5 Best Reasons for Humming Hallelujah All Day, Every Day

These days I’ll take good news where I can get it.

Call me a good news junkie, but these days, who can blame me? If I lived in the western part of Australia where they pummeled COVID-19 into oblivion sometime in the last millennia (isn’t that how long the pandemic has been upon us), then maybe I’d still be my jaded, snarky old self.

I’ve been at one with my small one-bedroom apartment with its questionable plumbing and antique linoleum for almost a year. And frankly, when I look in the mirror these days, no way can I find a good side for a profile pic anymore. The only angle I want is out. Of my apartment, the politics, the doomscroll of dreary news day after day.

There, now that I got all that off my chest, don’t you feel better?

So maybe you’ll understand why I’m lolling around my digs these last few days singing Hallelujah at the top of my lungs.

I don’t worry about the cackling disturbing my neighbors. What the jobless rate and WFH craze increasing flight to the burbs, I no longer have a neighbor within the city limits.

So, the good news gods have hit my zip code, giving me not one reason for shouting Hallelujah but five.

1. My landlord won’t lose out on any rent during the pandemic.

It turns out that in rent-controlled San Francisco, my landlord put a moratorium on rent increases during the pandemic. A friend and I wondered what will happen when the crisis is over, and things go back to normal. Hallalujah. Landlords can bank rental increases ,and our guy can increase three-years-worth of back rent. Lucky us.

I don’t resent paying rent, except to folks on record for scamming their tenants.

Okay, not one of my top fives. But you didn’t think I could completely give up my sarcastic ways that easily, did you? But here are my reasons for optimism today. For real.

2. Watching the passive-aggressive power washer get his comeuppance.

I’ve written about the close up and personal view of the homeless encampments that come and go across the street from my apartment. I’m often in the uncomfortable position of spying on other people’s misery. I can’t avoid witnessing the tribulations of the down and out when I open my blinds each morning.

As an example, for weeks now, a human has huddled under a tarp tucked into a little cubby between two buildings across the street, a Buddhist temple and bookstore on one side, and a Staples on the other.

I worried the homeless person might be dead because I never saw any movement under the covering. But lo and behold, one sunny day, he emerged in pants, a shirt ,and a straw hat. He took a jaunty stroll up and down his portion of the street before he crawled back into his burrow again.

The other morning, I took my coffee to the window, as I often do to see vestiges of sunrise, the street traffic, the workers assembling to tear up my street in a massive city boondoggle. The Staples’ maintenance guy was manning his power washer to clean the sidewalk in front of the store, a job common to many buildings on my street.

On this particular morning, at 5:30 or 6, I was drinking my first cup, and the Staples guy was the only action on the street.

I saw him move closer to the tarp. He swung his watery wand on the sidewalk, closer and closer to the edge. For a scary moment, I thought he was going to aim it right on the tarp, which may or may not have been waterproof. I couldn’t tell.

The cleaner walked back and forth in front of the store, power washing the sidewalk. Then he’d go back to the patch in front of the homeless guy. Though he didn’t actually hit the guy with the jet of hot water, the spray covered his tarp and surrounding bit of cement, time after time.

The cleaner had washed that part of the street many times. Yet, he stood in front of the homeless guy and aimed the hose at his feet. Stood there for endless minutes, shooting his wand like it was his job. And it was, except I don’t think his job description included harassing the homeless. Or, knowing corporate America, maybe it did. In my city, though, during the pandemic, you’re not allowed to bother the street people.

Unless, of course, you have to clean the sidewalk around them.

It was a masterclass in passive aggression.

When the Staples guy picked up his power washer and went home, the homeless guy came out of hiding. He dragged his few wet possessions up the street and staked out a few feet of dry real estate in the open, then went back under his tarp to endure, a few hours later, the worst rainstorm we’ve had this year. Days of pelting rain without even the protection of that cubby.

Had the storm put the Staples guy out of work for a few days?

When the clouds cleared, a good Samaritan stopped to check on the guy, whose head I’d seen peeking out on occasion as the storm let up. This person had ridden up on his bike, and with a clipboard in hand, spent quite a bit of time kneeling in front of the homeless guy in conversation, I, of course, couldn’t overhear. At times he seemed to berate him, but I realized he just wanted him to put on a jacket over his t-shirt and shorts, hardly suitable covering in winter, even in temperate San Francisco. He ended up calling the paramedics.

They put the homeless man into an ambulance, along with his tarp and a manila envelope he held out to them. An EMS person had stuffed them into a plastic bag so he would not lose them. When they drove off to give him some care, I thought, hallelujah.

But why couldn’t the power spray guy have peeked under the tarp that chilly morning and made the call to 911 instead of trying to wash him out of sight? Maybe he just acted as a foil to show us the heroes our first responders are, even early in the morning when nobody’s looking.

3. On Inauguration Day, I got my first dose of the vaccine.

After watching our new president get sworn in, I fished out my Kamala pearls and signed into my health care provider, which happened to fall on that momentous day. As it happened, I showed up early for my appointment. Yeah, the vaccination was great, but I’m not sure it was even the best part. The guy in the exam room asked me in a quiet voice, “Are you wearing Kamala’s pearls?”

He didn’t think I was just an old white lady clutching her pearls, but an old white lady proudly honoring our new VP. Hallelujah.

4. I took my laundry out of the bathroom sink.

A week after V-Day, with 25% immunity under my belt, and looking forward to 50% the next Wednesday, and the whole enchilada two weeks after my second shot in three weeks (but who’s counting), I broke down.

Instead of doing all my laundry as I have for the past eleven months in my bathroom sink, I packed up three loads of dirty clothes and lugged them downstairs to the laundry room.

Now that’s not the reason for my jubilation. After that slog, I happily discovered nobody in my building was doing their laundry, so all three times I had to go down to wash, dry, and fold, I didn’t run into a single thoughtless neighbor scrub-a-dub-dubbing without a mask.

Hallelujah to the end of my washday blues.

5. It’s finally February, a month for celebrations.

To start off, it’s Presidents’ month. In my day, that meant two school holidays. Soon we’ll see little cherubs shooting arrows into the hearts of lovers, young and old, here, there, and everywhere.

And if you’re not coupled up come Valentine’s Day, never fear. You can still buy some chocolate and flowers for yourself, folks. I won’t tell.

I’ve been making my February birthday calls because six of my ten nieces and nephews were born in February. Sadly, one of them left us too soon, but I still wish Clifford a happy birthday, wherever in the cosmos he may be.

And best of all, February, a new month, means it’s eleven down. While I don’t know how many months we have to go before this pandemic nightmare is over, we have to be one month closer to the end.

If that’s not a reason for a hallelujah, I don’t know what is.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading and stay safe.