God has a sense of humor. In the midst of the corona virus pandemic, the stock market wobbling and the current administration, we have had wonderful weather. Remember 9/11? It too was a perfect day, weather wise.

Books to start reading in quarantine: George Eliot’s Middlemarch. After the first chapter buy the audio. Naxos has a wonderful and pricy edition read by Juliet Stevenson. Years ago, BBC had a wonderful presentation. If you can find it, I recommend that you glue yourself to the TV and watch it.

Another book that’s usually read when stranded on a desert island is Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. I can read a chapter or two and have tried listening to an audio. For me, it’s deadly. Right up there with Joyce’s Ulysses of which I didn’t understand a word. 

Minister Micah Busey leads a daily meditation group during these troubling times.  It’s on video so I can see everybody’s living interior but they can also see mine. I tune in promptly at 9 am but before I do, I comb my hair, put a sweater on over my night gown and make sure underwear isn’t hanging from a door knob.  It’s a self-affirming 45 minutes. It’s gentle and kindly. That also describes Micah.  

I found Governor Cuomo amazingly down-to-earth when he gave a recipe for alcohol wipes. “So buy some alcohol,” he snarled, “and put it on some cotton. That’s it.” He’s an able politician but I disagree with his  attempt to kill off New York’s Third parties.

Killing off New York’s Third parties – Not Today!

03/13/20 — The New York State Green and Libertarian Parties applaud the State Supreme Court ruling that stopped the Democratic Party’s attempt to assassinate smaller political parties.

Justice Ralph Boniello Thursday tossed out the law establishing a commission purportedly set up to create a system of publicly financed campaigns, but instead deviated into attacks on third party and independent candidates. The Judge ruled that the measure creating the panel was “an improper and unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.”

Officials from both parties vowed at a December press conference that a joint lawsuit against the commission’s overreach would be forthcoming if the State Legislature did not act and the commission’s recommendations became law in 2020. The lawsuits brought by the Working Families and Conservative Parties in state court have now turned the tide against the Democratic Party’s heavy-handed attacks against their independent and third party competition.

“In the age of Trump, it is sad to see the Democratic Party use their control of the state government to suppress political debate and electoral challenges by true national third parties. Democracy is on life support in New York and our country. It was a slap in the face to everyday New Yorkers for Governor Cuomo and the Democrats to unilaterally rig the system in an attempt to crush any political party who challenges them,” said Green Party of New York Co-Chair Gloria Mattera.

The Green and Libertarian Parties are prepared to file a lawsuit in federal court to prevent further attacks on third parties and independents if the lawsuits in state court by the Conservative and Working Families do not ultimately prevail against appeal.

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college.