Today marks the end of our second year of the Covid pandemic (counting from my own personal starting point, the last in-person Norwescon ConCom meeting, in March of 2020).
Last year on this day I posted a rundown of the last times I’d done something before going into lockdown.
Today, we’re not quite as much in lockdown as we were then, but we’re by no means back to a pre-pandemic concept of normal. Since this time last year:
We still haven’t gone out to any indoor performances. We went to a couple outdoor performances in parks last summer, but we weren’t yet entirely comfortable with that, and it didn’t last long.
We’ve had one brief trip to Portland to visit my mom, during the time when Delta was decreasing and Omicron hadn’t hit yet, a brief unplanned stopover with Prairie’s family in Olympia on the way back from that, and we’ve had one big family gathering for Prairie’s side of the family in Olympia. Other than that, still no travel or family visits.
I still haven’t been back to the Mercury, though it’s been open for a couple months now.
We did one weekend travel of “cabin camping” over the summer.
Neither of us has been in a big crowd.
I went to a small weekend gathering with the Norwescon Executive Team for our annual retreat to plan this year’s convention, but that’s been the extent of my external socializing.
We’re still staying home most of the time. All of our groceries are delivered or curbside pickup. We don’t go to restaurants; any food not cooked here is either drive-through or Door Dash.
Two years down. Mask and vaccine check requirements are being dropped, but it’s not at all clear that we’re “safe” yet, and we’re all still figuring out what the new normal is going to be.
I just hope the more optimistic assessments of where we’re heading are correct. I’m generally a pretty naturally optimistic person, and two years of the pessimists being proved correct at nearly every turn has been rather difficult. We’ll see what happens from here….