Disasters are Not New. Why Does This One Feel So Different?

In my seven decades, crises have come and gone…but this one feels different. Is it because we are older, and have grown no wiser?

If They Open It, Will You Come?

How long will home cooking substitute for our favorite restaurants?

The lockdown is growing longer. We are tired of masks and disinfectants and waving through car windows. We are horrified by stories of massive unemployment, lines at food pantries (they used to call those lines breadlines,) and inadequate government response. We want it all to stop. We all want to get into Doc’s DeLorean, ride to the past, and make sure none of this happens. But that ain’t it.

I understand the cineplex owners, the sports moguls, and the restauranteurs who are saying enough is enough, let’s open our doors and go for it. Their livelihoods and the survival of their employees are at stake, all through no fault of their own. I can understand how overwhelming the situation is when the Tribune reports that even Chicago restaurant titans R. J. Melman and Rick Bayless are worried about paying the rent. I want their Leña Bravas and Di Pescaras to survive. I want the Mexican place down the block and the movie palace in the next town to survive too.

So I get the push to open things up, to assume the curve has flattened, and to think we are all on the verge of being safe. But while I get it, the real question is whether or not I believe it. Will Barb and I be willing to go for a Saturday night date at the AMC, made safer with online ticket purchase, alternate seat placement, and scrubbed down armrests, or will we say “nah, let’s catch that flick when it shows up on HBO in a couple of months.”

Will we be brave and celebrate our next anniversary at one of last year’s 5-star restaurants, keeping our masks on except to sip our Martinis and devour the spicy gulf prawns, or will we feel safer with a romantic dinner at our kitchen table as Alexa serenades us with Billy Joel and Neil Diamond? And how long will it be before I am ready to brave the sweaty fitness center when I can just go to the basement to pound away the extra carbs that are part of my COVID diet?

My decisions won’t all be rational. And you may make different choices. How strange it is that your decisions and mine may be decided by the color of the Kool-Aid you and I drink and which cable station we watch–which way you balance the health vs. economy scales.

But no matter how you tip those scales, the question of the summer is bound to be “if they open it, will you come?”

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Paper Memories of the Week Before COVID-19

This weekend I opened my wallet to hand a $10 bill to Barb and discovered a few folded-up receipts–receipts I had jammed into the wallet as I left each of the last 3 restaurants we had dined in. Each brought back memories of the life that was just beginning to change.

The oldest receipt, dated March 6th, was from Once Upon a Grill, a local deli-grill, where we had a headed for some Friday night chicken soup to ease Barb’s post-strep sore throat. The parking lot was devoid of its usual kamikaze drivers; the older patrons who made every visit to the undersized parking lot a challenge had started staying home.

Next was a March 10th receipt from Cooper’s Hawk. The parking lot was only half-filled and the usual crowd of singles at the winebar was notably thinner than usual as people missed out on an almost-last-chance to connect.

The last reminder was a March 14th receipt from Wildfire, our favorite go-to restaurant. That night we had no trouble getting last-minute reservations for a spur-of-the-moment night out with neighbors. The restaurant, rather than being packed Saturday night solid, was at least 2/3 empty. Barb shuddered when a passing waitress coughed into her hand and didn’t disagree when I predicted that this would be our last meal sitting in a restaurant for a long, long, time.

It is now seven weeks since I savored my last Wildfire Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned. We all know how Chicago, how America, how the world, has turned upside down since then. In comparison, Barb and I have been pretty much spared. None of our family or close friends have been afflicted with COVID-19. The losses I hear about are second or third hand or read about in the digital newspapers I subscribe to.

My medical group and my lab continue to function, and new challenges arrive to keep my mind occupied. Barb may be an Occupational Therapist without a current occupation, but the house has never been cleaner. And we are fortunate to have both kids and their families close enough for both drive-by and driveway visits. Birthday parties and Seders may have been reduced to Zooming, but we have all been healthy as we sing Happy Birthday or Let My People Go.

The restaurant dinners have been primarily replaced by home-prepared meals (we still grocery shop in person) though we have been treating ourselves to carry-out once a week. Lou Malnati’s Pizza is till the best, even in a pandemic. A drive downtown, picking dinner up from a Michelin-starred restaurant, makes a nice weekend outing. And we donate and offer assistance where we can.

