Post 128 - July 17, 2020

Day 128…

We are now eighteen weeks into this new normal.

Eighteen WEEKS! How in the heck have eighteen weeks passed?

New York has started to return to a very strange version of normal. I realized yesterday as I was walking around, however, how really odd this new version really is. There is really nothing normal about it. We’ve just slowly gotten used to it.

Every store has a big “We’re open” sign in front of it now. Except for all of the ones that don’t and remain dark. The Victoria’s Secret stores all around Manhattan are still closed and still boarded up from the nights of the riots some months ago. I’m pretty sure that they are gone for good.

Lines form outside the popular stores and there are now more permanent space indicators on the sidewalks in front of them at regular six-foot intervals.

@traderjoeslineuws is now an old neighborhood institution. People come to shop at this branch of it just to see what hilarious snarky thing the guys have posted about the people that they’ve overheard outside their window.

Anytime I go by and see that the line is short there, I text Michael. It used to be that you accepted the long checkout lines at Trader Joe’s. Now check out is a breeze, there are just long lines to get in. Same overall experience, the order is just reversed.

Every store in the city now also has its own version of a “wear a mask” sign and a limit on how many customers can enter at any one time. Aerosol Lysol spray, at least here in New York, seems to be officially a thing of the past. I haven’t seen it in any store for months and I’ve given up looking for it. Instead, we now have a spray bottle and fill it with rubbing alcohol to spray on our shoes when we come home. Even rubbing alcohol was hard to find for a while, but it’s now back on some shelves.

The supply lines have also figured out how to keep the tp and paper towels coming so I am not aware of any shortages of those things anymore. There are plenty of fresh vegetables and meat to be had. People seem to have relaxed in terms of hoarding.

Many stores have installed plexiglass sneeze guards between the cashiers and the customers and most of the workers wear masks and gloves.

I was down near the Mormon temple across from Lincoln Center the other day and saw an older woman wearing a mask pushing a grocery cart. Coming towards her were two younger guys not wearing masks. She said something to them, commenting on their lack of mask-wearing and they responded with some derisive remarks.

I kept walking.

People have decided whether or not they are going to wear a mask and I think that’s it. Much like every other argument in our lives these days, I don’t think that anybody on either side of the mask-wearing issue is really going to change the other side’s minds.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the President’s chief health advisor, seems to have gone completely rogue. Amidst reports that he hasn’t spoken to the President in months, Fauci is now unapologetically making recommendations that are the polar opposite of anything else coming out of the White House.

Yesterday in an interview with Mark Zuckerberg of all people, Fauci pleaded with younger Americans, “You have to have responsibility for yourself, but also a societal responsibility that your getting infected is not just you in a vacuum. You’re propagating the pandemic.”  He also kept up his warnings on reopening too soon without the proper safety measures, “You have got to do it correctly,” he said. “You can’t jump over steps, which is very perilous when you think about rebound. The proof of the pudding is, look what has happened.”

The White House responded via an oped piece from Peter Navarro who is the President’s trade advisor: “He (Fauci) has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”

On Wednesday, Republican Governor Kemp of Georgia issued an executive order BANNING the mandating of mask wearing throughout the state saying it’s unenforceable. Georgia is closing in on 4,000 confirmed cases of the virus with 2,800 hospitalized because of it. The Democratic Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms defied that order saying that the mask requirements, "are enforceable and they stand". Governor Kemp is now suing Mayor Bottoms and the Atlanta City Council. She responded with “I am not afraid of the city being sued and I’ll put our policies up against anyone’s, any day of the week.”

Both sides of the issue are digging in and neither side is going to give in - not the politicians and not the people walking the streets of New York. That older woman’s mind is made up and the two guys she encountered in front of the temple have made their minds up too.

Restaurants in New York have fully embraced their expansion into every available inch of outdoor space. Some have erected temporary barriers, but others have built solid and permanent-looking ones complete with plants and other decorations. Lunchtime is slow because of the oppressive heat, but as the sun starts to go down, people are showing up.

Some restaurants are better spaced than others. The people who are pro-mask are eating in their places and the anti-maskers are eating in theirs.

