Day 118

The churches have opened in New York City for a limited capacity. Mom has started going to church every morning. I don’t know if it really helps, but it gives her something to do. It gives her a destination, something to fill an hour of her time. Just an hour. The rest of the day she spends missing Dad, thinking about all the things they would be doing together if he were alive. 

I’ve been watching the news. Watching as young people contract the virus because they thought it was a hoax, because they thought it was a joke. Thousands dead and they are going to parties mocking the disease because they think they are immune. It makes me angry. And their selfishness is going to keep me and my son locked up longer. I’m growing exceedingly resentful of the people down south who rushed to open the economy, rushed to go out to dinner, to meet friends in bar. I want my Dad back. He never would have been so foolish. But he wasn’t given a chance. No one warned him.

My son and I drove out to Mattituck this morning. We took Dad’s car since it has the necessary parking sticker for the Treasure Beach. I can’t get the sticker for my car until Mom is with me since technically she is the resident. Since Dad’s car has a CD player, my son asked me to play Billy Joel. He wanted his Greatest Hits Volume II but I suggested Volume III instead. Back at Christmas, Dad wanted to get my son a gaming system. My son spends too much time watching television so I didn’t want him to have another reason to sit around on his butt starting at a screen. I suggested a CD player and some CDs instead since my son loves music — especially from the 70s and 80s. Dad liked the idea. He asked which CDs and I suggested Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits — all the volumes — and Elton John. Dad agreed to all but Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits III. He said he had it and it was terrible. Since Dad was Billy fan I didn’t argue with him. I figured he knew best. But then Dad died and my son gobbled up his CDs. We hadn’t had a chance to listen to them until today. And I must admit, I disagree with Dad. Except for one song which I hated, and three which were only tolerable, the rest were good. But here’s the interesting thing. Volumes I & II remind me of my childhood. They remind me of Dad. Every song brings me back to his car, to vacations he took me on as a child. But Volume III — not a single song reminds me of Dad. They remind me of high school and a couple remind me of college. One reminds me of Long Island. One makes me think of Libby. They were the songs of my teen years — my early twenties. So why did the song “Leningrad” make me cry so much? Why did my tears blur my vision and pour down my face? Why did that song make me so incredibly emotional?

We stopped for lunch at Burger King. Since they have the Impossible Whopper I can actually eat there. And I like it. Eating fast food and enjoying it is such a bizarre experience for me. The dinning room was open. We didn’t have to order in the drive through. We didn’t have to get take-out, but we did, because even though it’s open for dinning doesn’t mean it is safe to dine. We ate outside at one of the tables. We were the only ones. It was hot. Everyone else opted to eat inside.

My son stayed home while I went grocery shopping. I didn’t get much, just what I needed for dinner and some ice cream. We can’t go a day in this house without ice cream. As I was paying the cashier, the next guy on line walked right up to me — and I mean right up to me — eager to get his groceries rung up. The cashier — a young girl — scolded him and told him he had to step back. He grumbled and took a step. She told him to move further back, and he snapped at her that she didn’t have any idea of what six feet means. Meanwhile, he might have been four feet away at this point. Interestingly, he wore a shirt that said USA written in the colors of the flag in big letter across his chest and a hat with USA written across it. Do with that as you wish. As I took my change, the cashier apologized to me for the rudeness of the other customer. I almost fell over. So much different than the Stop & Shop in Glendale.

We went to the sound beach. It’s a Saturday and I feared the Treasure Beach would be too crowded so we didn’t go. It’s much further away and I didn’t want to drive there only to discover there wasn’t enough space to social distance. But maybe we could have gone. It was cloudy and windy which mean the sound was relatively empty. I was surprised when we arrived by how few cars there were in the parking lot. The water was also cold. My son went swimming, but I didn’t. However, as soon as he got out of the water, he wanted to leave.

At home, all he wanted to do was watch television. I’m tired and frustrated that all he wants to do is watch TV. He refuses to read — unless it’s with me before bed. He refuses to walk. He refuses to do anything. At this point, if it were up to me, I’d throw away the television. Tonight, while I was cooking, I wanted to listen to the news and my son threw a snit because he couldn’t watch what he wanted. I was cooking dinner for him, and he seemed to think he was entitled to watch what he wanted. Then at dinner, he complained about having to sit down at the table with me. He only ate a few bites and wanted to go back to his television. I made him sit with me and he complained about how slow I eat. And then I started to cry, because if Dad were here he’d have been sitting with me. He would have rolled his eyes and joked about how slow I eat, but it would have been in jest. He would have sat with me, we would have talked about politics, and we’d have finished our wine together. But I didn’t even have wine, because it doesn’t taste right without him here.

I did manage to pull my son away from the television after dinner to work on a jigsaw puzzle. A friend of mine had bought a 1,000 piece New Jersey pandemic puzzle. After she toiled putting it together, she pulled it apart. Since she knows my son enjoys puzzles, she asked me if I wanted it for him. I looked at her horrified, “You mean you took it apart?” I didn’t think that was a thing. You put something together and then you get angry and upset if it falls apart. I had no idea people actually disassembled puzzles. After I got over my shock, I gratefully took the puzzle. It’s a picture of New Jersey. Yes, I know what you are all thinking. I hate New Jersey. That’s true, but it’s also an educational puzzle. It highlights all the historical places in New Jersey — many of which we have been to — and you know how history interests me. My son and I enjoyed working on it, and by the time he went to bed, we had most of the border and the words “New Jersey” completed.

The debate about opening schools is firing up between parents and teachers. I told my boss even if there are classes for me to teach, I can’t take them. My son’s health, his academic well-being are far more important than working. I’m not sending my kid to school if it isn’t safe, and I’m not trusting either the politicians or the administrators when it comes to what they think is safe. And remote learning isn’t good enough. I will homeschool my son. I have no idea how we will pay our bills. How we will move. How we will get by. I sure as hell know God’s not going help. He’s supposed to help those who help themselves, but that hasn’t been my case at all. I certainly don’t expect it now.

As for my spouse, she is fearful about teaching face-to-face. No, fearful is the wrong word. Fear has come to have a derogatory meaning. My spouse doesn’t want to teach face-to-face because she knows very well the strength of the virus, that it doesn’t fuck around. And while Trump and his cronies keep telling us it doesn’t affect children, camps across the south are closing because kids and counselors are getting infected. If kids are getting sick at camp, what makes anyone think they won’t get sick in school. And counselors are on average — I’m willing to bet — younger than teachers. What makes a counselor seriously ill could kill a teacher. But as my spouse keeps reminding me, even if teachers don’t die, schools will quickly run out of subs. 

The death toll is rising again. Nearly a thousand people died three days in a row. The deaths had dipped. We were doing better, but we blew it.

And Trump keeps talking about opening schools but he isn’t offering any money either to help them stay safe. I’m not a numbers person. Money makes me dizzy. But it doesn’t quite make sense to me that there was enough money to give churches, billionaires, and hedge funds stimulus money, but there isn’t any for schools. What am I missing here?