Pandemic, Week 98 (Double, Double Toil and Trouble)

This week, Justice Stephen Breyer announced his forthcoming retirement from the Supreme Court, resulting in President Biden reiterating his intention to nominate a black women to the Court while conservatives protested basing the appointment on race. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced an online pharmacy for generic drugs that would offer steep discounts. Amy Schneider, the second winningest Jeopardy player and first trans-woman champion, was defeated by a Chicago librarian after 40-day winning streak (and roughly $1.4 million). In protest of Joe Rogan spreading vaccine misinformation on its platform, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from Spotify.

The world reached 373.0 million COVID cases  and 5.7 million deaths; the US accounted for 75.5 million cases and 907,000 deaths. 250 million Americans (75 percent) have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 212 million (64 percent) are fully vaccinated. An additional; 87 million (41 percent) have received a booster dose, including Owen. Meanwhile, seven Virginia school districts have sued so stop Governor Youngkin's mask optional order. Former Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin's defamation trial was postponed after she tested positive for COVID, although her status did not stop her from dining out al fresco in New York City. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was criticized for saying at an anti-vaccine rallythe Jews had more freedom during the Holocaust than un-vaccinated Americans, during Holocaust Remembrance Week.

Not much happened this week until Friday, when John asked me to help him make his bed. This prompted my rearranging and removing some furniture from his bedroom, and then texting Katherine to ask her opinion about getting him a new bed. That escalated to contemplating new furniture for the entire space and Katherine joining us for dinner, a purge of roughly half of John's clothes in order to downsize his storage needs, and cocktails. The next morning Katherine and I met at IKEA for a shopping spree followed by removing all of John's furniture, assembling a new bed, ordering a new mattress, assembling a side table (that we subsequently decided to get rid of), rearranging furniture again, and creating a lengthy to-do list for before (and after) the painters arrive to make John's bedroom a more manageable space.

All of which is why he will probably never ask me to help him make his bed again.