More dispatches from the front, because we're all fighting the same battle now:
• As we all collectively continue in our isolation, it's possible to come to the realistic conclusion we're not actually using days anymore. So, as a public service against that time when this will be over, if you're reading this, it's Friday. Unless you're reading it later. In which case, it could be Friday. Or some other day because, well, yeah ...
• A fun game I'm playing is to test the limits of what a person can order and have delivered to his house. So, to our neighbors: Sorry about the ICBM and the herd of miniature horses in the driveway. They're going back.
• I'm beginning to tick off in my head the list of holidays that could be affected by this. I've got to say, Halloween could be a little different this year. No more than 50 children allowed on your street at one time, candy left on the front porch, everyone wears a mask and toilet papering someone's house is either a felony or a gift.
However, instead of dressing like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, kids are going to dress like real superheroes: doctors, nurses and the people who stock shelves and bring your groceries out to the car.
• Those of us working from home are becoming more and more familiar with something called Zoom. It's an app you can use to hold meetings and conversations using the camera on your laptop or desktop computer to include groups of people.
One best practice of Zoom meetings is that you should always enter them with your microphone muted so people won't hear other conversations you might be having (quite a few of us have discovered the children of some of meeting participants "have to go potty real bad!")
Another best practice is that you should only unmute when you have something you want to say. Again, because of potential issues with side conversations. Though, since most of us have or have had small children, you're likely the only one embarrassed or even surprised by that whole "potty real bad!" thing. I mean, I'm of an age, where, yeah, kid, I understand.
However, I will say if I've gotten anything out of this current situation, it's what I'm going to call the Zoom Philosophy of Life: Go into every situation on "mute" and only unmute when you actually have something to say.
• Speaking of children, as someone who has a higher tolerance for profanity than most people who aren't drill sergeants or longshoremen and who once was responsible for the care and feeding of small ones who weren't all that crazy about bedtime, I was a big fan of Adam Mansbach's seminal work on the subject, entitled "Go the (blank) to Sleep."
It was a children's book that you will never, ever, ever under any circumstances read to your children, although you will think every word of it. And the audio version read by the actor Samuel L. Jackson was and remains a classic of the form. I still get teary-eyed.
Well, it seems Mansbach and Jackson have teamed up again on an updated version for our time, entitled "Stay the (blank) at Home." It's available on YouTube in an appropriately "bleeped" version and it captures the ethos of the moment in a way that only Mansbach and Jackson can.
After watching it, I've decided I would be fine if every day, the White House briefing on the situation was conducted by two people: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci and Samuel L. Jackson.
Fauci can give us all the pertinent data, facts we need to know and best next steps, and Jackson can close things out by giving us the one thing we need to remember, that we all should "stay the (blank) at home." And that Pulp Fiction and Snakes On A Plane are available for streaming.
• While checking on cattle movements in the pasture behind my house the other day (they're walking south now. No, wait, they're heading back west), I noticed the tree in our backyard had suddenly bloomed. Bright pink flowers that weren't there the day before had just ... appeared. One day nothing, the next, something wonderful contrasted against the general grey of the day.
We'll get through this. Life goes on. And at times, it can be suddenly and completely beautiful.
Commentary on 04/10/2020