Mr. Moneysworth

Covid?  Am I silly to worry about Covid?  The Girl Who Won't Ask Me Out wrote a few days ago that she had "a cold."  But days went by and she wasn't getting better.  I asked if she had taken a Covid test, that it was going around.  She wrote yesterday and said I was right.  She sent a photo of her test.  Positive.  She got the 'Vid.  I joked that it was all those nights at the bar.  She wrote back and said, "Every person I have told knows a bazillion other people with COVID right now…mask up!"  

The 'Vid is on the rise.  She's been "down" with it for six days now.  New strains.  What to do, though?  Stay home for another three years?  

I must make my travel decision soon.  Like today.  Flights are cheap.  Pod and Yotel hotel rooms are tiny but I will be alone and who spends their time in their room on a trip to the city but for sleeping anyway?  What I'm saying is that it is affordable.  

In the spirit of adventure, I went out to eat last night.  Well. . . not night.  It was 5:30.  I was looking for the Early Bird Special.  Whatever happened to those?  I was, however, early enough to get a seat at the small bar.  The restaurant was warm, though, and the beautiful psychopath with the many tattoos did not seem happy.  Then again, she never does.  But for the disdain bordering on hatred in her eyes when she looks at me, she is exactly my kind of girl.  I don't know what I might have done.  She kibitzes with others, but she is always cold ice when she has to wait on me.  

I ordered simply--an arugula salad, chicken piccata, and Chianti Classico.  Being early, the restaurant was not crowded and the food came out tout de suite.  

Dean Martin sang "Volare" in the background.  

It was quick, and dinner was over just like that (finger snap).  The beautiful angry woman slid the check my way.  I tipped her by custom.  I was back on the street in the terribly hot late afternoon sun by six o'clock, fifty dollars poorer.  

I did not feel I had gotten my money's worth.  

Home on the deck, the cat did not come for dinner.  She had had no breakfast, either.  I wonder where else she eats.  I poured an after dinner drink and was happy that my deck is now in the shade as the day drifted into history.

I find it harder to get my moneys worth in this new economy.  Nobody wants to work, but everybody wants to be rich.  They are paying people more money than ever, yet they still can't get workers.  It's a weird economy.  I don't get it.  It is probably best if I don't trouble my pretty little head about such things.  

"You keep making things and dreaming, honey.  It will be fine." 

Like clockwork, a hurricane threatens to hit the state just after Labor Day.  So I almost read.  I've decided not to follow along with the predicted hurricane updates until they are here.  I have food.  Rather, my mother does.  She's old school canned food rich.  She has a pantry full.  There is nothing to do, really but sit and ride one out whenever it comes and hope for the best.  The trees are trimmed and that's as much as I can do.  My gosh, that little feral cat has survived a lot of hurricanes.  She has the wisdom.  

It has been the hottest year in recorded history.  Still, my conservative friend thinks it a lot of hype.  Media event.  He has a degree in entomology from the same grand university as I.  I don't know what is wrong with him, really.  Conspiracy theories are just more fun than science, I guess.  And a lot easier, too.  I should get him to read Pynchon.  Conspiracies abound.  

That's all I have today.  Nothing.  I could complain more.  Three nights of bad sleep. . . but who the heck cares.  Half of you can't sleep, either.  We are like primitive people.  They slept fitfully at night and would get up and spend hours making spears or eating leftovers before going back to bed.  Bed?  Mats.  Woven hammocks.  I've been thinking about that.  There is a Tempur-Pedic shop on the Boulevard.  Directly across the street a new Saatva store is opening.  These expensive mechanically adjustable beds are the new luxury item that distinguish the wealthy from the poor.  While the hoi-polloi order online mattresses from Avocado Green or lesser companies that deliver them in a box, the rich are easing their aching backs and hips and knees with "zero gravity" sleep.  I know I would sleep better in a bed that sensed when I snored and gently lifted my head six degrees, and I actually would not have to pay tax on the purchase if my doctor wrote a letter saying I needed it.

I'm thinking about it.  They deliver and set up the whole thing, and you have 90 days to decide if you want to keep it.  If not, they remove it and give you a full refund.  

Maybe, you know. . . I could get my money's worth.