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The Virus Verses: Wherein the Crone Counts the Omer

5/7/2020

One, two,
could it be true?
Three, four,
millions more?
Five, six,
Dr. Brix,
Seven, eight,
tell us straight
Nine, ten,
It’s over . . . when?

*

Numbers and counting have been much on my mind of late.

Did I count to twenty while washing my hands? Am I six feet away from my neighbor? Did I leave those Amazon deliveries in the garage for twenty-four hours (or longer) before I opened them? Has there really been (as of May 7, 2020) only eighty-six deaths statewide in Nebraska (not to minimize the loss . . .) or is someone cooking the numbers? But more important — at least on a personal level — how many more days/weeks/months must Don and I count before we feel safe enough to leave the house, hug our much loved family and friends until they cry “Uncle!” and go get haircuts.

Geez. We might as well ask a Ouija board . . .

Today, I’m even more mindful of numbers and counting, because as I write this we’re just a few days past the mid-point in Sefirat HaOmer * — the seven weeks that Jewish tradition commands us to count between Passover and the festival of Shavuot, the holidays that mark the liberation of the Children of Israel from their physical bondage in Egypt to the morning they received the Torah and their spiritual freedom at Mt. Sinai.

And Oh my Lord, what a morning it was.

“At daybreak, there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain and its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the shofar sound grew exceedingly stronger, and all the people of the camp stationed themselves beneath the mountain. And when the people saw the fiery words pour out of the mouth of the Almighty in seventy languages, accompanied by sparks shaped like letters and watched as they were inscribed on the stone tablets, they fainted dead away.” So goes one Midrash.

Turn the page and you find a Midrash that's a complete 180. “When the Holy One gave the Torah, no bird screeched, no fowl flew, no ox mooed, none of the angels flapped a wing, nor did the seraphim chant kadosh, kadosh, kadosh — Holy, Holy, Holy. The sea did not roar, and none of the creatures uttered a sound. Throughout the entire world there was only a deafening silence as the Divine Voice went forth speaking,
Anochi Adonai Elohecha. I am the Lord your God.”

Which version to believe? Flip a coin.
In either case, the revelation at Sinai was an overwhelming, life-altering experience.
The exact words I’d use for our days in Covid-19 isolation.

In her recent Tablet Magazine article, Counting the Omer in a World Without Time,
Shira Telushkin wrote, “As days blur into one another, finding value in a Jewish ritual (counting the Omer) that gives each day its own specific meaning has never felt so critical.” Here, Telushkin is referencing the Kabbalists who “filled the emptiness of counting with their wildly impractical but optimistic conviction that each day is not just some holding unit of time but holds the promise of a distinct and unique virtue in its own right.” Those virtues (seven, say the Kabbalists) are lovingkindness, discipline, compassion, determination, humility, connection and dignity. And so, a pattern emerges, number-wise.

As we count the time from Passover to Shavuot, the mystics suggest we strive (during each of the seven weeks) to examine a different virtue or attribute — one week for kindness, another week for discipline, another for compassion. You get it. Of course, the Kabbalists (my all-time favorite navel-gazers) went waaaay down in the weeds and assigned each of the days in the seven weeks another seven qualities for a total of forty-nine. “After all,” Telushkin continued, “no two days of the Omer hold the same characteristics. Instead, each day we are called upon to act with some new understanding of the world, or some new understanding of ourselves.”

And there’s the kicker. Truly understanding ourselves means looking at personal traits, some of which we’d rather close our eyes to. But take heart. The Talmud teaches that the holy ark in the Tabernacle contained two sets of the Ten Commandments --
the fragments of the first set, and the whole tablets of the second set.
The lesson?
Our brokenness is just as acceptable as our perfection. Our flaws and weaknesses can be embraced. Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist, author and teacher of Jewish mysticism, says, “For ultimately the whole and the broken live side by side in us all, as our broken dreams and shattered visions exist alongside our actual lives.”

Right now, despite the isolation, my actual life is pretty damn good. Don and I and our kids and grandkids are well (p’tui, p’tui, p’tui), we love our home, we have enough food, Netflix is at the ready, and the telephone, email, ZOOM and FaceTime keep us connected to our family and community. It’s a cliche, but I'll say it anyway.
During these weeks of counting the Omer, I count my blessings.

