#newsamehope / 4.20.20

What is new in the last 24 hours?

• A fourth person who tested positive for COVID at Cook County Jail has died. 194 detained human beings are currently being treated at Cermak and 21 people are being treated at local hospitals. 180 have tested positive and recovered. I’m not seeing the official total count, but I believe this means that 394 people have contracted COVID while awaiting their trial so far.

• Nurses stood in the middle of the street in Denver to prevent “protesters” (terrorists/radicalized consumers) from wreaking needless havoc while advancing their dangerous agenda.

What is the same?

• The seriousness with which children approach tasks like throwing rocks from one patch of grass to another. They have it all worked out.

What is the hope?

• Rare Tea Cellar. I forgot how much flavor tea can have. My (early, very early, but I needed an excuse) birthday gift to myself was loose leaf tea from them. It’s so nice to look forward to something as simple as pouring hot water over dried leaves. My oldest ritual. They’re located right here in Chicago (on Ravenswood), and they already rely on their shipping business.

• Tulip time. They’ve arrived in Chicago. In flowerbeds on purpose and in the middle of lawns on accident. They’re my favorite, and I think it’s because the red-orange ones make something in my chest vibrate.

  Photo: Evanston’s lakefront. Spring 2019.