So much has happened this month, and I could write on multiple topics. Given we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, I’m actually surprised how much happened over the past month since I came back from Minnesota. While I struggled to reinvigorate my running due to the on-going fires and toxic air quality, things happened this month! I actually started a list of key activities and events that took place from mid-October to mid-November in order to organize my thoughts for this blog. What struck me most from the list is that even though COVID is still running rampant, I did things that were quite normal. In no specific order, these included:
- Voting in a national election from the comfort of my own home and walking a few blocks to deposit my ballot in the official box well ahead of election day.
- Going on a hike (albeit socially distanced) with a local group where I met a woman from Israel and we talked travel, highlights of the Israeli countryside and electric cars.
- Having dinner at an excellent local restaurant and listening to live music one night when the air was clear enough that I could eat outside.
- Walking down the block to get a mani/pedi inside a salon (with doors wide open) almost like it’s a regular thing.
- Flying off to Houston to celebrate both my grandson and son-in-law’s birthdays.
- Running with my son during said trip to Houston and meeting his new girlfriend.
- Shopping, cooking and visiting the zoo and botanic gardens in Houston with my daughter and grandson.
- Enjoying a lively conversation with my car service driver from Mongolia as I returned from my trip to Houston.
- Spending Halloween in Sonoma and getting dressed up for wine tastings, as well as watching the Vikings beat the Packers at an outdoor pub.
- Returning to my ‘new’ Aveda salon in San Francisco after a 9-month gap since my last visit and having a lovely catch-up with my stylist.
- Having lunch with a friend from high school that I haven’t seen since school.
- Driving myself in San Francisco for the first time since I moved here in February.
- Watching with amazement as the first woman finally broke through the political glass-ceiling in the US.
So many things I could say about each of these, and probably all content-rich enough for a blog post in themselves. However, reflecting on how far we’ve come since mid-March, I can’t help but think that I’m settling into a new reality that includes checking COVID case rates in certain areas and confirming whether shops, services or other venues are actually opened. Masks have become the new accessory and when choosing an outfit, I’m as likely to select matching shoes, purse and jewelry, as I am to check whether a certain mask goes with my ensemble. I now have a sizeable mask collection so that I can easily find one that works with just about any outfit. Obsessively washing my hands and using hand sanitizer and noticing how many surfaces you end up touching when you’re out and about. Thinking twice about shopping or eating indoors or meeting other people where I can’t stay 6 or more feet away from them.
In my area, we can now access salons and get indoor appointments, but masks are required and there’s still a sense of ‘should I be doing this?’ I enjoy being pampered, and it’s a nice break to have the option of going for services that haven’t been available in a long time. For the first time since February, I had a normal excursion into San Francisco for a haircut and lunch. However, in a pre-COVID world, I would have been taking the BART (train) and probably would have made it a weekend of exploring museums, seeing a concert or theater production, and going for a fancy dinner at some highly rated restaurant. Instead, I stuck to the immediate needs – seeing my new stylist and re-connecting with a high school friend. Rather than risk coming into close contact with others, I chose to drive into the city. Sure, I had to pay to go across the Bay Bridge and for parking, plus it is less convenient than using Uber. However, one can never tell whether Ubers are truly safe these days, and the ride was more than I’m comfortable taking with a stranger. Lunch was outdoors, even though the temperature had dropped and there was a cold front coming through the city. Neither of us was willing to brave indoor dining at this stage in the pandemic, so we wore our jackets and ate quickly. All things considered, we actually had a great time and the food was delicious. While museums or other indoor attractions weren’t an option, we did get to walk along the water and enjoy the sights as we caught up on what we’d been doing since high school. Both of us wore our masks as much as possible and it was actually fine – we had no trouble catching up, though we did forgo shaking hands or hugging our greeting and farewells.
The other side of this new reality is getting COVID tests whenever you feel a stuffy nose or are worried about coming too close into contact with others. While traveling back from Houston, I witnessed many people in the airport flaunting the face covering rules. I had no choice but to eat dinner since my fight was leaving later in the evening and it was either ‘eat now or wait 5 hours,’ or eat a cold dinner in close quarters on the flight. Given a choice of where I’d take my mask off to eat, I decided the airport was less risky than the flight. I tried to eat quickly since the practice at Hobby Airport seemed to be that as soon as you got anywhere near a restaurant, it was an excuse to take off your mask and keep it off until you got to your gate. It was sad to see people acting as though this whole issue is one of politics or personal freedoms and not one of an infectious, airborne disease that is spread by people, one to another. I did my best to keep my mask on as much as possible, to wash my hands and use my hand sanitizer. In the end, for my own peace of mind, I waited the requisite three to five days after I got home and got my drive-through COVID test. Thankfully, I seemed to have been effective in my efforts to stay healthy and the test was negative. Of course, this also reinforced that I do continue to have allergies that give me a stuffy nose, sore throat and dry cough in the fall ;-).
I’m still working on my company’s COVID response plan, so work has been pretty much ‘all-COVID, all the time.’ This certainly impacts my view of it and how I approach my own personal health and safety as I go out into the world. It amazes me that some people take the approach that this virus somehow doesn’t exist (tell that to the health care workers who see those that end up hospitalized, or the families of the 240,000 people in the US that have died), or that it’s taken too long to deal with it, so we should be ‘done with it’ by now. I certainly don’t see my precautions as being a reflection of being in panic mode. I take care who I come in contact with directly, I use my mask and wash my hands frequently, and I’m careful about doing too much indoors with large groups of people. However, I’m not going to stop using my masks anytime soon just because I’m bored with it, or I think that ‘government’ should have stopped the virus by now. I still marvel at the fact I haven’t actually been sick since November 2019 when I picked something up in London or on the flights back and forth across the pond. I’m convinced that all the precautions to prevent COVID have the added benefit of preventing other viruses and cold germs as well – double bonus.
On the downside, the new COVID reality has made it challenging to feel fully settled in my new city. I’m fortunate that I got six weeks in the office, so I have actually met most of my colleagues in person. However, figuring out how to make new friends or go out socially is something I’ll need to figure out. It also calls into question my parameters for living arrangements. At the time I took my new apartment, I assumed I’d be working from home one day a week (per the standard practice in our Oakland office, everyone worked from home on Fridays). I conceded an office or den area when I moved here and put my home office in a corner of my living room area so that I could afford a place in a city that seemed to meet all my other requirements. I also have been trying to downsize space since I’d normally be traveling a lot for pleasure and didn’t want a big place to have to keep clean. Now, I’m thinking that I may need to reconsider my space needs. I still have no plans to buy property, but I am seriously thinking it is time to increase back to three bedrooms or at least demand a den/office area. My desire to live within walking distance of shops and restaurants remains the same, so I won’t be one that decamps to the suburbs or more remote areas, however I may be looking at other options once my lease ends in March 2021. My desire to stay in one place for a while is being overruled by my new full-time working from home reality. Time will tell, there’s still a few more months before I have to make a decision, and as I’ve seen over many years, a lot can happen in 4 months.