*

By the way — if you’re wondering when we’ll be able to wander free again,
consider this. The name, COVID-19, reflects the fact that the virus was first reported
in 2019. Now, if you love gematria as much as I do, please note that according to
the website, www.gematrix.org, the numbers 2-0-1-9 add up to See You In July.

The same numbers also add up to Trump Is Not Our Savior.
Duh . . .

*

Rest, friends.
Give yourself permission to rest.

Oz

* a measure of grain.

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Rosh Hodesh Iyar: Wherein the Crone Confronts the New Moon

4/25/2020

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The man in the moon is a lady.
A lady in lipstick and curls.
The cow that jumped ovah
Cried, "Jumpin' Jehovah,
I think it's just one of the girls!"
Oh, her friends are the stars and the planets.
She sends the Big Dipper a kiss.
So don't ever offend her.
Remember her gender.
The man in the moon is a miss
from Mame, by Jerry Herman

*

Rosh Hodesh (Hebrew for beginning/head of the month) is the name for the first day
of every month in the Hebrew calendar. Since ancient times, each Rosh Hodesh --
each new moon — has been a special holiday, particularly for women. According to a midrash, God gave Rosh Hodesh to women as a monthly day of rest as a reward for their refusal to participate in the sin of the Golden Calf.

The new moon of the Hebrew month of Iyar is observed this year from sundown on Thursday, April 23 to sundown on Saturday, April 25. According to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the name Iyar is an acronym for Ani Adonai Rofecha, ‘I am God your Healer’, and is a special month in which we can find healing and wholeness.

Oh, if only . .

Changing gears here . . .

*

I’m a superstitious Crone.

When I spill salt, I toss more salt over my left shoulder. When I hear bad — or even good news — I say, “P’tui, p’tui, p’tui.” Furthermore, I wear charms and amulets engraved with Hebrew blessings, sport red Kabbalah strings and hamsas to ward off the evil eye, wrap Buddhist prayer beads around my wrists to lessen anxiety and worry, along with carnelian stones to keep me grounded and foster courage. Also, I’m rarely without my blue sodalite bracelet dangling a charm of St. Michael the Archangel (Chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, deliver us from all evil by your gracious protection . . .) made by a Catholic friend, because why not? A Crone needs to cover her bases, especially in these dystopian times.

Which means I’m also open to other methods of outwitting goblins, fiends and
Lilith-look-alikes. Got incantations and spells to keep demonic shedim away? Email ‘em to me, ASAP. Know a golem who’s looking for work? Give him my home address. I come by this honestly, friends. When a black sock, stuffed with silver dollars went missing from its hiding place under the stove in my childhood home, Poppa insisted the gelt was stolen by a band of imps. Again, why not?

My grandmother, my Bubbie Rochel, was no slouch when it came to superstition, either. Many’s the night we sat on the porch swing, looking at the heavens while she filled my young head with stories of the women in her Russian shtetl, waiting on shpilkehs every month for the new moon. And how, during the healing month of Iyar, they boldly dispensed their folk remedies as needed.

“One Shabbos during Iyar,” my Bubbe whispered while the swing creaked, “Shmuel the tailor swallowed a little chicken bone and it caught (p’tui, p’tui, p’tui) in his throat. Terrible terrible, with the coughing, the choking noises. But Rivkah, such a clever wife, pulled the leg bone from the chicken, held in on Shmuel’s skull (she removed first, his yarmulke), and bim, bam, bom, Shmuel spit out the little bone and finished, thanks God, his dinner.”

“A chicken leg on his head?” I said.

“Of course, if Shmuel, instead, had been burning with fever, Rivkah would have run to the yard, found a black hen, shaved Shmuel’s head, put the hen on it, and left it there until, from the blood, the hen stuck. Then Rivkah would have run with Shmuel to the mikveh and waited while he stood in the water, up to his neck, until he felt faint and then she’d tell him, ‘Come out of the water already, Shmuley. Come sit. Rest.’”

“What if Shmuel was too weak from fever to run to the mikveh, Bubbe?”

“Then he eats an onion. If he’s still hot, he lets the rain of Iyar fall on his head or, even better, opens wide his mouth so the rain goes straight in. Of course, Osneleh, to recover from sickness takes, besides a clever wife, also mazel. Not everyone, when tsoris comes, has a chicken leg, a black hen or rain. Sometimes not even an onion.”
As a little girl, I chose to believe in Poppa’s imps and in Bubbe’s shtetl remedies. As a Crone, I know better, but the magic in these stories still charms me.

