savor romantic sunlight reflecting off aluminum tp shelves
“… seems like we’ve been locked inside forever…” I complained.
“It’s been 10 days, Dan.” Nazy reported.
“Ten days? I replied. “Only ten days?” I thought.
“This could stretch out for months.”
“Aren’t you Miss Gloomy?” I retorted. “Can we celebrate the 10 day anniversary at our favorite restaurant?”
“Dan..”
“Not to worry, my dear. The ‘president’ says everything will be normal by Easter.”
“The ‘president’? Do you believe that the..”
“Of course not, Nazy. I don’t believe anything he says. The country used to admire people who took responsibility. This talentless reality show host is so insecure he spends most of the time in his ‘updates’ talking about how great he is.”
“Or how bad his predecessors were..”
“Or having his flaccid minions talk about what a great job he’s doing..”
“But he’s not doing..”
“… anything, Nazy. He’s not doing anything right. He wasted six weeks, we still don’t have enough test kits, medical staff faces shortages of equipment, the ..”
“But some people like him.”
“Some people like watching train wrecks.”
“Well, Dan,” Nazy began.
“What surprises me is how many people want to be on the train while the presidential wreck is in progress.”
“Well, Trump said that everything was a hoax.”
“That was last week. This week he just signed a 2 Trillion Dollar spending bill to address a crisis. ‘Crisis’ is not a synonym for ‘hoax’, my dear.” I replied. “He’s good at Trillions: 2 Trillion Dollar tax cut for his corporate buddies and $2T for the crisis he made worse,” I thought.
This week we celebrated Darius’ birthday with a socially distant, technology-enabled event: a Zoom phone conference with Mitra and Stefan, Nazy and me, Melika, Tom, Tiger, Arrow and Azelle, Shahrzad and Ray, Layla and, of course, Darius, Christiane, Leandra and Auriane. It was great to ‘see’ everyone.
It’s a challenging time in Bellingham for Darius and his family. Christiane, coming down from the bedroom, missed the last step and got her foot tangled up in the child safety gate ..
“That doesn’t sound like safety to me,” I thought when Dar described the situation.
It turns out that Christiane broke her foot and she will be on crutches for the next six weeks. So, Auriane, the Bellingham Martin Family’s resident one year old, detecting the stressful situation, decided that nighttime sleep was no longer appropriate. Naturally, I was sympathetic.
“It’s so nice, Darius, that in this hustle and bustle world, you’re able to find time to spend at home with the family.”
“Dad! Christiane has a broken foot, Auriane won’t sleep at night, Leandra won’t sleep during the day, I have classes to teach, we’re stuck in the ..”
“Please tell me, Dar, that Christiane is not pregnant.” I interrupted helpfully.
The challenges here in Santa Barbara are much less arduous. When the quarantine began, Nazy and I restricted our outings to grocery store excursions that featured..
“… a romantic and, in fact, nostalgic stop overlooking the barren toilet paper display,” I whispered to Nazy as we adjusted our face masks and surgeon’s gloves.
“Oh, Dan..”
“I know,” I replied. “It’s almost too exciting. I like the way the light reflects off the sterile aluminum shelves.”
Now we’ve cancelled those outings. We signed up for a grocery shopping service that delivers directly to the house. However, some of the items indicated to be ‘available’ on the website are only available in the theoretical abstract. As a result, our ‘shopper’ is empowered to make substitutions.
“I ordered powdered sugar for Nazy’s birthday cake,” I thought. “Corn starch is not an appropriate substitute.”
“Dan!” Nazy interjected. “I asked you to order acorn squash. Why did they deliver kaboucha?”
We are able to take Arrow and Tiger for walks around the beach, through the nature preserve or even near The Mission. People keep their distance and we haven’t been closer than six feet to anyone outside of the immediate family. The boys like to run and we like the sun. Tiger is very fast (he always wants to finish first), but he does sit down an wait for us:
When he’s not running ahead, Tiger is thoughtfully and helpfully teaching Azelle how to climb out of her crib.
To me, it’s not clear that Azelle needs, or will ever need, help climbing. When she decides that she wants to leave the crib by herself, she will. Now she’s also decided that she likes to be fashionable. She is particularly enamored by Melika’s boots.
Flashback
Memphis, Tennessee
Little Mitra liked my cowboy boots — even when she wasn’t able to discern the difference between the Left and the Right one. Although, just like the current situation, the Right Side was on the Wrong Side.
End Flashback
In the photos below, note that my cowboy boots did not go over my knees. Melika’s boots cannot truthfully make the same claim.
