UNDER COVID, PT. 6: LIFE AS WE SHUN IT

The FDR Drive at noon yesterday. Kind of like a sci-fi movie about a viral
pandemic in New York. HEY! WHAT THE...

As I write this, city workers are noisily pruning trees on our block; right now, they're directly outside our window.

Normally, this would be an irritating thing. But today, it's oddly comforting: proof that life in New York City hasn't completely come to a standstill. Only most of it.

Further proof: earlier today, I went grocery shopping for the first time since Tuesday. Between then and now, the only times my wife Sue and I have gone out is for brief walks along the East River after lunch and before dinner.

Judging by those walks, you wouldn't necessarily think anything was awry, other than the site of people wearing surgical face masks as they avoid each other as far as possible. But then I learned that Josh Wallwork, a wardrobe guy on three shows I've worked on, died yesterday at 45 from COVID-19. Wallwork was one of the 23,112 cases and 365 deaths in New York City so far. And when it's someone you knew, it goes from being a "case" to a person. Yes, something is awry.

Mayor de Blasio has closed off a section of one street to traffic in each borough to discourage people from going to the parks. In Manhattan, Park Avenue between 28th and 34th will be shut down for at least four days. As I pointed out in earlier piece, this will likely put more people into an even smaller area for their daily constitutional, but it should certainly make for good photos in the local papers. 

Her previous office phone didn't quite
do the job.

Sue has gotten the word that everyone in her company is telecommuting through the end of May. And because her job is health-related, she's putting in 10 or 11 hour days pretty regularly. Initially, she was working on the kitchen table with her laptop, iPhone and our landline. This was because we got rid of our desk in the bedroom in order to start a renovation.

That was before the world as we knew it started coming to an end. Last Saturday,

Yes, my wife would have found
this hideous enough.

after Sue received her new office phone (so the landline could remain free for scammers to call), I opined that, since this is the time of month people get rid of furniture before moving, we might find a desk on the street.

St. Ethan Allen (the saint of furniture hunters) was with us. We had walked a little over two blocks before finding a perfectly fine desk, which we I carried back. Sue says all you've got to do is put your desire out to the universe. That doesn't explain why I haven't found an original three-sheet of Cockeyed Cavaliers (which I would have preferred to a used desk). Guess I have to put out my desires a little harder.

Desiring a routine in my daily life, I've found that being stuck inside 99% of the day has forced me to shake things up. Like wearing sweatpants rather than jeans around the house. That alone makes me almost break out into a rash. But for some reason, Sue approves of the look. Perhaps she likes the idea of me being even more dressed-down than she is these days.

Another new routine I've acquired is watching Gov. Andrew Cuomo's daily COVID-19-

The new sheriff in town.

related press briefings. Anyone in the New York area or with access to the proper streaming services should tune in. (The start time is never exact, but it tends to be between 10:45 and 11:30 a.m.). 

For 45 minutes to an hour, Cuomo is fully in command: articulate, factual, serious, empathetic, and, at times, angry. His tongue-lashing of Pres. Trump on Tuesday was one for the ages.

He's since toned down his rhetoric, but these regular appearances make clear why there's a quiet movement, in case of a brokered convention, to make Cuomo the Democrat presidential candidate instead of Joe Biden -- particularly after the latter's already-legendary (in all the wrong ways) speech of three days ago. 

God, no. Please, no.

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it -- the same way I don't tour insane asylums for Sunday afternoon amusement -- but the word "dementia" is being freely tossed around party circles. Throw in the recent appearances from Trump, and you have two of the later-day Three Stooges.

Yes, this is what it comes down to: America is undergoing the worst pandemic in over 100 years. And who do we have vying for control? The ones most likely to die from it. 

We could all use some soothing, particularly children who are trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Perhaps a little bedtime poetry would be in order.

'Twas the month before Easter
And outside the flat
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even a rat.
The streets were all empty,
The sidewalks all clean
Of us New Yorkers
Thanks to COVID-19.

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