Counting Days

I'm sure I've written about how much I dislike the counting of the Omer.  Or not. 

Signing the tenai'm document.

For those who do not know, I'll explain. We got Ziggy's diagnosis of terminal cancer on the first day of Passover, the morning after the first Seder in 2009. Seven weeks later, he decided he wanted to see my folks for his birthday which fell on Shavuot that year, and Rabbi Allen arranged for the Junior Son and his then fiancee to have tenai'im, an old-fashioned betrothal on that Sunday so Ziggy could sign the document...and we all signed around him. He had the poor form to leave us  exactly one week later on the 16th day of Sivan, 5769 (2009) right after sundown. To all of  us, it seemed the counting of the Omer was the counting down of the last days of ZIggy's life. Because of that ritual, it's like a sledgehammer, reminding me daily that there are so many days left before his yahrzeit. 

But Ziggy's is not the only yarhzeit in Sivan. Grandpa Moishe, for whom the Senior Son is named, passed away with my dad holding his hand 41 years ago today, the 3rd of Sivan, 5739 (1979.) Uncle Budgie, Mom's younger brother, just stopped talked sitting in the waiting room at the podiatrist on the 15th of Sivan, 5775 (2015,) which happens the day before Ziggy's yarhzeit. 

As you might expect, Sivan is not my favorite month on the Hebrew calendar. It's a month of remembering. A month punctuated by yahrzeit candles. A month of wishing that instead of Little Miss visiting Saba at the cemetery for the first time, she was running to show him her first double-headed dandelion so she could get a hug. Little Miss and Young Sir will never know their Saba but through stories. And that breaks my heart the same way it broke my Dad's heart that Grandpa Moishe never got to see his grandsons. Dad thought Little Miss was the most  beautiful baby ever, even if he couldn't see her very clearly. We  talked about the unfairness of his holding her hand and not Ziggy holding her hand.  And Young Sir would have sent the whole lot of them into outer space with his corkscrew blond curls and infectious laugh. 

On the political front, Feckless Leader made a fascinating observation while he was touring the Owens & Minor distribution center in Allentown, Pennsylvania:

Don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They [the media] don’t want to write that.

Well, I've been told I'm also part of the media, fake news  or  othewise and I am happy to write about this on behalf of Feckless Leader: He's spot on right. If we did not test for COVID-19, we would  have no cases to report. That is absolute fact, and may very well rank as the truthiest statement he has made to date. At the same time, I would love to hear his explanation as to why the US has had 99,427 deaths since March 4th, 2020 from an illness with shared symptoms.

The firing of more Inspector Generals and the replacement of the heads of various agencies with people uniquely unqualified is nothing more than a harbinger of things to come. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Wear a mask and social distance yourself.

Now is NOT the time to become lax.

Flattening the curve does not mean the danger is  over;

it means  there are beds available in the ICU.