Day 212…
Quarantine - Day 12
This morning, I had to set the alarm to wake up.
I had a zoom call scheduled and needed to get up and be able to take a shower and put on some clean clothes before I tuned in.
The meeting had been scheduled, by me, a couple of days ago and I was somewhat terrified that I would miss it. As the only thing on my calendar this week, it had taken on a weight that it just didn’t need to have. It ended up being a lovely and totally painless online get together. I now don’t have anything on my calendar until a week from Saturday. That’s when my election polling day worker training is scheduled for.
The worst part about all of this lack of responsibility is that I am getting used to it.
Last week, I was notified that my initial unemployment claim had run its course but that I was eligible for the 20-week extension. Regardless of how many weeks anyone has left, that extension will not continue past December 27th.
After announcing that there would be absolutely no more stimulus negotiations before the election, the President has done a complete about-face. He is now signaling his willingness to sign off on a $1.8 trillion support bill as a counter to the Democrat’s $2.2 trillion proposal. Senate Republicans still seem unwilling to agree to anything over $1 trillion. So, we wait.
When we first went into lockdown, the end of the year and the end of payments seemed impossibly far into the future. Now, with the days getting shorter and colder it is clearly apparent that it is just not that far away.
I’m honestly not all that worried about it. Famous last words. I remain confident that stimulus is heading our way simply because there isn’t any other option. Millions of us do not have any jobs or, in some cases, entire industries to go back to.
This morning, the Broadway League announced a four-month extension of the shutdown of all Broadway shows until May 30th. I was expecting them to say that they were going to extend it through March, so I will say that the May date was a bit of a surprise. Not wholly unexpected, but still a surprise.
Two brand new shows were meant to open on Broadway this March. A revival of the musical, The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster was one. It has now announced that they won’t start previews until towards the end of December of NEXT year and not open officially until the following year in 2022.
The new Opening Night date has been set for February 10, 2022 which also happens to be the day that I will turn 60.
If December of 2021 seemed unimaginably far into the future to comprehend, turning 60 was just inconceivable. I realize now that it is shockingly closer than I ever imagined it would be.
The other show that was scheduled to open in March was the revival of Neil Simon’s play, Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. I haven’t yet been able to find when in the future they’ve rescheduled that.
Parker wrote an op-ed that was just published in the show business magazine, Variety. In it, she makes a case for theatre investors to return to the city. “I’m encouraging people to come back to New York and reinvest in our community. Whether it’s a theater or a small business, you can’t reopen a business until you have the patrons there — it’s a psychological thing. And I believe it’s incumbent upon people who’ve had success in this city to reinvest, to come home.”
I saw Sarah Jessica Parker perform in Annie when she was a kid. I guess we were both kids. She’s only three years younger than me - the same age as my sister. When The Music Man opens in 2022, she will be a month away from turning 57. How on earth did that happen?
While there has been a lot of hard-to-believe developments in recent days, the news yesterday was truly shocking.
Federal and State officials in Michigan announced that they had filed terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against thirteen members of a militia group. This group planned to storm the Michigan Capitol and kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. They planned on putting her on trial for treason and then possibly executing her. The militia was hoping to spark a civil war and overthrow the government.
This Michigan Militia group had gathered over the summer for shooting practice, combat drills and explosives training. They had spied on Governor Whitmer’s vacation home back in August and even identified a bridge where explosives could be placed to create a diversion.
Six of the thirteen men were identified as being members of the actual group and the other seven were apparently affiliated extremists who were offering material support to the plot. The latter group were gathering the names and addresses of police officers whom they also planned to target.
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols attended meetings of this militia group before they carried out the deadly Oklahoma City bombing. I am not fully sure whether this group was also present at the armed storming of the state Capitol back in May to demand the repeal of mask and social distancing guidelines and the reopening of businesses, but it seems likely that they were.
