Pandemic, Week 79 (Company!)

This week the Justice for J6 Rally was held at the Capitol to support the insurgents that tried to destroy the place back in January – it was not well attended by anyone besides police and media. California Governor Gavin Newson won his recall election. The US military admitted that it had mistakenly killed 10 civilians in Kabul when they targeted the wrong vehicle in a drone strike intended for IS-K militants. North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the East Sea. Olympic gymnasts, including Simone Biles, testified before a Senate Committee on the FBI's mishandling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case. Comedian Norm McDonald died.

The world reached 229.0 million COVID cases and 4.7 million deaths of which the US accounted for 42.9 million cases and 692,000 deaths.  211 million Americans (64 percent) have received at least one does of the vaccine and 181 million (55 percent) are fully vaccinated. Public Health Ministers in Trinidad & Tobago and in the United States debunked rapper Nicki Minaj's claims that her Trinidadian cousin's friend's testicles became swollen following a  COVID shot, resulting in his impotency. The art installation, In America: Remember, which features a single while flag for each COVID death in the US, is now on display at the National Mall.

We started the week with Owen and my own version of Breakfast at Wimbledon. That afternoon involved a bread-baking session for Mom-Mom and Nora, followed by a butter-making session for Grandpa Don and Nora, followed by some pasta-making by Allen and me (Nora was pretty tired by then), followed by all of us (even Owen, who acknowledge he did nothing) enjoying a lovely meal together. Later, Nora and I attempted our very own cat-yoga session with Ducky to mixed results, Allen briefed staff from the White House and the Senate on the state of various climate studies, Owen made second chair in the orchestra at Duke, Nora restarted DCYOP rehearsals (inside!), and Allen visited the COVID inspired art installation on the mall.

But the big event was Audra flying out from Michigan for a visit to attend the Van Gogh Art Immersion exhibit. We originally got the tickets well before the J6 rally was plan, or they announced the H Street Festival was on the same weekend, or that due to the Delta variant, DC would have "red" ratings for its reopening metrics in daily case rate, hospital utilization and positive cases interviewed, as well as the indicator for community spread, but we played the hand we were dealt. After picking Audra up from the airport on Friday night, we enjoyed a lovely outdoor dining experience at Pursuit. The next morning we made our way around various road closures to drop Nora off at DCYOP before exploring Takoma Park. After rehearsal, we headed back to DC to check out the H Street Festival (my first time attending in 10 years) and get a late lunch, followed by nap time, spring rolls, dinner, a Zoom call with the other former residents of J1, and then called it an early night.

So we'd be fresh for the exhibit the next day.

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