Now. When Bubbie wasn’t warning me against cutting my toenails on the new moon, she introduced me to tehenes, devotional prayers composed generations ago for use on Rosh Hodesh. Unlike classical Hebrew prayers created by men primarily for men, tehenes were written in Yiddish by women for women. They share the same yearnings, hopes and beliefs expressed in the men’s prayers, but tehenes are informal, conversational and intimately personal. They reflect the very real fears of shtetl women. The ever present threat of war and program, of famine and infant death. And though these fears are often personified by demons, imps and evil eyes — and though tehenes were written in a language few of us speak or understand — the honesty of their words transcends the differences in culture and language and can still touch us today.

The anonymous author of one tehene wrote:
Master of the World. Listen to my plea.
   For I, a poor woman, want to reveal to you
  all that is in my heart, just as a child confides in a father.
   Send good angels to lead me on the right way.
   May there be no tears in my eyes because of worry.
   Illuminate my children's eyes through the study of your laws
   and may they not forget what they have learned.
   Protect my family from all harm.
   From sickness, sorrow, mishap and hunger.
   May we not have to be fed by others.
I beg you to listen.
   Dispel the ominous fears of my heart.
   Save me from the cold.
   Protect me from thieves, from gossip and from the evil inclination.
   Bring my family sustenance, an honorable livelihood, success and joy.
   On this Rosh Hodesh, on this New Moon, shield us from darkness and give us light.

Inspired by tehenes written by our shtetl sisters, today’s women also write prayers in celebration of Rosh Hodesh and the new moon. Prayers to overcome the darkness. Prayers of hope and comfort that ease us as we grow older. Like these words, taken from Rabbi Vicki Hollander:

God who sees. Open our eyes to know we can come alive.
No matter how dark the world is, we can renew and blossom.
One who envisions, let us be as the shaked almond tree.
Let us blossom in the chill of winter.
Let us lift our branches to the sky defiantly, proudly, with grace.
Let us kiss the stars and hug the earth.
Let us stand despite wind and storm, heat and drought,
May we change in our seasons, aging with grace,
growing yet another ring,
  a circle marking our live’s passages, etched in our bark.

Blu Greenberg, a rock-star feminist, writes that logic would suggest we celebrate the full moon. After all, that is when it is the most rich, the brightest, the most exuberant. Why not celebrate in the beauty of a full, round, beaming moon and in the safety of its glowing light? But then she answers her own question. Rosh Hodesh is tied to the peak of night darkness rather than to the peak of its light because the central message of Rosh Hodesh is that each new month is again a time for hope, optimism, renewal. Sounds good, but today, in April of 2020, my reservoir of hope and optimism is pretty much dry. Still, like all of you, I keep putting on my big girl pants.

And so, as big girls and boys with lots of time on our hands, we could consider the light of the newborn crescent moon as our guide toward personal renewal, too. If we can Kondo our closets, we can ‘declutter’ ourselves, right? Discard old habits, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, fears, behaviors that don’t fit anymore. Let go of the stuff that doesn’t bring us joy. Sound like a tall order? Agreed. But look at the new moon and take heart. She proves that change takes patience and tenacity. It comes little by little, in phases. But it comes. So let’s give ourselves permission to go easy. Travel light. And if amulets help us get there, why not?

*

In this new month of Iyar
and in all the months to come . . .
May you feel safe and protected.
May you feel content.
May you feel healthy and strong.
May you live with ease.
Amen.

,My Bubbie Rochel and me on her porch,
long before I became a Crone.

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Virus Verses: Wherein the Crone Confronts the Peril of Dry Bones.

4/13/2020

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No. The HOA Doesn’t Cover Everything
(with a nod to Old Mother Hubbard)

Janet Bellmondo
lived in a condo
that catered to old men and Crones.
Guys shoveled her drive,
kept bushes alive
and hooked up her oven and phones.

The condo told Janet,
“We’ll give you new granite.
We’ll replace old gutters and floors.
But try not to slip
and fracture a hip,
because if you break it, it’s yours.”

*

The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones
by Gustave Dore

This past Saturday morning during our congregation’s Zoom service, Rabbi reminded us that this was the Shabbat on which we traditionally chant the haftarah re: Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, with all its scattered vertebra rattling together with sinew & flesh & skin plus the breath & wind & spirit gathering from the four corners of the earth until ZAP — dusty ulna & femurs & skulls snapped together and skeletons stood up on their metatarsals like soldiers.

