UNDER COVID, PT. 19: HEROES WORK HERE (AS DO POLITICIANS AND THEIR WIVES)

The Trump-endorsed COVID test.

Sometime in January, I came down with a cold. It was unusual for a couple of reasons. I rarely get colds, and when I do they happen either in mid-autumn or early spring. Never in January.

Another reason was that it didn't feel a typical cold. It was more like a three-day flu. Since I've been getting flu shots annually for two decades, and have never gotten the flu in that time, I put it down to "just one of those things."

I had forgotten about it until a day or two ago, not long after we learned that COVID-19 had been in New York far earlier than first realized. And I thought, Huh. Weird cold. Aches. Sinus pain. Tired. All the earmarks of COVID, only milder, as many cases have been.

My wife didn't catch it from me. Or if she did, she was asymptomatic. Smart people assured all of us that catching it once would prevent us from catching it again. Until they said it didn't. Why didn't anyone tell me pandemics were so confusing?

If I were them, I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public, too.

You know what else is confusing? Doing the wrong thing over and over again expecting different results. Bill de Blasio, from whom I recently retired the honorific "Our Idiot Mayor", wins the title once more. 

A few years ago, de Blasio appointed his wife, Chirlane McCray, to run ThriveNYC, a government program to fix the city's mental health and drug abuse services, despite the little lady having zero experience in either field. 

COVID-19 wouldn't stand a chance against her.

After ThriveNYC blasted through $850-million with only negative results to show for it, O.I.M. decided that the current pandemic was a better fit for McCray, putting her in charge of New York City's COVID-19 response team.

Now I know we're doomed. If you're going to put our lives in the hands of a complete medical dilettante, you might as well hire someone who'd really get things done, like Kim Jong Un's sister.

If you can make it without breaking an ankle
from jumping off and on the sidewalk.

Still, New Yorkers continue  living. We stay home when we can and go out only when necessary, making sure we don our masks and gloves first.

If someone passes by our building as we're leaving, we wait a moment until they're at least six feet away. If someone is approaching from the other direction, one of us jumps into the road. If someone's approaching us there, we go into the middle of the street. And then if there's a car coming our way, we cross to the other side, and start the whole square dance over again. 

No wonder why we stay inside as often as possible. Forget about catching a possibly-fatal virus, it's exhausting just walking to the corner for milk. Hey, I've got an idea! I'll watch the news and go into full-fledged depression instead!

Reminding us there's more to life than illness and death.

Can you remember when the TV news wasn't wall-to-wall one subject for this amount of time? I could almost sense the relief the other day from anchors reporting about a California cop beating up a 14 year-old boy for buying a cigar. Thank God, life continues as usual! Honest to God, it was the first item on the news that had absolutely no connection to COVID I've seen in six weeks (and yes, the stock market is COVID related). 

"...And for the latest on the pandemic, we hand it over to the
Dalton Gang."

And yet I'm still drawn to it because it's never looked like this before, and once this is over -- whenever that is -- it never will again. In a medium where looks are prized -- classes are taught on how to look good for the news -- faces are now hidden. 

For the first time in decades, news reporters are now relying solely on their journalistic skills. It will be interesting to see who survive and who return to their hometown with memories of how well their careers were going until that damn COVID whatchamacallit thing happened. 

Maybe he forgot he was wearing them.

But hands down -- and this will mean nothing to non-New Yorkers -- the biggest thrill has been to see my senator, Chuck Schumer -- and it has nothing to do with politics. Since his election in 1998, whether delivering a speech in the Senate, holding a press conference, or presumably going to the bathroom, Schumer has worn his glasses only half-way up his nose. 

I don't get it. You either need glasses or you don't. To me, it was like holding an open umbrella out to your side. Make up your mind!

Now if only somebody would tell Grandpa to look straight ahead
and not sit so close to the laptop.

Yet now that he's Zooming in from home on Morning Joe, Chuck's glasses are pushed up all the way to the bridge of nose for the first time ever. 

I had to call my wife into the room to share this historic moment. I can only compare it to seeing our daughter take her first steps.

If we learn nothing else from this horrible pandemic, let us remember that Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) really can wear his glasses the way everybody else does. Miracles, indeed, happen every day.

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Earlier this week, the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels paid tribute to frontline workers by flying over New York City,  parts of New Jersey, and Philadelphia. We were lucky enough to be on their flight path. And as you'll see near the end, social distancing didn't quite work out.