I wrote my last blog on April 24th, about six weeks ago. I was on a tear for awhile, posting a lot of blessays (blog + essay). I had so many emotions that needed to come out as we waded through the coronavirus pandemic, and writing has always been my avenue for release. Fear, concern, boredom, and discomfort with the world's stage gripped me. Writing helped me search for lessons in the discomfort. Mom had been with me for six weeks at that time as I had taken her out of her nursing home when the governor signed an order forbidding visitors. Like at nursing homes all over the world, the residents were confined to their apartments to try and control the pandemic. I have been in touch with mom's friends who have not been out of their apartments for almost three months now. Fear, concern, boredom, and discomfort has overcome them too. Mom and I settled into a nice routine but I felt anxious about what was next. When do I send her back to her nursing home? How do I know the right time? Wi......

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It starts with the call you hope will never come from the relative you pray will never visit, not for a day, not for an hour, not even for a minute. "I'm coming to stay with you," Aunt Corona says. Not a question, a directive. The call is unexpected. Her tone is commanding, as if she has the power to stop time. You're not prepared with an excuse, a.k.a. a plausible lie.  "Um, sure, yeah, okay, but I have this thing..." You stammer. "What thing, dear?" Aunt Corona asks. "Just a thing." You've always been a terrible liar. "When is it, darling?" You blanch. Her sickingly sweet tone and use of endearments are pure manipulation.  "Um, I'm not sure when it is. Any day now? Maybe in a few weeks or months?" You try and change the conversation. "I thought you were in Asia." "I was but I did everything I wanted to do there so I made my way to Europe." You're not surprised. Aunt Corona has always been that elusive relative who travels the world and comes and goes as she please......

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It's been a over five weeks since we've been isolated and I've mostly kept it together. Working from home, writing these blog posts, exercising, reading, doing jigsaw and the NYTs crossword puzzles, trying some new recipes, and zooming with family and friends has all helped keep me sane. But that doesn't mean I haven't experienced isolation freak out. I imagine you've had at least one freak out too. I'm no expert but some mental collapse during this time seems pretty normal. Thing is, like most freak outs, it appears to be brought on by a mundane occurrence. Then, when it's over and you have your wits back, you blush with embarrassment by your overreaction, knowing what had occurred was a small part of a bigger picture.  My freak out came from such a mild appearing event. With hindsight, it was a whole lotta nothing. I was digging into a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of felines. At least 50 different kinds. Intent on finishing the Savannah breed, I searched my carefully arranged piec......

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Dear Boss Person, Hi. It's me, Bruno. I don't have a lot of time to write this since mama always hogs the computer but she went to retrieve the mail. Good girl! Usually it's a quick trip to get the mail, look at it, and throw out those annoying advertisements, but these days when she gets back to the apartment she spends a lot of time in the kitchen throwing out envelopes and washing her hands a gazillion times. People sure waste a lot of water washing hands. We have a much better system to stay clean. My brother, Dante, and I know our mama thinks her job is purrfect. We used to feel the same way but now that this evil virus has us trapped between its clenched jaws and she is working at home, we have a favor to ask: can you please order mama back to her real office? You might know our story. Our big brother Frisco (may he rest in peace) found us in a sewer. It took our mama seven hours to get us out. She never had any cat babies and was looking to find new homes for us but Dante and......

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Today is the five-year anniversary of the passing of our father. It's hard to believe time has flown so quickly, harder to fathom still the state of the world today. I've tried to comfort myself by rationalizing that since his death he hasn't had to experience the insane political division that has divided our country. And now, my attempt to salve the ache of missing him has been obviously modified. Good thing dad doesn't have to experience the health and economic destruction caused by Covid-19, the Beast. Dad was born in 1933 and is considered part of the Silent Generation born between the two world wars and raised among economic depression. That fit him. He had the sensibilities of one deeply affected by the Great Depression and by WWII. Determined, filled with drive and will power, and generous. Also cautious and wary that in the snap of a finger all he worked for would be taken away.  I was born in 1964 and am at the tail end of the Baby Boomer Generation born during the pos......