Last month Christopher Wray said that the greatest threats currently facing the United States were from within. American anti-government and white supremacist groups have been responsible for carrying out the most lethal attacks against American citizens in recent years.
During the Presidential debate last week when asked to condemn these white supremacist groups, the President refused.
Yesterday, Governor Whitmer addressed the press and said, “Just last week, the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups… (they) heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry — as a call to action.”
How, in heaven’s name, have we gotten to the point where the President of the United States allies himself with groups like this and a large part of the population is OK with it. In days gone by, just a whiff of any sort of a connection with people like this would have ended somebody’s political aspirations forever.
Meanwhile, back in the White House, the President is self-diagnosing himself and has announced that he is fit and ready to return to live, in-person rallying. He is hoping to hold one in Florida and/or Pennsylvania as soon as tomorrow.
His doctor, who has lost every single shred of credibility he might once have had in the last few days, has, jaw-droppingly, given him the greenlight.
His note clearing the President says, “Overall he’s responded extremely well to treatment, without evidence on examination of adverse therapeutic effects. Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday’s diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the president’s safe return to public engagement at that time.”
The President is still symptomatic. On a Fox TV call last night, you can hear that he is still congested and has trouble speaking clearly. If any of the information that has been released about his treatments is true, he should still be in the middle of a ten-day course of medication.
This morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a new bill that would give Congress a role in determining the fitness of the sitting President and allow them to participate in the invoking of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. At this point, it is only the Cabinet and the Vice President who have that power. The proposed bill would add a Congressional advisory body which could help determine the ability of the President to serve.
While she made it clear this morning that this new legislation would only apply to future Presidents, it is obviously designed to throw even more light onto the state of the current President’s mental facilities. This is Speaker Pelosi getting under the President’s skin. “Poking the bear” as the saying goes.
May, huh?
This morning’s coronavirus maps do not look all that heartening.
Only two states out of fifty are showing any sort of downward trending in the number of new cases of COVID-19 - Alabama and Hawaii. Twenty-eight state are reporting that their cases are rising. The rest are holding steady.
New York City has seen a notable rise in the infection rate in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. The Mayor has announced plans to re-impose restrictions in twenty of the city’s 146 zip code areas. These new restrictions would include the cancellation of indoor and outdoor dining. Nine of those areas, which also happen to be the areas that have the greatest percentage of Orthodox Jews, would have stricter measures applied to them than the others. They would have to re-close non-essential businesses and schools. 200 private schools, many of them yeshivas, and 100 public schools would be affected.
The Governor has, up to this point, opposed this move, but in the face of the numbers rising even higher, he may have to relent.
The overall average rate of infection in New York City is at about 1.5%. In some of these neighborhoods the rate is as high as 8%. Despite that, the move is likely to be viewed as a cultural attack against the Orthodox Jews. It will probably create even more tension between them and their non-Jewish neighbors.
My schedule for the rest of the day is pretty open.
I have about an hour until the cat begins to remind me that he gets a fork full of soft food at 5pm. There’s always the danger that I am going to forget to do it and that he will starve to death in the ensuing hours before the second forkful at 11pm.
Something else is sure to develop on the news, so I am going to watch some Supernatural episodes instead. Maybe do some stretching.
Last night, as I was going to bed, I thought I heard something in the living room which then spooked me for about an hour. Tonight, I am going to make sure to watch something that is not Supernatural before I go to bed.
Clips from the Graham Norton show never fail to make me laugh. I’ve discovered a British comic I’d never heard of before named Sarah Millican who is extremely funny.
I will also admit to having become slightly addicted to the golden buzzer moments on America’s Got Talent on youtube. They make me sob. Ten of them in a row and I’m a mess.
It’s getting pathetic.
I clearly need this quarantine to be over so Michael can come home, and I can get out of here for a while and go for a walk.
❤️ another awesome autumn day in New York...
I read every word...
Ziggy / 5pm ... dinner
Schedule me in for a walk ....
when your quarantine is over