A New York state senator’s picture made the news this week. The picture was taken by a Reuters photographer. He’s in agony, his eyes tight shut against the pepper the police have sprayed in his eyes, his arms pulled behind him by police officers taking him into custody.

I’m seeing my family tomorrow. It was their idea. I’m delighted.  I’m also concerned.

When I was young, I spent three years dating a guy who wasn’t very nice. But his father was a lovely, kind man. Each week, his dad scrubbed the kitchen floor of their home with Murphy’s Oil Soap. He did it because he liked to do it. Every Sunday, we’d go there for dinner and underneath the cooking smells was the lingering smell of that floor soap.

Edward towers just behind the house, far too close for practicality. His size, and his proximity, seemed like a dangerous combination, but we hoped he’d be there for a long time to come. We couldn’t imagine taking him down.

Over the weekend, the crabapple tree was in full bloom. And it was covered with bees. Each blossom seemed to be humming. In just a few days, those blossoms are almost gone.

My cousin, who is perfectly likeable in person, is an Internet troll. He isn’t content to express his views on his social-media pages. He goes searching for other people’s pages to try to spark a spirited debate, or to mock, or to just contradict for contradiction’s sake. I just blocked him.

His magic was his voice. And his sense of humor.

Way too many people are fussed-up about wearing a mask, but who still insist they have a right to go out and mingle, other people be damned. One person did that at a local livestock auction last week. He hung around for eight hours, without a mask. He then tested positive for Covid-19. Health departments in three counties are trying to track down everyone who may have been exposed.

I’ve been given an opportunity to get to know my daughter in a new way. She’s got a podcast. The first thing I learned is that I’d like her even if she weren’t my daughter. She’s smart, she’s funny, and she’s interested in things that I find fascinating.

I knew when we reopened that we and other upstate regions were the canaries in the coal mine. We’re the test cases.