At that point, I spaced off the service and focused on Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem dry bones, humming the song inside my head because sciatica was moving painfully from my rear down my left leg which happens more and more as I sit, captive, reading or watching TV or futzing on my computer for these Zoom Shabbats when, to be honest, I often spend less time praying and more time looking at the thumbnail faces of my fellow congregants (Fem.) to see how much their roots have grown out since last week or if they’re wearing makeup, and every Shabbat I’m thrilled to see one of our members (Masc.) spiffed up in a white shirt with tie and sport coat like he’s davening in shul and not at home where what difference would it make but come on, it’s Shabbat, and he’s going to honor it, by golly. So, yes. I lost my concentration, my intention, my kavanah, over Ezekiel’s vision and Dem Bones, which segued into my bones and three topics to Google and share with you.

1. The Vision
Prophets often acted and spoke erratically for dramatic effect, but Ezekiel’s behavior was so bizarre it's been the subject of psychoanalytical studies. One, titled Ezekiel’s Abnormal Personality, another titled Swallowing the Scroll, claim that though capable of great religious insight, Ezekiel showed signs of emotional paralysis, hallucinatory ecstasy, delusions of grandeur, etc., all consistent with paranoid schizophrenia. To be fair, various commentators and psychiatrists poo-poo these diagnoses, and I applaud them. Why not simply pretend Zeke stumbled onto a patch of Xtra-potent mushrooms. Or inhaled second-hand smoke from his hashish-using Bedouin neighbors. In any case, Ezekiel lived in interesting times, as do we. Seeing so much death (even hearing about so much death, if you get my drift) could make a person loony, right? Right.

2. Dem Bones
With lyrics inspired by Ezekiel and music composed in the 1920s by the African-American author/poet/songwriter James Weldon Johnson, Dem Bones, (writes Helen Brown in the Financial Times) was handed down to us from a place of profound suffering, the prophecy of a Jewish slave in Babylonian captivity, passed from slave to slave until it became a familiar gospel sermon in African-American churches. The biblical passage is sometimes interpreted as a promise of resurrection (let’s not go there . . .) but Ezekiel’s vision was of the subjugated Jewish people and their survival. Though Dem Bones sounds like a goofy anatomy lesson for kids, Johnson wrote the song’s melody while serving as Executive Secretary of the NAACP, determined to bring national attention to the racism, lynching, and segregation of his time. Today, says Helen Brown, Dem Bones echoes an ancient biblical refugee crisis and stands as the perfect anthem for the current struggle for racial, gender and economic equality, to name a few of society’s shortcomings. Amen, sister. Great backstory.

3. My bones
Okay. I know that sitting too much is bad juju. For ages, my family and friends (frustrated like Eliza Doolittle at Ascot) have yelled, “Move your bloomin’ arse.” My FitBit pleads, WALK ME. So for a week, maybe two, I climb on the treadmill. Then I stop. Please don’t ask, Why? I dunno. I do know that my joints, to remain healthy, need to move and stay lubricated, otherwise they’ll soon creak like rusty hinges on an old screen door. So consider this an invitation. More like an SOS. Will someone out there please be my exercise buddy? Shoot me an email: ozzienogg@cox.net and we’ll set up a schedule. Like so many steps on so many days. You name it. Remember. To think about the welfare of another person is a mitzvah of the highest order.

*

Which takes us back to last Shabbat’s services. Several times in the liturgy we say, Oseh Shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleynu, v’al kal yisrael, v’imru, ameyn. May the One who creates peace on high bring peace to us and to all Israel. And let us say: Amen. This week, Rabbi Steven suggested we add the words v’al kal yoshvei tevel to the end of the prayer, making it now read: May the One who creates peace on high bring peace to us and to all Israel and to all who dwell on earth. And let us say: Amen. Oh, such a meaningful addition. To acknowledge that others on this planet deserve peace, too, and that other lives, besides our own, matter. Love it, Steven. Thank you.

Well, waddaya know? It seems I didn’t space off the entire service after all.

*

Another Metta prayer to take you through the week.

May all beings have fresh clean water to drink.
May all beings have food to eat.
May all beings have a home.
May all beings have someone to share love with.
May all beings know their true purpose.
May all beings be well and happy.
May all beings be free from suffering.
Today I shall do what I can, to make this so.

