These days, I feel sorry for people in the Sun Belt.
This time of year, they are used to getting out and having fun and doing things and being with people.
But that cannot happen in a Plague Year.
On the other hand, years of experience of Midwestern winters have inured us to months of gloomy isolation. So the current situation really isn’t that difficult for us to accept.
Grocery shopping these days is like it was for Martha in The Americans.
CVH was able to get a chicken, some fish, hot dogs, and ground pork today.
The view at our local Kroger yesterday morning, well before sunrise. So much for “social distancing”.
Being Houstonians, we are naturally prepared for a temporary interruption in American life: a week’s worth of canned goods, an extra propane tank, a solar powered radio – but this is different.
I don’t know if CVH didn’t accept my eyewitness accounts of grocery shopping or what, but this morning she insisted on visiting the local megamart herself.
We actually did pretty well. They had just brought out pallets of toilet paper, kleenex, and butter. The toilet paper evaporated like spit on a hot iron skillet, but we got one for us and one for mama. We also got bread, eggs, bacon, canned soup, and blueberry pie. There was no chicken, ground meat, or fish (what are people doing with all that meat?). Plenty of Porterhouse steaks and broccoli, though.
And we got something more important than food or toilet paper – cat litter. They had a pallet sitting in the aisle. Not our cats’ preferred brand, but we must all make sacrifices in these troubled times.
I woke up CVH this a.m. with my rendition of the classic The Knack hit.
When you gonna give to me, g-give to me
Is it just a matter of time, corona?
Of course, there were about ten thousand of these already out on youtube.
Also went to the grocery this a.m. Finally snagged some potatoes and a loaf of bread (carbs will keep you alive). Milk is still coming in; you can’t hoard that, although I’m sure some people are trying. If I had been five minutes earlier, I could have gotten a pack of toilet paper; people must have been in line waiting for the doors to open. Their carts were overflowing, mostly with junk food. I looked at what the couple in front of me was putting on the belt – stacks of frozen pizzas and frozen convenience meals – and thought “That stuff is going to kill you before Wuhan does.”
The breakfast cereals were back, though. I guess it takes more time to eat through several boxes of those.
Grocery stores are starting to look like the Soviet Russian ones depicted in The Americans.
Fresh meat counter – empty. Completely. Bare, even.
No potatoes. No carrots. They did have broccoli and cauliflower and blueberries, so that’s what we got. No cottage cheese. Three containers of yogurt; I took one. There was milk and cheese and sauerkraut.
Canned food aisle? Fuhgeddaboudit. And no bread, not a loaf.
Breakfast cereal? Don’t make me laugh. There were several boxes of bran flakes, but that’s it.
And there was some frozen seafood. Probably because that’s one of the priciest items in the store.
This year we went to the Nature Center.
They had hors d’oeuvres and sweets for the sweet. The goat cheese-stuffed dates were particularly delicious.
After we ate, we got to meet Cornflake the corn snake, as well as some beetles and a millipede.
Then we went on the night hike. It was below freezing and it had rained two inches yesterday, so the trail was very muddy. Still, I enjoyed it. CVH, not so much.
Did LBJ really say this?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Bill Moyers claims he did.
If you Google it, you will likely find two types of results: those that use the quote without citation, and those that say it’s a myth.
Some of those who claim it’s a myth will say that attributing the quote to Bill Moyers is also false.
I went to the library and checked out Bill Moyer’s book.
On page 167: I asked him what was troubling him. “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,” he said.
So I don’t know if Lyndon actually said it, but Bill Moyers was there, and he tells us Lyndon did.
My wife says I have too much time on my hands, but I say this is the only way we will save our country from dezinformatsiya.
Let the squirrels carve your Halloween pumpkin. The cat will enjoy it, too:
