May 4 [Tuesday]
The viewing for George at the funeral home was this afternoon. It was a small affair with family and close friends. Beforehand I was uncertain if Covid preempted the protocol of issuing hugs under dire circumstances, but when offered, I accepted with no resistance. I reciprocated. Sad afternoon, but the human contact with people I’d known for so many years felt good and was a comfort.
May 5 [Wednesday]
George’s funeral and cemetery service was this morning. The church service was reduced capacity due to Covid precautions. People had been encouraged to abstain by requiring those interested in attending to contact family to reserve their spot. Every other church pew was blank for social distancing purposes. Masks were worn in church. There was hugging and handshaking, as is the norm for emotional occasions. My vaccination was ten days ago, so not fully charged, as the two weeks suggested by the pharmacist. I was not worried of Covid risk.
May 6 [Thursday]
Covid seems to be winding down, at least in the United States. People are making plans to get together and make summer travel plans. This includes us. We’re ready to dispense with Shelter In Place. Though, I must admit, I like the idea of maintaining social distancing with most of humanity.
May 7 [Friday]
The four of us have been vaccinated with the requisite two weeks being tomorrow. I’m ready to engage family again, I want it. I’m ready to travel and take a vacation, domestic vacation. Brings up the question, what of those without intent to vaccinate? I hope they need not live unhindered. But I plan on live unfettered in many ways like pre-Covid, though not entirely. The point being is that I will live unhindered by their choice of vaccine abstinence. The non-vaccinated will carry their burden without my aid. I plan not to accommodate their whimsical pass of the vaccine. There’s living to do. Maybe there will be trailing statistics of Covid deaths for years into the future or maybe these next few years will pass with nothing further resurfacing causing glimpses of a rough terrain already traversed, since March 2020.
May 8 [Saturday]
Big ups to us, it’s been two weeks today since our second vaccination. The four of us in San Dimas are at full strength.
A pre-Mother’s Day luncheon with mom! Amiee, Mike and I took mom to lunch at Acapulco’s in Glendale. Amiee was the author of this nifty mom-date. We triangulate at the Safehouse, then the four of us piled into one car! This generated feelings of giddiness being in a car all together from different pods. Plus the hugs, all of us! I last hugged my parents in November, prior to the anticipated Christmas crunch. This post-Covid existence is starting to feel all right.
May 9 [Sunday]
Happy Mothers Day! We drove to San Juan Capistrano to visit the Ecology Center, a small retail farming operation with a store selling their produce and jams. Fun time perusing the farm enjoying their acres of colorful growth. The Covid angle is that the presence of people, now that our vaccinations are fully charged, has reverted to being only a nuisance rather than a looming possibility of contagion. The mask wearing feels like a courtesy to others, a formality, like covering one’s mouth for a sneeze or chewing with one’s mouth closed. Years into the future I’m certain many will continue to wear masks generating vestiges of the Covid years.
May 11 [Tuesday]
[The boy] got a new Xbox! He’d wanted this for months and had been unable to acquire it due to the worldwide microprocessor shortage that’s been in effect since the early days of Covid. We live truly in a worldwide economy and a Covid-sparked shortage of an item in one part of the world, resources needed to manufacture the microprocessors, resulted in limited access to the things consumers want. This is a want not a need, the Xbox, to be sure, but I’d read about this shortage months ago and was curious to note how it’s affected our household.
May 12 [Wednesday]
Having consumed so much social distancing with Covid that I’ve come to vastly prefer observing humans from a distance instead of in close quarters. Animals, on the other hand, lest they be hungry and aggressive predators, I prefer close up observance.
May 13 [Thursday]
Watching a baseball game this evening there was an advertisement for a ‘fully vaccinated section’ of the ballpark. No joke. The TV camera scanned the area with a bunch of people in close confinement, masks mostly absent, no distancing. It looked odd. Tickets to the fully vaccinated section were sold at discounted prices compared to the socially distanced seats. My view has been shifted by more than a year of social distancing, as evidenced by the tightly occupied vaccinated section striking me as unappealing. I prefer my distancing from humans, those outside my pod. I don’t know, maybe I’m just crummy.
May 15 [Friday]
[My daughter] had a high school Dive meet this evening. Parents and spectators were required to sit outside the pool area with folding chairs beyond the fence. This was done to enable social distancing. Though the folding chairs were not typically six feet apart. The vaccinations have rolled out effectively here and concern of Covid contagion has dissipated. Meanwhile, the divers, pre-Covid would have been accommodated with a portable hot tub for the divers to stay warm between dives. A Covid precaution negated this comfort and the divers on this chilly evening did their best with towels, shammies and parkas. Some divers chose simply to stay in the pool between dives because it was warmer than the air and breeze.
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