Tonight was my first Shir Hadash Board meeting – my term starts July 1, but this was the orientation for incoming members. It was also the first Board meeting to be held on-campus in 15 months – and it was inside, in the Oneg Room. There was even food!

It was almost surreal to be in a room with so many other people for more than an hour. Surreal, but very pleasant.

My laptop even took its first trip anywhere tonight – when I put it in the laptop sleeve I’d bought on our Galapagos trip in 2018, I was surprised by how much room there was. Then I remembered that I’d bought the sleeve for my old 15” MacBook Pro – I replaced that computer with a 13” MacBook Air right after we started shelter-in-place last April, so of course there was plenty of room in the sleeve! There are rumors that Apple will ship a 16” laptop with Apple Silicon soon – I hope it will fit in the sleeve, too.

Today was the day that California officially reopened completely – the “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” was retired and its page now redirects to the “Reopening California” page. Masks are only required for vaccinated people in a few circumstances (including health care), capacity limits are gone, physical distancing is gone.

But businesses aren’t all jumping in with both feet, at least not the two I visited today. Lunardi’s had new signage: masks aren’t required of vaccinated customers, but they did request them – and we complied. And I gave other customers more room than I would have given them before the pandemic. Chipotle still had signs on the door requiring masks, so I put mine on before going in.

I know that the science says that vaccinated people are at very low risk of catching or transmitting COVID, but it’s going to take a while before I feel perfectly comfortable going maskless inside a busy store.