Day 241…
We are now into the fourth day of counting.
I suppose that there is something to be said for this long drawn out process that appears to be leading towards its inevitable conclusion. By the time we get there, it won’t be a surprise.
Before we got the cat that Michael and I are living with now, I had another cat named Wart. Wart traveled all over the place with me.
He accompanied me on the road when I was touring with The Phantom of the Opera. He was a perfect companion to travel with.
When I started working on Jersey Boys, the two of us ended up in San Francisco where we were teching the beginning of the first National tour.
Wart had suffered from kidney issues for a while by then and I had learned how to give him an IV of saline. At the beginning I didn’t think that I was going to be able to bring myself to do it, but I got used to it - both of us did. I’d hold him still with one hand and insert the needle into the scruff of his neck with the other and he’d sit patiently while it drained. It became a part of our daily routine. Afterwards, we would both just get on with our days.
Around Thanksgiving, he started failing. He started having difficulty using his back legs. We went to the vet out there and he said that he would likely not get better and that I should bring him back when things got too difficult. I was sure that we had plenty of time left.
Within a few days, it became apparent that Wart was really not comfortable at all. We went back to the vet and I left him there overnight.
I started to realize that he wasn’t going to get better.
The next day, the vet called and described his condition to me, and I realized that it was time. I went to the vet, and with Wart sitting on my lap, the vet injected him with something which slowly allowed him to slip away.
Wart was ready and I was ready. I was not ready for how wrenching it really was, but I had gotten to the point where keeping him alive was just selfishness on my part.
It was by no means an easy decision to make, but over the last few days of his life, my shock and denial dissipated and were replaced by understanding and acceptance. I have been through the same thing, albeit even worse, with human relatives and friends. Most of us have.
Something similar actually happens when you have worked for months if not years on a new show and the reviews come out and they are devastating. You end up going through much the same steps before you ultimately come to terms with the fact that the show is going to close. The producers and investors do everything they can to save it, but ultimately the decision needs to be made. The show, at that point is hemorrhaging money and the chances of any more coming back in have dwindled.
The longer it takes the results of this election to be announced, the more everybody will be used to the way that it is trending. In the last four days, Democrats have gone from a nauseating despair beginning that first night to a kind of cautious optimism. I imagine that the President’s supporters have taken the opposite journey.
It’s hard to hold on to extremes of emotion for a drawn-out period of time. Full-fledged anger and fury flare up but then dissipate into sullen resentment. Anger and fury lead to rioting, sullen resentment does not. Certainly, if the election is ultimately called for Joe Biden that resentment could flare up again, but after these last few days, the wood is somewhat wet.
Now, the vote isn’t over. There is still a chance, though diminishing with each new batch of votes that gets reported, that something will happen that will radically change the outcome. What I am talking about is what we all hope for as a loved one is reaching the end of their journey - a miracle.
The votes that are being counted now were legally cast. They are being legally counted. Bipartisan observers are reporting very few issues.
The President is tweeting up a storm - he sent a whole new batch out into the ether this morning - but he seems to be howling into the wind. Many of the lawsuits he is filing against various places are without any legal merit whatsoever. It’s all just noise.
Yes, he still has a chance. If he does end up prevailing it will, indeed, be somewhat of a miracle at this point.
In the meantime, we wait.
I woke up early this morning. There were no news alerts on my phone. I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t happen. The cat finally convinced me to give up and get out of bed to feed him.
Steve Kornacki is back at his post. His numbers have become comfortingly familiar. He’d make a fantastic high school math teacher. He’s actually become America’s math teacher over the last few days.
For each of the four days that we have been waiting for the election results, more than four thousand people have lost their lives to either COVID-19 or complications that occurred from them contracting it. Over a thousand people for every day that we’ve stood by anticipating the results.
126,480 new cases were reported yesterday. The highest number yet since the beginning of the pandemic.
To give that number some perspective, it’s as if every single person in Thousand Oaks, CA tested positive yesterday. Or that every single person in Athens, Georgia tested positive. Or Lafayette, Louisiana.
The White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who two weeks ago announced to the nation that his Administration, “is not going to control” the growing pandemic, has now tested positive for COVID-19.
This is a man who has refused to wear a mask. He has been to all of the President’s recent rallies and there is video of him fist-bumping the President’s supporters. He has free range of the White House - both in the West Wing as well as in the residence.
The massive spikes in virus cases that we are seeing around the country are almost all in places where these rallies have taken place.
A small side note: on Thursday, Steve Bannon, the President’s former advisor tweeted that the heads of Christopher A. Wray, the Director of the FBI and Dr. Anthony Fauci should be put on pikes. Twitter responded by deleting his account.
His defense lawyer, William A. Burck, sent a letter to the court that said, “Mr. Bannon is in the process of retaining new counsel.”
This Administration needs to be put out of its misery.
One of the commentators on MSNBC this morning is actually calling MSNBC’s own Decision Desk, as well as those of other outlets, irresponsible for not calling Pennsylvania for Joe Biden and, thereby, calling the Presidency. He is claiming that their reluctance to call this race is stemming from fear of angering the President and his base.
It does seem to be about time. All of the now smoldering resentment that is out there could certainly start being directed towards the delay, itself, rather than the result and that could reignite it.
I don’t know what the next two months will be like under an erratic, infuriated President who cannot process losing, but it is time that we bite the bullet, call it, and find out.Delaying the announcement is not going to make it any easier.
The President is apparently on his way to Pennsylvania to make yet another lie-filled rant to the American people this morning.
It really is at the point where we need to call it, preferably before he arrives.
We need to move forward.
It’s time.
💙read a quote of Lanford Wilson this morning
the last sentence of it
“make it all count”
legally voted, legally counted
now
I will
let go
I am beginning to feel what it must be like to be a sports fan ( something I am not, although my Italian Grandfather, I used to think that Yankees were his religion)...
as spectators are glued to every move during the final minutes...
not breathing
It’s gorgeous outside
I saw a Christmas Tree go up this morning
I feel great hope
💙💕💙