Amen

Sending love all over the place.
Take care.

Oz

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The Crone's Virus Verses: Wherein She Meets Zoombombing . . .

4/5/2020

Comments

A Virus Verse spoof on Mary Had a Little Lamb . . .

Welcome to the world of Zoom
  with countless ears and eyes.
Invite Zoom to your living room?
  It may come in disguise.

Zoom hides in bombs, it’s learned to troll,
  which is against the rules.
Zoom posts hate speech (it thinks that's droll)
  at synagogues and schools.

Zoombombing (says the FBI)
  is now the latest kick
for crazies they identify
  as flat-out, truly sick.

So if you Zoom your Seder . . .
  well, invite just friends and kin.
And if Elijah rings your bell . . .
  is it safe to let him in?

*

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been part of several Zoom meetings. But only a few days ago did I learn about Zoombombing — where intruders find links to video worship services, classes, A.A. meetings, baby showers — even a Ph.D dissertation --
on which they post racial slurs and porn. According to NPR, since the Corona Virus forced folks to stay in their homes, Zoom has become wildly popular.

Wildly? No kidding. The company claims 200 million people used the app on a daily basis in March, up from just 10 million in December. Thus Eric Yuan, Zoom’s creator,
is faced with a massive nut-case challenge. “We didn’t design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socializing from home,” Yuan whined. “The entire Zoom engineering team will now pivot to working on safety and security.”

Call it Yuan doing a Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, this social distancing thingie can tap into either our inner grouch or our inner child. If it’s the latter, then Zoom is our collective favorite babysitter, texting on her phone while we get into mischief. Like, why do homework in our bedrooms when Zoom’s Virtual Backgrounds let us us study on the moon or in Homer Simpson’s house?

Take yesterday. At our Zoom Shabbat services, one couple swapped their real kitchen for a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge. Another duo left their comfy den and plopped themselves down somewhere in what looked like arid Israel. Another fellah (who I know was in Minnesota) seemed to be davening in a Costa Rican rainforest. Zoom Virtual Backgrounds. An innocent enough escape mechanism, when you’ve been stuck at home, in the same rooms, with the same person, eating the same boring leftovers for an eternity forever and always plus you desperately need a haircut and pedicure. (Oh, shut up, inner grouch.)

For now, I’ll forgo a background that lets me escape my messy digs for Number 10 Downing Street, and continue hanging out (most often) in that black Zoom square with just my name on it and the video turned off. (I mean, who wants to see me in my PJs chomping double stuff Oreos during Musaf?) I may, however, succumb to the Zoom Touch Up My Appearance filter that the website promises will minimize wrinkles so I look younger than the Crone I am during our across-the-miles family Seder this Wednesday. Also, should I care to look particularly awesome to my kids and grandkids while slurping my soup, I’ll consider this online tip. “Everybody knows how to take a selfie, dude. You want to shoot from above, not looking up your nose.” Right.

So, enough of plagues and being stuck in tight quarters.

Next year, if not in Jerusalem, may we please please please be free to gather ‘round our honest-to-goodness tables with the people we love. Everyone whole and healthy and here for the hugging.

Dayenu.

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The Crone's Garden of Virus Verses #4. Where the Crone Finds Herself Beside Herself

3/30/2020

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At the Seaside by Robert Louis Stevenson
     (with only a passing similarity to the original . . .)

*

The Crone is Beside Herself
Our kids brought groceries to our door.
They left them on the breezeway floor
   and gently crept away.

The bags sat out for several hours
while I mixed potent cleansing powers
   of bleach and Lysol Spray.

I spritzed the cans, the grapes, the bread.
How long before the bugs are dead?
   Does Dr. Fauci know?

Do I feel anxious? Bet your ass.
Will we all buy the farm, en masse?
   I’m hoarding Lexepro . . .

*

If you’re not a Woody Allen anxious type, the above scenario might seem melodramatic.
But this Nervous Nellie, Our Lady of Perpetual Overthinking, isn’t worried about a lack of toilet paper. Nuh-uh. I worry about my current supply of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman calmatants, and (chass v’cholileh) should they run out before the villainous virus runs its course or CVS is shuttered, then who can this Crone turn to?

To Maimonides.

