Tag: #Covid

  • ODDS and ENDS – Euro Final: England v Italy, Now What… Olympics?, The Emotion of Summer Vacation

    “Odds and Ends” is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    Shock beyond shock, I’m going to talk about the Euro 2020/21 Final on Sunday between England and Italy. Looks like I am only about 50% correct when it comes to picking finals, so I am pretty happy about that. It’s not a done deal for England, who I thought didn’t look great against Denmark, and now they have a real competitor, Italy, who is playing at the top of their game. It should be a good match, and no matter what the outcome, this is the best an English team has done is 50 years, so hats off to this squad.

    And then after Sunday… no real big sporting events to look forward to. Some of you might point out the Olympics, but man, should that even be happening? Shit is bad in Japan with Covid, and there won’t be any spectators, and as we have learned in the past year, sports without fans is kind’a dull. I’m not knocking any of the athletes in Tokyo, but this sure must be a little of a letdown for them as well.

    We are two weeks into Summer Vacation, one week in on the Summer Day camp, which leaves nine weeks until school starts up again, and according to my kid, Summer goes on forever. I remember that feeling of optimistic listlessness. Nothing to do, not wanting to do anything, needing to do something, and it felt like this wonderful inertia would go on forever. I thought I remember what Summer Vacation felt like, but I had forgotten. It’s like I knew the right words to say when an adult talks about it, but having the weight of the correct emotion behind it was lacking in me. Now I see it again, living through the excitement of my daughter’s vacation.

  • Summer Day Camp Anxiety

    This is the first Summer that we are dealing with sending the kid to day camp. All the pre-schools that our daughter has been in were all year, so there really wasn’t a “Summer” time, as the school never really came to an end. Now that we have finished Kindergarten and are going into First Grade, that means real Summer Camps.

    I will admit that I started this whole process way too late. But, I do have the kid in a day camp that starts next week, which is a relief. But we live in the time of COVID, which means a crap ton of hoops to jump through.

    There was quite a stack of forms that needed to be filled out. They were a stack of online forms, but it still did take me an afternoon to fill everything out. And I am still fill out stuff. And I just found out that she has two vaccines that she hasn’t received yet and needs for camp. Her yearly physical is in August, but now we have to go to the doctor’s office and get them. And then resubmit all the forms!

    And then there’s daily lunches that I need to send with her. I don’t know why this is giving me so much anxiety, but it is. The place is a nut free camp, not surprised or upset about that, but as I look back on what I have been feeding the kid over the past year, nuts shows up in about half of the stuff. And I also feel that I need to be really creative when it comes to her food.

    This is our daughter’s first chance to be around kids her age for about six hours a day, and I just want it to go right. I want her to have fun, and make friends, and learn stuff, and… be a kid with kids. She hasn’t had that in over a year and I desperately want her to have that again. Just to have Summer fun.

  • Summer is Coming

    For the first time, in a very long time, I’m actually getting excited for Summer. Usually, Summer in New York means loud window a/c’s, hot/sticky/smelly subway stations, sweating outside and then freezing when you step inside a store. Really, it’s just the oppressive and, honestly, offensive humidity, which blankets the City for two months and sometimes more, that really killed me.

    The heat of New York City was optimized for us, as we got married in 2011, outdoors, on the hottest day of that year, with a temp of 104. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great day, and I wouldn’t change it, as it was a day we will never forget, for multiple reasons. But after that day, my tolerance for heat just went down the toilet. I have been living a decade in dread when June approaches.

    Yet, this year, I’m looking forward to it. I know that this is due to being vaccinated, which is giving us the ability to go forth, mask-less in most situations. The idea of being outside in the heat sounds like freedom to me. The ability to travel, and see friends again; it’s like Christmas morning. I’m looking forward to a car trip. Driving to some faraway place, and getting out of the car and not worrying about being near people.

    Also, this will be the kid’s first real Summer vacation out of school. She might do a day camp, and we have an idea of a small vacation, but on the whole, she will be free to do nothing during the Summer. Splash parks and pools will be visited, and sleeping in late because it’s a Tuesday seem to be in order. It will be fun to live vicariously through her Summer experience, because out of everything that has happened in the school year, at least the Summer will be close to normal for her.

  • New Mask Rules

    So, we don’t have to wear masks, pretty much, anymore. That happened a lot faster and sooner that I thought. Not that I am complaining, but if that is what science is saying…

    I am aware that you still need to have a mask on for public transit, and I’m cool with that.

    The funny thing is that yesterday, the kid and I decided to take the subway to a playground because, well, we can do that again. We can go out and explore our city. We found a playground that wasn’t too far away, but wasn’t too close. We masked up on the ride down to the park, and I kept mine on as we entered the playground. I found a bench to sit at, and took my mask off as I can, now. The kid, on the other hand, kept her mask on as she ran around and made new friends.

    We were there for a long time, as it was a nice day, and the kid deserved some freedom. As the time to head home neared, I got up, and put my mask on the cross the playground, and then SNAP! The elastic that fits around my left ear snapped. I was mask-less, and I didn’t have a backup.

    What an ironic conundrum to be in. Only an hour or two earlier the CDC had said that masks weren’t required, but I needed a mask to ride the subway home. The easy answer was that I just had to retie the elastic so it would fit around my ear, but for a minute, I wondered when will we be able to ditch all the masks?

  • First Day Without the Mask, Sort Of

    As of today, it has been two weeks since I got my second Covid vaccine, which means that the medicine is now completely in my system, and I am at FULL VAX!

    This also means that I can now go out in the open without a mask.

    Which I tried this morning while walking the dog.

    And it was weird.

    Weird not having a mask on. For lack of a better word, I feel very exposed without it.

    When I walked out of my building this morning, I had my mask in my pocket, and I thought if I encountered people that were close to me, I would put the mask on. So, ah, that didn’t work out too well, as this is New York, and there is a person every five feet.

    What I ended up doing was the mask under my chin look, and when a person got close, I would pull it over my nose and mouth. It sort of worked, but I did feel a little silly pulling it up and down. I fully admit that I am now dealing with the social pressure of a mask, and not thinking logically about the need of a mask. But, in my defense, this is my first day, so having some hesitancy seems to be appropriate. Later today, the kid and I will go to the playground at the local park, and that will be the next test. I intend to sit on my bench mask-less. We’ll see if I hold to that.