A Case for Celebration

Art Credit: Charles M. Schulz

 
For the last 14 months, social distancing has become the norm to slow the spread of Covid-19. As a result, our ability to interact with one another has suffered. Physical contact and camaraderie with friends and loved ones outside our home have been cancelled. Darn, we even have to hide our smile behind a mask.

One can only understand this sense of excitement as current restrictions are being lifted. A case in point was the last July 4th celebration with all the fanfare and happy faces.

On a personal level, I want you look at me now after my first real haircut in months. Do I look great or what? Finally, I was also able to go to the dentist for routine dental cleaning and checkup.

For a birthday or anniversary that occurs this year, I see no reason not to celebrate. I wish each one my best wishes and happiest thoughts. In lieu of the current situation and folks still suffering from the effects of the pandemic, however, it may be preferred to keep it simple and intimate even if you can afford to splurge.

For sure, we’re not out of the woods yet, but we can now see the light and the clearing ahead even with the highly transmissible delta variant spreading around. Until then, stay safe and be healthy, people!

Poor Dad Has No Money On Christmas Eve

It’s one of the best Christmas stories ever. Please pass the tissue and enjoy.

Top 10 Giuliani Moments in 2020

Rudolph Giuliani

President Trump top consigliere and Former NYC Mayor Rudolph “The Red Nose” Giuiani continues to amaze. His fall from grace is legendary, but he seems to bask in the limelight. Here’s my top 10 Giuliani’s moments in 2020.

Wearing clown loafers. Blowing his nose in public and using the same handkerchief to wipe his mouth, forehead, and cheek with it. Accidentally posting a video of himself being a racist. Butt-dialing an NBC reporter and heard discussing need for a few hundred thousand dollars and trashing the Bidens. Being dubbed a grifter for peddling fraud election claims and allegedly asking $20,000 a day for his services. Caught on camera with hair dye dripping on his face. Farting twice at Michigan voter fraud hearing. Holding a conference nearby Fantasy Island Adult Bookstore. Caught with his hand in his pants in a Borat movie scene. Getting COVID-19.

What A Year

 
I couldn’t believe 2020 is almost over. It started just like any other year, but what a year it has been. It’s time raking the leaves for good measure.

It will be long remembered as the time of the coronavirus pandemic causing more than a million deaths and bringing about the largest global recession in history. In the U.S., it will be also be the year of increased racial tensions, political polarizations, and natural disasters with record-breaking Atlantic hurricanes and wildfires in the West.

No doubt about it, the realities of these events have affected our everyday lives in more ways than one. It’s how we deal with them that counts. We can either face them in a positive light or go dark that leads to fear, anguish and depression.

As a case in point, to control the spread of Covid-19, we have been advised to wear a mask, self-isolate, practice social distancing, and celebrate the holidays only with the people we live with. While it goes against our natural inclination to travel and connect and interact with one another, it also helps us go back to the basics and let nature heal itself with less human activity.

As we head into the new year, I see the world evolving as a result of these extraordinary events occurring in 2020. Our society will be transformed and the way we interact with one another changed forever. For the better or worse? Only time will tell.

 
Perhaps we can start by simply putting this bumper sticker on our cars, “Live simply that others may simply live.” The choice is ours. We’re all in this together.

Wishing you and your loved ones all the best during these trying times. Be safe and stay healthy.

We’ll Rise from the Ashes

 
It’s a day like no other. The sun is nowhere to be found. It looks more like twilight that I have to turn on the lights.

The skies are dark and tinted with orange caused by wildfires burning all across Northern California. Although I live many miles from the nearest fire, I could still smell the smoke.

It’s almost quiet outside. It feels like a prologue to the apocalypse. I hear no fluttering of the breeze through the trees. There’s nary a sound except for the chirping of a lonely bird.

So far over two million acres have been burned. Already considered a state record, the fire season is far from over.

I’d lived in California for years and this is the first time I’d seen its population face so many challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and the current wildfires. The impact on the economy and life as we know it will be felt for a very long time.

I want to believe we’ll get through these current challenges, like those that came before. We’ll rise from the ashes and rebuild our dreams. Our head may get bloody, to paraphrase a poem, but we’ll remain unbowed.