Back in the 1100s, the Sephardic philosopher/astronomer/Torah scholar/physician Moses ben Maimon (aka Maimonides, or the Rambam) was recognized as “a healer of the body and the mind” for his grasp of the connection between physical and mental well-being. “If emotional stress is maintained for a long period,” Maimonides wrote in Regimen of Health, “one will definitely become ill, for constant anxiety damages the body.”

And so, to counteract the effects of anxiety and stress on his patients, Maimonides concocted a Medieval Herbal Smoothie. The instructions on the bottle read, “This anti-anxiety formula should be taken regularly, at all times. Its effects are that sadness and anxieties disappear. This is a remedy of which no equal can be found in gladdening, strengthening and invigorating the psyche. It should always be in your possession.”

Blenders ready, kids? Here’s the recipe.

Take one pound fresh rose petals, 1/2 pound ox tongue, two ounces lavender, raw silk, chopped fumitory seeds and citron peel. Steep the whole in six pounds of hot water for one day and one night. Then boil well, crush and filter in a strainer, throw over it six pounds of wild sorrel and put over a slow fire to attain the constituency of syrup. Spice with Iraqi musk and serve. (Before you poo-poo this, Maimonides’ formula contains ingredients that today’s docs consider some of the most effective anti-stress herbs. No mention is made of ox-tongue.)

It’s clear that Maimonides was into holistic medicine. He used aromatherapy — “good odors, like musk, ambergris, basil, rose water, lily and violet” — and suggested “strengthening the Vital Faculty with musical instruments, by bringing the patient joyful news and by telling tales that divert him and make him laugh, and by the presence of someone whose company cheers him.” (Which means ix-nay on watching White House press conferences. Just saying . . .)

Maimonides also believed we should live in the moment. “Most thoughts that cause distress, sorrow, sadness or grief occur from one of two things. Either one thinks of the past or one thinks of something that may occur in the future. Yet sorrow and gloom over the past is of no value. It is the occupation of fools. Similarly, anxiety that results from thoughts about what may happen in the future is pointless, because every outcome lies in the realm of possibility.”

Oi, Moishe, Moishe.
You tell me it’s pointless to think about the future, but when/if my stash of Lexapro is kaput, where the hell will I find fumitory seeds and Iraqi musk?

Meanwhile (to quote Woody Allen in Play It Again, Sam), if anyone needs me I’ll be home, on the floor, having a panic attack.

*

Love to all.
And rest in the way things are.

Oz

At the Seaside

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
   To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
   Till it could come no more.

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The Crone's Garden of Virus Verses #2

3/19/2020

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(A totally totally tongue-in-cheek take on My Shadow by R. L. Stevenson)

I have an aging husband who goes in and out with me.
He’s shrinking by the minute. Bald and bent and cannot see.
I’m no spring chicken either — crepe-y skin and saggy boobs.
Senior moments. Indigestion. And my joints could use a lube.

In our heyday, we were movers. We were shakers. We were BIG.
Now for all our well-earned wisdom no one seems to give a fig.
We were once the top bananas. Fans threw roses at our feet.
Now we’re
Land lines.
Dial-up modems.
Sony Walkman.
Obsolete.

(sigh . . .)

We didn’t have a notion that the world would soon capsize,
and guarantee our status and supremacy would rise!
We’re on the nightly news! The New York Times above the fold!
And why? Because Corona Virus dearly loves the old!

We welcome the attention! (Now our kids call every day!)
We’re popular again! We’re in the spotlight! Hip Hurray!
Yes, the market took a dive but stock in Golden Years is high!
Who wuddah thought we’d get our second wind before we die!

*

Of course, the reality we live in is not one bit funny.
Plus, it's raining here today.
But Don and Harold brought me a glazed donut from LaMar's which raised my spirits mightily.

Comments

March 19th, 2020

3/19/2020

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The Crone's Garden of Virus Verses: #1

3/16/2020

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A Crone’s Garden of Virus Verses: #1 March 16, 2020
(with apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson)

Oh, how I’d like to go out in the car,
   out to buy milk and bread.
Our corner market is not very far . . .
   still I am filled with dread!

  *
Up every aisle and jammed wall to wall
   lurk folks with their dripping snouts.
Touching and coughing and A-choo-ing all
   over the Brussels sprouts.

*

When will I look at blueberries again?
   Look at a quince once more?
Not ’til the CDC gives its amen.
   Then I’m off to the grocery store.

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