China City had the gall to shut down on day one of the Coronavirus pandemic.

It’s a fresh, new day here at Howdygram headquarters. Today is Saturday, just a few minutes past “high noon,” Sam is asleep on the sofa, the weather outside is dark and depressing — no sunshine? what the fuck! — and I’m enjoying raspberry green tea and ordering tasty shit from Amazon. Because that’s what I do when I’m bored.

Prince Charles has the Coronavirus and he’s been sequestered at Balmoral Castle.

Believe it or not, Dallas County’s COVID-19 “social distancing” and “shelter-in-place” directives really aren’t big hoo-hahs for yours truly because I’ve been housebound and bedridden for more than two years. While the rest of the planet tries to figure it all out, I’m in bed scanning the headlines and shaking my head. This morning, however, one news story stood out above the others …

I’m having horrible diabetic neuropathy issues in my feet today.

Hello, guys. It’s the wee hours of Monday morning — 12:40 a.m., in case you’re interested — and I’m still trying to figure out what happened to Saturday and Sunday. Sam tells me that I slept through nearly all of it, with the exception of a 15-minute visit from my new hospice case manager (an R.N. named Nancy) around noon on Saturday. I don’t remember much about Nancy except she had good hair.

I’m pretty sure we’ll never experience a Greek olive shortage in Texas.

There’s still hope for America, boys and girls. Sam just got home from Wal-Mart and they had all the essentials we’ve been trying to find for the last few days … toilet paper, paper towels and paper napkins! He didn’t over-buy anything, either, so there’s enough left on the shelves for other shoppers. He also brought home a jar of Greek olives, but I’m pretty sure we’ll never experience a Greek olive shortage in Texas. (But you never know.)

Oh my God, people … I’m so sick of Coronavirus news I want to SCREAM.

Oy, you’ll never believe what I just did. Never. Therefore I’ll begin tonight’s Howdygram post with one of my favorite topics!

Sam is the undisputed king of organization around here.

Happy Thursday night, boys and girls, and welcome to the Howdygram … your lighthearted alternative to COVID-19 and empty shelves at the local Wal-Mart.

There’s more to this story than pain.

I wanted to write a post several days ago but haven’t been awake long enough to string any meaningful sentences together. I do have lots to say, though, so I’ll try to take a stab at this. Get comfortable and pour yourself a glass of iced tea.

If you feel like remembering the Alamo, just get it done and move on.

I’m having a debate with myself right now. Do I want Chinese food for dinner or a cheeeburger and fries from McDonald’s? I’ve been craving both of them for the last few days, believe it or not. As soon as Sam wakes up from his late afternoon nap — which started out as an early afternoon nap — I’ll let him know what I want for dinner. In the meantime I’ll just lie here in bed diddling with the Howdygram and trying to pretend that I’m not having a hard time breathing today. (Arrgh! You guessed it … this is horrible.) When he wakes up I’ll ask Sam to increase the volume on my oxygen concentrator. It’s currently set at “level 6” and can go as high as “10.” (After that I’d need a stronger concentrator.)

The Howdygram Store is already stuffed with 675 iPhone cases. I just designed another 175.

This is definitely a new one for me. I’d written the first half of a Howdygram post, nodded off for a couple of hours, and when I woke up I realized I must have had my hand on the keyboard because the screen was filled with commas, one afer another, on and on and on … so many that I couldn’t scroll far enough to reach the end of them. Blogger has a nifty auto-save feature, though, so I decided to quit my browser (Safari) and relaunch it, figuring the post should’ve been intact from before my comma key had a cerebral hemorrhage.

I’ve got all 16 “Andy Hardy” movies stored on our DVR.

Yo. It’s me again. It’s the middle of the night — not quite 4 a.m. — and I don’t feel much like sleeping right now. That’s not exactly weird, to tell you the truth, because for most of my life I’ve always enjoyed productive explosions of creative energy while the rest of the world sleeps. In the past I produced newsletters, designed websites, ran my own chocolate company, authored a cookbook, started a memoir … and so on. These days, though, I use my nocturnal bursts of creativity to write the Howdygram and design attractive whatnots for The Howdygram Store, proving that life can be fine if you try hard enough … even for an occasionally-miserable, bedridden old coot like yours truly.

Real chicken that you refresh in hot water for three minutes. No kidding.

Hello, dear and faithful readers. I wanted to write a Howdygram post on Saturday but couldn’t make it happen, no-how. I was sick and miserable almost all damn day with crazy ailments I can barely recall, although I do remember just enough to post the following Shit-O-Meter readout.