Young non-mask wearing gay men are gathering in huge droves all up and down 9th Avenue at some of the neighborhood bars and restaurants. Other gay men, wearing masks, are dining out and drinking at others. As I’ve wondered before, it will be interesting to see what effect the ceasing of the PUA payments are going to have on all of these businesses.

What’s still very much missing from the city are tourists.

All of the people in cartoon character outfits that roam around Times Square looking for tips are back out there, but there isn’t anyone interested in having their picture taken with them. The souvenir shops are all open but nobody’s shopping in them.

Some high-end stores along Fifth and Madison Avenues are starting to reopen, but there are nowhere near the usual crowds out walking who might stop in and shop. Most of the boutiques and department stores in those areas seem to be choosing to stay closed perhaps to wait for the tourists to return. Likewise, restaurants in tourist areas seem to be largely staying closed as well.

Broadway is dark. Museums are still shut. Tourist attractions are still closed but I just read that the Empire State Building is going to reopen on Monday.

The endless fireworks going off around the city all night long seemed to have eased up. I haven’t heard any near us for a while.

There are still the occasional Black Lives Matter demonstrations happening around the city. Bushwick Daily, though, haven’t posted a schedule since Tuesday. A rally in Washington Square Park attracted a small group of about thirty people earlier this week.

By last week, the Occupy City Hall encampment down near Foley Square had gotten pretty rank. There was a lot of rain last week which didn’t help matters.

Earlier this week I went down to see what was happening. It’s been cleaned up. There’s a sense of order to it. The individual tents and tarps that people had erected have been combined to create a single, well-covered area. The library and food distribution areas are still up and running. The large flagstone area is now fairly clear of people, though every square inch of it has been painted with a slogan or an image. An older woman with a broom was sweeping. I hope that the organization that they’ve brought to the encampment has also trickled down to their actions.

There are now at least three streets in Manhattan that have been painted with giant letters spelling out Black Lives Matter.  There’s one uptown in Harlem on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard at 125th street, one on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower and the third is in front of the City Court House down near City Hall. I think that there’s one in Brooklyn as well but I haven’t seen it.

38 states are seeing their case numbers rise.

25 states are reporting more deaths this week than they reported last week.

A White House task force memo that recommends that 18 states where cases are rising pull back their reopening plans has not been published. Somebody leaked it.

The White House has now directed that hospital data from across the US will henceforth be collected by a private technology firm called Tele Tracking Technologies based in Philadelphia rather than the CDC. The CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield says he’s OK with this, but critics fear that the Administration will use this to further muddy the nation’s already pathetic health response.

The President continues to push for schools to reopen. The White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said yesterday that it was “perfectly safe” for children to return to school and that “the science should not stand in the way of this.”

It’s been hot in New York these last couple of weeks. That hasn’t stopped Michael from baking sour dough bread. He added fennel seeds to the loaf that just came out of the oven and now the whole apartment smells vaguely of licorice.

He’s also been baking pies using the fresh fruit that he’s found at local farmer’s markets.

Right after we shut down, both of us put on some weight. I’ve more or less lost the extra ten pounds now although I’d like to drop a few more. We send a lot of Michael’s baking to friends.

We have more or less all figured out how to live in this new version of New York City. Just as everybody outside of the city has figured out how to live in the places where they are. The PUA is going to stop, but we will figure out what to do when that happens.

As a species, we are nothing if not adaptable. Which is good because we seem destined to be living this way for quite a while.

I wish I understood why the government seems so intent on prolonging this pandemic. What is their end game? They are so… UNITED… in their efforts to make sure that this virus continues to spread. I am truly starting to think that this isn’t just stupidity but that they are doing this on purpose.

But then the question arises - Why?

I am not at all looking to start a whole new conspiracy theory, but this Administration is definitely moving forward in a way that makes no sense and they are united in this course of action. I don’t think that anything anyone says is going to sway them.

Breakfast is almost ready. I can hear Michael scrambling some eggs. Trader Joe’s has a great cheese called Unexpected Cheddar. maybe he will put a bit of that in too. And we will have some of his fresh out of the oven sough dough bread with fennel seeds.

How can the world possibly be ending when we have that?