I did not see other folks taking extra precautions. It was time to pay and I chose the far self register. It turned out to be an annoying automat, sometimes repeating several times instructions that you understood perfectly well the first time you heard them, and, because the encumbrance  gloves and mask of my hazmat outfit, it made it difficult to scan each item in a timely matter. The silly machine asked to place the item on the adjoining table after scanning. Could I do that without knowing that surface was clean? Who knows really, seeing the lack of concern of some of the shoppers. I asked (nicely) one of the idle cashier to  clean it before I would proceed. Yes, call me crazy. At first she dismissed me saying that it was clean. When I insisted, she obliged, altogether telling me that she was pretty sure it was clean. I told her I was not that sure and thanked her for the cleaning. Not only was I Monk, but I was becoming a pain in the ass Monk. Nevertheless, I felt better when I saw the spray squirt out of the cleaning bottle and the disposable wipe the nice lady used, altogether wishing the spray was adequate.

Scanning the items with my hazmat suit proved to be a laborious process. With impaired vision because of the mask, in competition with my glasses that fogged up periodically, the gloves and the size or shape and weight of the item, made it difficult to scan according to my plan: not having the item touch the sku reader plater. The more time it took for each item, the more the robot cashier felt it should remind me that it I was done scanning, I ought to choose a form of payment and finish my transaction. Let me tell you that’s downright annoying. And it happened every two items , or so it seemed. Anyway, once done, I placed the purchases back in my caddy and headed to the parking lot and home. The greeter at the door kept her distances and let me through without foraging through my caddy. I was glad for that and wished her well.
Wagner’s Valkyries was still on the tube (isn’t that very twentieth century, my hey boomer moment), four and a half hour of a pretty intriguing plot that includes incestuous twins, brother and sister. Wagner is complicated. From the singing, one feels great drama for the gods and the various characters, their wife’s or daughter’s. Besides the entertainment and the background music, it’s not easy to stay focused for such a long time, specially for me, but it’s comforting to see that gods have bigger problems than I have.

A long due walk to the post office, after the opera played its last note and the credits scrolled down to the bottom of the screen, gave us the chance to exercise and get some fresh air. When we visit Nice, we walk everyday everywhere, or we use transportation. Here, we use the car to go everywhere. The walk from the Mill to the Post Office takes about 15 minutes, straight down Main Street then left past the Police Station. About a mile long, the walk is easy and pleasant. The sidewalks, some neglected and showing it badly, are otherwise walkable. Once arrived at the P.O., I told Carolle to stay put outside, as a matter of prudence, forty feet away from the entrance, and I went in to collect the mail, and gloves on, placed it into the shopping bag I had brought for the purpose. I would later on, in plain air, separate the junk mail to recycle, and keep the important mail to bring home, about three to one ratio. Perhaps this pandemic will make advertisers think twice about stuffing our mail boxes with junk mail. That goes for political mail as well. Describing my triage process would be too tedious and frankly just boring. Just imagine Monk doing the task…
Returning home, we took a different way, continuing past the Post Office to the next street and turned left towards home. The walk through the street gave us a glimpse at spring finally waking up, and the first blooms of the year. Crocuses in full bloom and daffodil leaves are trying hard to break the monotonous bland backgrounds of winter cityscape. Their scarcity still bring us joy at the sure sign of a warmer weather to come, dissipating the angst we share about the pandemic if just for a moment. Walking a neighborhood opens your eyes to more details than driving by. The mostly Victorian houses, vestiges of a more opulent era when the town was a hub of industries, line up the streets in different states of  grooming. Some not quite blighted, most decently kept and other pampered and quite beautiful. The later usually have more bloom showing in the manicure yards. The streets crosses a couple of small streams, most likely small confluents of the East Branch of the Naugatuck, the mighty small river flowing along side of our Mill. I have becomed attached to that river. The house we owned on Main Street had a large back yard with 150 feet frontage to the river. When we bought the house, one of the first chore (actually a lot of fun to be wadding in the water), was to clean my stretch of water of debris. Shopping carts, half a dozen of them, in various shapes of disrepair, tires, plastic bags, cans, bottles and whatever gets dumped up steam. I call it a mighty small river because I have witnessed its strength. In five years I witnessed a four hundred pound granite stone travel fifty feet down the river bed. In very cold winters, the ice engulfing these large stones and boulders literally gives them buoyancy when the river level rises, inching the blocks of granite along the river bed.
The walk did us a lot of good, when we returned home, I noticed the ornamental cherry trees, growing outside our ten foot tall factory windows, were showing buds. Mother Nature does not give a dam about covid, no lockdown planned for Spring!

