Darling Sylvia,

COVID-19 has changed our language. Having a safe bubble and a safe pod have become the “new normal.” But what is so new about normal?  Having an Alma College lassie and a cat or cats in my bubble has been normal for 53 years.  I think that having a daughter, a son in love and three grands in my pod is normal, although I suspect that my sixteen-year-old granddaughter has slipped a boyfriend into my pod, but that is a topic for another old man’s rant.

Being in your bubble means living close to you. I like being close to you.  In fact, I have liked it a lot for a long time. I think reading detective novels in front of the fire, emptying the dishwasher, making the bed beside you, and having roses on the breakfast table is normal.  I think it is normal that at one o’clock I lay down for a reposo nap with a grandma on my right and a black and white tomcat on my left, both needing to be cuddled. I think that a cat at the door waiting to be let out and ten minutes later a cat at the window waiting to be let in is normal. I think that sharing orchids all year long is normal.  I think setting a pretty suppertime table is normal.  I have even learned that it is normal for me to need a 30-minute WW Walk to the Beat while you are exercising at Curves.

Some things are normal for me; other things are not normal.  Zumba in the kitchen at 9 o’clock in the morning still is not normal.  Zoom church service and Detroit Lions football with cardboard fans in the stands is not normal.  That you still love this seventy-three-year-old Delt Sig defensive end makes you not normal, but please, please, please do not stop now!

Love you, Eddie Bert