Shelter-in-Place Journal, Day 111

The way we spend Sunday hasn’t changed much with the pandemic – we go to the Farmers’ Market and take a long walk in the morning, and spend most of the rest of the day at home. I read the Mercury News and as much of the Sunday New York Times as I can manage. If we bought fish at the Farmers’ Market, we make it (usually on the Traeger). We take another walk in the evening. And we often do something cultural in the afternoon.

Today was a typical Sunday – we had salmon and fresh corn from the Farmers’ Market for lunch, and I’m working on the Sunday Review section of the Times.

Our culture for the day came from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, we would have spent a week late last month, and we would have seen eight plays during that time. One of them would have been the world premiere of The Copper Children which tells the true story of an orphan train to Arizona that ends in a town-wide custody battle. Luckily, OSF managed to record a performance of the play before their season was abruptly ended, and they’re making it available as a 48-hour rental until July 15 for $15. It was thought-provoking, far too relevant to today, and I recommend it.

OSF will be offering something lighter next – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, from July 9-22, and I’m sure we’ll watch it. They haven’t announced plans for the rest of the summer; I hope they’ll show all of the plays that opened before they got shutdown.

Shelter-in-Place Journal, Day 110

This afternoon, we visited friends for a physically-distanced Fourth of July (four couples, four pairs of chairs with about 8-10 feet between the closest chairs) BBQ (skewers, so no one had to touch the food after it was cooked). We wore masks much of the time, too.

It was really nice to see friends in person instead of in Zoom squares, but it was unnerving, especially at first – eight people in one (large) front yard! And to think that last year on the Fourth, we were in the same place with the same friends – and many more – and we weren’t worried about being too close, or touching the wrong thing, or….

The new normal may be essential, but it isn’t very normal.