Now states are beginning to loosen restrictions. Old medications and historic vaccines are being investigated as a potential bridge to a new generation of therapeutics and immunizations. Curves are being bent, if not fully flattened. In the midst of fear, there is hope. And I hope that the day will come soon when I sit in my favorite booth at Wildfire and raise my Old Fashioned in a toast to each of you who have made it with me through to the other side, and remembering those who have not.

And to the day when I am happy to see my wallet filled with more receipts and joyous memories.

For more COVID thoughts click here. Or here.

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G Rated Limericks for an X-Rated COVID-19 Time.

These limericks are all pure. It is the topic that is unfortunately obscene!

Dr. Fauci and Pritzker suggesting
That my lab should be doing some testing
But we can’t get machines
By any old means
I’m just worn out from all my requesting!

The virtual meetings are endless
While on transportation we spend less
Please use Facetime or Zoom
To dispel all your gloom
Or else you might end up as friendless.

It’s legal now to smoke chronic
The best stuff is grown hydroponic
But since COVID requires
I control my desires
I’ll stick to a cold Gin & Tonic.

Campaigning is tough for Joe Biden
But there’s something he’s got to decide in
He must choose his VP
A she, not a he
The White House someday she’ll preside in.

The downtown streets are all empty
But getting there just doesn’t tempt me
The rats are emerging
In big waves they’re converging
Don’t want them to all rub against me.

The swans on our pond are reposing
How many eggs in their nest not disclosing
They really can’t care less
About our COVID 19 mess
For them, it’s the geese they’re opposing.

We spend lots of time doing puzzles
While coffee and tea we both guzzle
The crosswords are tough
And Sudoku’s enough
To exercise every brain muscle.

If it’s in our house we have cleaned it
We have dusted and polished and sheened it
But to our great dismay
From March up till May
There is no one around who has seen it.

If you’re on the front lines we extoll you
Don’t want anything bad to control you
In your jobs please be safe
Though those face masks do chafe
You don’t need a virus to mole through.

Or if you prefer haiku. And as always, be safe out there!

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Swan photograph credit: Barbara Raff

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President Trump Disinfects America

Dear President Trump,

My name is Mary Louise Venter and I want to thank you for being the President of the United States in this terrible time. I have loved you ever since the first year of The Apprentice and I said to my husband Edgar then and there that you should be President. I was right,

You have made America great by telling everyone who real Americans are and doing everything you can to help them. You and your family have even solved tough world problems like Korea and Israel. And killing Bin-Laden.

And then the China government and those damn Chinese “scientists” had to do this to us, to our beautiful country. First, they pretended all those people were getting sick in Hu-Ha and then they scared our fake-news into panicking America. Closing all the stores over something no worse than the flu. I have never gotten a flu shot and I ain’t died from the flu yet!

I watch your very important and serious news show every night. You bring me so much joy and admiration. I turn the TV off when those other folks come on. They don’t know how to talk to real people like me and Edgar. Do they think we all want to do statistics?

When a few people were getting sick you told people all about the wonderful malaria drug that could cure them. Me and the hubby tried to get some, so we wouldn’t even get sick, but the pharmacist, someone from one of the historically black universities if you get my drift, told us we needed a prescription. I tell you, it is so much easier to get Oxy for my sore back. I read in the paper that some of the sick people who did get it lived, almost as many as who died. I knew you were right.

So I was thrilled when you told us about a new cure yesterday. We’ve got disinfectants! I went right to the cleaning closet to find them all. I checked the Purell, but that has ethyl alcohol in it. Edgar and me are tea-drinking Evangelicals, so that was no good. But then I found this bottle called Kindly that the preacher had passed out at Easter. It has a bunch of stuff I haven’t heard of but no alcohol. So Edgar just drank a bottle.

I think I’ve gotta go now. Edgar just got awful pale white. His tongue turning blue and I think a little blood is coming out from his nose. He face is red, white and blue. I think he’s dyin’ but we love you President Trump.

Sincerely,

(The Late) Mrs. Edgar Venter

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