Pandemic, Week 69 (Independence)

This week, the fence surrounding the U.S. Capitol that was erected after the January 6th attack, was taken down. The President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in the bedroom of his private residence. Millions of shellfish were cooked alive in the Pacific Northwest due to record-breaking temperatures. Jeff Bezos officially stepped down as the CEO of Amazon and will spend his immediate retirement traveling to space. 14-year old Zalia Avant-garde, an African-American, Guinness World Record Holding, and basketball-juggling wunderkind, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after she correctly spelled, "murraya."

The world reached 187.2 million Covid cases and 4.0 million deaths this week, of which the U.S. accounted for 34.7 million cases and 623,000 deaths. 184 million Americans, 55 percent of the population, have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 159 million, or 48 percent, are fully vaccinated. The Tokyo Olympics, which are set to start in two weeks after being delayed a year due to the Pandemic, have barred fans from attending due to rising coronavirus infections.

For us, this week was the continuation of our Cooperstown Adventures with the Telfair-Chas. We celebrated the Fourth by having a good-old American barbecue with tomahawk steaks, sweet corn, strawberry-rhubarb pie, s'mores and sparklers. The next day the boys headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame where they took in the history of their favorite game (and Owen winced at "Baby Shark's" inclusion in the annals of said history). Afterwards, the rest of us joined them for lunch, followed by laser tag and mini-golf. The dads destroyed the sons in laser tag (final score 9-1), but Owen redeemed himself in mini-golf with two hole-in-ones, one of which won him free ice cream (Nora got their own hole-in-one, but as ice-cream wasn't on the line they just had to settle for personal satisfaction).

The rest of the week involved a lot of swimming, gaming, and probably more food and cocktails than the Surgeon General would recommend. After a long drive home, we spent the next day packing up the kids for camp, but did get a chance to visit the Capitol, where workers had spent the day removing the fence they put up after the January 6th insurrection. Oh what a difference six months makes...

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)