Quarantine - Day 49

photo by Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Another stellar spring day. Ella pulled me outdoors with her basketball to show off her improving between-the-legs dribble. Then we aired up the tires in the bikes and went for a ride looking for streets unridden before, which are getting fewer and fewer in number in our vicinity. Ella, who is developing a real gift for alley finds, found a metal shop cart without a thing wrong with it, and a pair of needle nose pliers with its nose slightly bent. I found a working gooseneck lamp. All these treasures we brought back to the garage, and after a bit of cleanup, the shop cart found something to cart in the garage while the needle nose pliers went into the vice until its bent nose was straightened out once again with the help of a garage-sale ball peen hammer that cost me seventy-five cents a while back. We hung the bikes back up very pleased with our ride and our finds, and Ella danced upstairs to make cupcakes.

Abbie spent the afternoon fashioning puppets while Laura tried her hand at barbering my scant but still unruly hair. It felt good for this sheep to get shorn, and although unsure of her cutting skills at first, Laura managed to distinguish herself as a fine amateur barber. Nothing feels quite like a brand new haircut.

Later, Donald Trump and Fox News conducted a “Town Hall” at the Lincoln Memorial. In our neighborhood, just down the at the corner of Lincoln and Lawrence keeping watch over his namesake avenue is the "Standing Lincoln", a bronze statue made by, Daniel Chester French, the same sculptor who did the "Sitting Lincoln" statue at the memorial. Before this particular Lincoln, Trump complained that no president, even the sixteenth, had been as maligned as he has been over the past three and a half years. Lincoln, who had more than just his character assassinated, just sat there speechless.