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Guns vs. Butter. On its simplest level this economic graph represents the country's need to produce guns during wartime versus the need for butter. With a finite amount of resources, which is more important to produce? Do we sacrifice national defense in lieu of household supplies? When the model was promulgated around the time of WWI, it was one or the other.  Today, face masks vs. toilet paper is the new guns vs. butter. The more masks we need, the less toilet paper on the grocery shelves.  When Coronavirus was limited to the Wuhan region and there were signs of it starting to spread around Asia, I bought a box of N95 face masks from Home Depot. There were 15 in the box and it cost about $25. I offered to give most of them to a friend who is a nurse. She told me to keep them as I would need them. She was right. I have since given them away to friends and family, saving one for me and one for mom. I also have two bandanas in the wings.  The CDC and the federal govern......

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My Passover dinners used to be extravaganzas. Maybe that's an exaggeration but they were important and big events for me. Upwards of twenty-five guests, the dinner table would be cobbled together using three tables and a desk. Different table heights be damned! I always hoped the varying colored and styled tablecloths were viewed as eclectic and not haphazard. I had enough dishes, having inherited China from my grandmother and great aunts over the years. They didn't match either but they were cool. Wedgewood, Lenox, Royal Copenhagen. My silverware had belonged to my mother's best friend, Carol Singer, who passed away. There was never enough of the right sized glasses but there was plenty of wine so no one seemed to mind sipping cabernet from a juice glass. Holy days are about getting together and sharing our faiths, our traditions, and a whole lot of food and drink. The more the merrier, I used to think. But as the years went on, life shifted, dad passed away, old friends moved on and......

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When I was young I would count the scars on the back of my mother's hands. They were less than an inch long, slightly raised, and paler in color than her skin, almost translucent. Counting them was like trying to count pennies in a closed jar. It was 1954 when nineteen-year-old Arline Leibowitz packed a bag and left her parents and three siblings behind in their Long Island home. She moved into a dorm at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital to pursue her dream. She was a beautiful woman with a radiant smile and bright blue eyes and donned the requisite nurse's uniform with the pride of an optimistic and oft-times idealistic young woman on her own for the first time. Think a post-war country steeped equally in euphoria and agony. Think Florence Nightingale. The uniform was white--white shoes and thick white stockings--the skirt form-fitting, and the nursing cap stiff and fitted to keep her hair in place and to add to the modesty the profession was meant to evoke. Almost seventy years lat......

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The first "meal" I learned to cook was cinnamon toast. It was the late 1960s and I was five or six years old. I loved to watch a PBS program called "Zoom". I wasn't much of a "Sesame Street" kid, I liked "Electric Company", but I grooved with "Zoom". I don't recall much about the show except I enjoyed the how-to demonstrations. I would become mesmerized, intent on whatever was being taught--how-to fold clothes, how-to make your bed, how-to brush your dog... Of course, I'm making all of these how-tos up now because I have scant memory of "Zoom" other than I liked it and learned how to make cinnamon toast while watching it.  I used to pretend I was on the show. I started each "episode" singing the theme song. "C'mon and zooma-zooma-zooma-zoom, we know you want to give it a try, yadda-yadda-yadda-that's why...". Okay, I don't recall the words, but the melody is clear in my head. I think. Perhaps "Zoom" was the start of my fantasy life. Not that kind of fantasy, but the one where I ......

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Each morning when mom gets up she asks, "are we still on lock down?" Sometimes she calls it "lock up" but the reference to being imprisoned is the same.  I slip the vanilla flavored coffee pod into the Keurig, listen to the coffee maker slurp and gurgle, and anticipate her next question. Each morning pretty much starts the same. I get up first, mom soon follows. She asks me to put on the news. I start her coffee. The brown liquid streams into her favorite mug, the one that says "I'm a Dog Person" on it. A puff of steam rises. I think how I like the smell but not the taste of coffee. Mom always told me I should learn to drink a cup of coffee each morning. One day I finally asked her why the insistence on my having a morning cup of Joe. Turns out she was only interested in my being "regular". I add a packet of sweet 'n low and pour in enough vanilla creamer to turn the liquid the color of a tortilla. I bring the mug to her. She takes a sip. "Delicious."   Everything tas......

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