We are back to our daily routine, and Rossini’s *Cinderella* is our opera. With a twist on the classic story, the evil stepmother becomes an evil stepfather, and the fairy godmother transforms into a fairy godfather sporting gold wings over his white suit. The rest of the story unfolds as we know it—the tale of someone longing to belong after being told they could not. Cinderella finds her place, but many still struggle, unsure if and where they truly belong. This struggle existed before COVID, but the pandemic has amplified it, leaving people frozen in place, some in foreign countries, in unfamiliar settings, and near-empty cities. It will take time for people to feel they truly “belong”—out in public, at restaurant tables, at concerts, or in movie theaters—without the distance or masks.

Reflecting on this reminds me of my friends and the times we could simply stop by and chat. I miss human interaction; I even miss handshakes. As for COVID, *Remdesivir* has reemerged as a promising treatment, despite premature reports of its ineffectiveness. This is good news, restoring some faith in my instincts. I was humbled for a while, but the encouraging results have nearly restored my confidence—perhaps too much, as my ego can sometimes get in the way. All joking aside, the drug offers hope, and trial results are expected soon—within a week. The world should keep its fingers crossed that *Remdesivir* proves to be the bullet that defeats COVID.

On the political front, our national “evil godfather” is treating some states as Cinderellas, balking at the necessity of footing their COVID-related bills. He echoes the bankruptcy mantra trumpeted by a senator whose state receives a generous share of federal funds. Ironically, the states that prop up his are now pleading for help, seemingly to deaf ears. Unsurprisingly, his state remains one of the poorest, with its constituents unable to rise above poverty after decades of his tenure. “Let them eat cake,” his actions seem to declare.

In *Cinderella,* forgiveness and hope prevail—she forgives her stepfamily and marries the prince. Perhaps our battered states will find their prince in a new administration. Meanwhile, our master of fake news has decided to skip daily briefings. Not that anyone cares—the “covfefe” is overwhelming, the scientific message muddied by his looming presence. Daily briefings resemble a Punch and Judy show with a mean twist, leaving viewers battered. Am I bitter? I am only a small voice in a chorus of indignation. My hope for a better world lies in being heard at the next election.

Three million people have been infected globally. One country, New Zealand, stands out, with only one active case. Led by a decisive female prime minister, they acted swiftly to contain the virus. Despite its isolation, COVID had arrived there through travelers. Her humanity shone through—reassuring children that the tooth fairy is an essential worker—while her decisiveness and the citizens’ civic responsibility made the difference. These qualities are glaringly absent in our government’s potluck measures.

Routines die hard. Though the president claimed he would stop attending briefings, he was back the next day. Yet the news that commands our attention involves the human misery wrought by this administration’s chaotic response. Most tragic was the suicide of a young ER doctor who had seen too much death and suffering to cope any longer. Ironically, the president once warned that a lockdown would lead to suicides due to financial loss.

In our small town, we lead Connecticut in COVID-related deaths: 14.3 per 10,000 residents, compared to the runner-up’s 10.8. Nationwide, infections have surpassed one million, with testing hindered by mismanagement and shortages. Yesterday, gloom descended as we watched Donizetti’s *Mary Stuart,* part of his Tudor series of operas—another day, another beheading. Today, it’s *Roberto Devereux.* Let’s hope he keeps his head, though it’s hard for us to keep ours amidst the bleak news.

Meanwhile, the White House and conservative governors push for reopening states against scientific advice, prioritizing corporate bottom lines over human lives. Meatpacking plants, rife with COVID cases, have been ordered to stay open. Could this be because the president loves hamburgers? The low-wage workers in these plants are treated as expendable—collateral damage. The same disregard is evident in the sacking of a naval commander who raised concerns about COVID on his vessel. Though reinstated, his case underscores the administration’s lack of understanding: an army must be healthy to defend the nation.

The weather does its part to keep spirits low, with gray, rainy days confining us further. To combat boredom, Carolle has begun a long-anticipated project: creating a hooked leather rug from old garments she has collected over the years. I’ve volunteered to cut strips of leather—half an inch by four inches—keeping myself occupied in the process.

In other news, a French newspaper I read online tackled an unusual but important question: Can COVID spread through fellatio? The answer was reassuring: sperm does not transmit the virus. Usual precautions apply, and condoms are recommended. Oddly, mouthwash was not mentioned.

Meanwhile, my trip to France remains indefinitely postponed. Airlines, unsurprisingly, have yet to refund canceled tickets. These small inconveniences pale in comparison to the suffering of others, but they remind me of the collective uncertainty we all face.