I miss normal. I don't really know what normal is, but I know I miss it. Everyone's lives right now are off and muted. It's close to Easter and I wish they would just cancel it. Governor Cuomo says Covid-19 will peak in about a week around here, but that doesn't mean normal will magically reappear the next day. This could easily drag on until the fall. Hot spots appearing here or there with the accompanying lockdowns or shelter in place as it's popularly called now.
The girls seem oblivious to everything going on, or maybe they are hiding it well. I know they are lax about washing their hands when they come home and when asked if they are using masks or gloves, we are told they (Elena) are washing their hands often. Nasta comments a little about all the changes that have gone on at the grocery store, social distancing and all. Another one of those popular phrases. I hope by fall I will have forgotten ever saying it. I went to the ShopRite grocery store in New City yesterday for the first time since I went to Costco and they have blue tape all over the floor with arrows showing which way to travel down isles so traffic goes only one way. There are very few registers open and each has a large piece of plexiglass 30" square between the cashier and the customer. It's all very dystopian* and a bit scary. I've saved that phrase for just this point in my piece. The world and specifically what we are going through reminds me of many science fiction films I've seen over the years. I keep waiting for the dead to start walking among us or Terry Gilliam, the director of the film Brazil** to yell 'cut'. I went to Home Depot today. I park in the parking lot and it is full of cars like it's a normal Saturday in the spring. I get out intending to buy a rake. I notice a family of four standing off to the right of me about twenty safe yards away. It's a nice family outing to the local Home Depot, family outing, Home Depot, weird, but cute. That is until you notice all of them are wearing surgical masks. I shake my head wondering what color will be fashionable next year. Curse the thought. I head into Home Depot. I've noticed when I'm out I don't make any eye contact and keep my face away from others. I also keep as far away from other people as possible and I hold most in contempt. On that last thought, I'm trying to figure out why now more than normal. I walk to the first set of doors and a couple of dip-shits are fussing with something, a cart, I guess, I'm not looking there way, but they are blocking the door. So there is a little back up there and of course I barrel onward. A scruffy individual coming out seems to want to come my way, but I give no ground and he changes course going to his left. I pass the dip-shits and get through the first set of doors. I approach the inside set only to be asked to go into another set of doors on the other corner of the building because this is exit only. I spin around without complaint or comment. Only my actions declare my acquiesce (to comply without protest, I looked it up to be sure how to spell it). I go in the correct door, the store seems dark and too many people have masks on for me to be comfortable. I view a Costco length line to the registers and decide I don't need a rake that badly and I head for the exit. As I pass back into the overcast of the day I feel as if I've again stepped off the stage of a movie. I shake my head as a voice behind me echos, "have a nice day" A memory of watching Total Recall, the good one, if dated film with Arnold in it. Just like in that dystopian film people are acting like it's all normal. Masks and gloves have become the new fashion statement, health care workers be damned. But hey I wore gloves to the grocery store the day before. So I shouldn't talk.
Now our darling daughters get to sleep in most morning. Nasia has an online class from RCC. I occasionally see her working on projects for it. Last night she put in a few good hours on it. She worked on it first with her mother. She had asked me to help, but I was dealing with stuff I bought home for work. It seems Top Chef Meals/ The Crystal Spoon has gotten about one hundred new customers from insurance companies because all the adult day care centers are closed and I needed to get them set up as soon as possible. So Nastia and Teri who have fights over just about everything these days. It's just your typical mother- daughter stuff. They did mostly manage to work quietly together. Then Nastia went to work on some other questions. Occasionally she'd let a couple of curses fly. After the tirade I let fly about someone who is bothering us about a bill we paid and the money going somewhere else and the bank is researching it, I didn't say much.
I got in Elena's car to move it earlier in the day. She had it smelling of perfume. Now the only reason she might do that is..... Well I sat in the car inhaling deeply to see if I was correct. A slight smell of pot/weed/grass filled the air. You had to think about it to really know it was there, but it was.
Before she went to work she offered to drop me off at the gas station to get my car. After a few miles, she asks me if I like the smell of her car. I wasn't going to say anything, but you know, it happens. So I tell her it smells nice , but it poorly covers up the smell of pot/weed/grass. I then as is my wont (one's customary behavior in a particular situation. I like this word) I launch into what I have declared as my dead horse speech. I told her I will continue to beat this dead horse. I know I can't stop you from smoking pot/weed/grass. I want you to be safe and careful. I need to remind you that it is still not legal and if a cop wanted to hassle you about it he could (with her attitude, no he'd never, yes that is sarcasm) I don't want her to hide it from me and I don't remember if I told her not to smoke in the house. I don't know if it all registered because she asked if she could make pot brownies again. I said yes and I won't be having any most likely. Still not sure I recovered from that last batch.
* dystopian. "Utopian" describes a society that's conceived to be perfect. Dystopian is the exact opposite — it describes an imaginary society that is as dehumanizing and as unpleasant as possible. ... famous dystopian authors include Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ray Bradbury. And a famous dystopian in his time Joe Muller.
** Brazil (1985 film) - Wikipedia
Brazil is a 1985 dystopian science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard.
The film centres on Sam Lowry, a man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's satire of bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four[11][12][13] and has been called Kafkaesque[14] and absurdist.[13]
Box office: $9.9 million (North America)
Budget: $15 million
Music by: Michael Kamen
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
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