Our tantrumy-toddler-in-chief is busy insulting desperate governors and proactive manufacturers, because they’re not appreciative enough?!   Our US death toll has surpassed all the other countries, while exhausted medical personnel are resorting to trash bags and rags in lieu of actual equipment.  Meanwhile, in backward states like ours,  governors continue to make light of it all and call for churches and tourist traps to reopen, while medieval pastors predictably blame gays, abortionists, and the Chinese for the virus.  And mobs of rats are roaming the deserted streets of New Orleans, searching for food.  What century is this, again?  Leeches, anyone?  Got some laudanum?

But nature rolls on, oblivious to our human ineptitude.  Incongruously, it’s a perfect spring day today, as if the world is not dying by the thousands all around us.  So much is surreal about this novel coronavirus.  It’s like a war of the worlds, viral vs. human.  No one knows how it ends, other than not well.  Meanwhile, here are cheery native trees, flowering shrubs, violets, tropical orchids, and a languid cat for your quarantine enjoyment.