Looking at Disasters Big and Small

I’ve forgotten the words to my song
Everything that can has gone wrong
All my bridges are burned
Instead of right I left turned
And April was thirty days too long!

So here we go. I decided to torture myself and attempt another limerick. Because that is my penance for saying things out loud that I shouldn’t have said thus jinxing myself and the rest of the world. My friend saintvi was asking if she had jinxed herself by greeting the last few new years with relief since “the new one couldn’t be as bad as the past one”. She even asked a philosopher friend that if she stopped being optimistic, would that ensure that the new year would actually be better? Or was she still jinxing herself by being pessimistically optimistic? I understand her quandary. Even if the current POTUS refuses to entertain any hint of responsibility for the state of the country, I feel partially that the mess is my fault. There. I said it. Why is it my fault? Well, I uttered several things. And just like the guy who decides to have a picnic and then washes his car in July – my picnic too was rained out.

1. When the lock down began I said, “This won’t be so bad.”
2. After 4 weeks I muttered, “We are all okay.”
3. After 6 weeks I whispered, “Nothing bad has happened.”
4. After 10 weeks I groaned, “We will all get through this.”

So that set into motion a series of unfortunate events.
1. My job was shut down with the rest of the university.
2. Sparky’s job disappeared (officially furloughed).
3. Son#1 (an essential worker) started working more hours with no masks.
4. A friend had her car die – because it hadn’t been driven and had to have a new battery.
5. My very very dear friend broke herself.
6. GeoWoodstock was cancelled until 2021.
7. We are supposed to make 10 credit card transactions per month per card (2 cards). This is proving to be really hard. And if it comes down to doing a McDonald’s drive through for a $1 ice cream 10 times – so be it!
8. It snowed in April – three times and once in MAY!

I spoke to another friend who has been working from home. She is in panic mode. Her children were missing their friends and school. They are really smart kids and were breezing through the school work in an hour leaving the rest of the day to putter. She had them doing chores on the farm and helping with some interior projects but there are only so many things to be done. And now that school is over there are no summer activities that they had been looking forward to. On top of crabby bored kids, she is writing grants and trying to figure out a new budget for her facility. The new rules require her staff to wear additional PPE which of course costs money which isn’t in the budget. But not to worry – she has to trim 20% off the budget! She is about ready to do some major hair pulling.

Another friend is a HS teacher. Her class was a mostly hands-on course. There was no way they could do all the work remotely. She’s struggled with the distance learning since technology isn’t her friend. But she got it done. At a cost to her sanity.

And on top of everything, the former secretary has been diagnosed with cancer. She had an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic and they are doing absolutely nothing. The tumors are growing slowly but they have not been able to identify the primary tumor so haven’t scheduled any surgery or radiation or chemotherapy. She has had bronchitis and pneumonia in the last month. She is afraid that if she gets COVID-19 she will die. I’m afraid of the same thing for her.

Even though some restrictions have been lifted, I don’t think it is safe to mingle with people. Not yet at least! We are still practicing social distancing and it is so very hard! I hope May is better than April!  I mean, it is almost the end of May and that is another Month closer to 2021.