Prognostication!

Oh man, I wrote these words on March 20:

When the messages painted on the windows progress from “OPEN TO GO,” to “NO FOOD,” we’ll be in trouble. From there we’re only a National Guard call-up away from saying “LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT.” 

Really got my Nostradamus on there. Not about the food of course, but the NG and the looters – well I suppose you can say that riots are just around the corner any time you want to say it, and it won’t be long before someone proves you right. IN this case it wasn’t food and toilet paper that had them marauding into businesses through smashed storefronts, it was the essentials: Louis Vuitton handbags and North Face jackets.

We did not have food shortages. And we do not have food shortages here. Yesterday, the girl child made doughnuts for the first time in a while. It’s October, so she went full decorative gourd season and made pumpkin spice flavor. I believe I have just heard the coffee pot go silent, so it’s time to grab a cup of joe and a doughnut and see what’s what.

Off in a few minutes to go handout homework kits at The Boy’s school. People drive through the alley at the school’s entrance, pop their trunks, and we remove the homework they’re turning in, replacing it with the work for the week ahead. Some people don’t pop their trunks (or let’s be honest here, the hatches on their SUV’s – that’s the majority of vehicles out there) because they actually have a car old enough that it doesn’t have an automatic, electronic, mind-controlled door release mechanism. Those people lean out their windows and try to yell to us behind their cars, “you have to – no! You have to push the – right under the keyhole, under the – it’s a place where you can put the key to lock and unlock – what? Yes, I do still have to actually use a key to start my car, but just press there under the keyhole there and – yeah, there you go.”

Some folks are slightly less concerned about disease transmission, so they just make the exchange between actual hands, through the driver’s window. There’s usually 3 of us passing out the kits, parents from different grades, and between us we know a lot of the people coming through, so fetching their kids’ kits from the bins is automatic. For some, though, we have to ask who their kids are, and I always feel like a jerk for that. Like someone who’s way too important to have taken the time to get to know them. Not true in any way, of course. You can’t know everyone. But you also can’t help feel what you’re feeling, until you’ve done the work to change that emotional pathway for yourself. It doesn’t happen automatically.

There’s one very cautious fellow who doesn’t even roll down his window, and none of us know him, so he holds up a sign in his window with the names and grades of his two children. My guess is that he disinfects the homework bags when he gets home, before touching them.

Quick fade, as I have to head out: The fact that I always select my music – for posting here – in the mornings has a lot to do with my choices. I don’t do fast in the morning. Or bright, generally. With music or anything else. I like it low and slow. I also liked Netflix’s series Dark, as much for the music as anything. This is the opening theme:

Hold back and
Fight among the stars
We could be the lucky ones
If we could only levitate
Fly low dear
Dance beneath the trees
If only we had oxygen
Then we’d begin to breathe

And we can watch
While the beauty takes its toll
And we can stop
While the world retreats

Lie low dear
Fix yourself a life
We could be the wealthy ones
If we could only emigrate
These walls get closer by the night
Everything is delicate
And everything in flight

And we can watch
While the beauty takes its toll
And we can stop
While the world retreats