Regular Occurrences
Aug. 2nd, 2020 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_tectonicThings that have happened more than once over the last couple-few months of pandemic:
Online concerts. Two, both for Abney Park. The first was back at the end of May, the second just last night. They sell "tickets", but it's just donations through a fundraiser website; they livestream the show on youtube and post the link on their website. They weren't taking any more donations by the time we got there for the first one, so it was free; I bought some compilation albums through their website the next day. There is, alas, no live crowd energy, but it's pretty cool to watch from your couch and to be able to pause or rewind the show.
Take-out. We've been getting take-out at least once a week to help keep restaurants near us afloat. We've now hit almost all of our top local non-chain restaurants: Yak & Yeti (no buffet, alas), Jewel of India, Sushi Yume, Mika Sushi, Oscar's Kabob & Gyros, Ho-Ho, Thousand of Wok, Two Sticks Cafe (in H-Mart), Pho 78, plus of course the occasional fast-casual chain like Chipotle & Smashburger. We got Ethiopian from a food truck the other day (the HOA has them come on Thursdays). We should probably start cycling through soon.
Cautious outdoor socialization. Our first venture out of the house was to Eaton Street for responsibly distanced socialization with backyard croquet. (Shades of Hyacinth Bucket's "candlelight supper with riparian entertainment"...) We also spent an afternoon at the Floyds', playtesting Jerry's game with Chris. Lately, we've going over to Eaton on Sundays to practice Japanese on the back patio with Matt & Jon. Oh, and we had a nice picnic supper at the local park with Van (takeout from Wishbone) a couple weeks ago. All wearing masks the whole time, of course, which is annoying, but at least we get to see our friends some.
Municipal Advising The work on policing policy for my municipal advisory board continues. I'm chairing a committee meeting over zoom every week or two, and our last board meeting was dedicated to a discussion with the police chief, which went really well; there were a couple items that I thought might be a hard sell (changes to training and unbundling first response) that it turns out they're completely on board with, so that's pretty heartening.
Haircuts. Two, so far, six weeks apart. It's not so much that I've been pining for a haircut - the trim Jerry gave me back in April was perfectly serviceable - but I like my barbershop and don't want it to go out of business, and since America apparently doesn't believe in safety nets... Masks are required for everyone and there's no waiting inside, plus both times I got there first thing in the morning and was one of the first two people there, so I think it's been acceptably low risk given rates in Colorado over the last couple months. I'll have to see how things look a month from now, though.
Gaming. Neal's D&D game is ongoing, and now we've added Jeff to the group. We've played Dominion online a few times with various folks (Joe, Matthew, Jon, Peter), and done a couple game nights on BoardGameArena. I haven't run my Star Wars game, but I finally have gathered enough focus to start prepping it again. That's still a work in progress, though. I have also played a whole lot of Monster Prom (humorous dating sim), a full playthrough of Arcade Spirits (romantic comedy visual novel), and a fair chunk of Into The Breach (turn-based tactics game, rec'd by Floyd).
Running out of oomph. A while back I just hit a wall, and ended up working half-days for about a week. I've had a couple more days like that here and there, but I'm getting back into the swing of things. Of course, I recently lost about a week and a half to dealing with migrating to a new work laptop because the battery started swelling on the old one, so I still have a pretty full to-do list.
Of course there have also been assorted one-shot things, like walking to city hall to drop off our ballots, and big zoom get-togethers with folks from college (though hopefully that one may become more regular.
We are very much enjoying having the house to ourselves again. I was talking to my mom about it and she pointed out that when something starts out as just a couple weeks and stretches on and on, you don't realize how much accommodation you're doing and how much chronic stress it generates.
So yeah, things may be grossly unacceptable at the global scale, but locally we're making do.
Online concerts. Two, both for Abney Park. The first was back at the end of May, the second just last night. They sell "tickets", but it's just donations through a fundraiser website; they livestream the show on youtube and post the link on their website. They weren't taking any more donations by the time we got there for the first one, so it was free; I bought some compilation albums through their website the next day. There is, alas, no live crowd energy, but it's pretty cool to watch from your couch and to be able to pause or rewind the show.
Take-out. We've been getting take-out at least once a week to help keep restaurants near us afloat. We've now hit almost all of our top local non-chain restaurants: Yak & Yeti (no buffet, alas), Jewel of India, Sushi Yume, Mika Sushi, Oscar's Kabob & Gyros, Ho-Ho, Thousand of Wok, Two Sticks Cafe (in H-Mart), Pho 78, plus of course the occasional fast-casual chain like Chipotle & Smashburger. We got Ethiopian from a food truck the other day (the HOA has them come on Thursdays). We should probably start cycling through soon.
Cautious outdoor socialization. Our first venture out of the house was to Eaton Street for responsibly distanced socialization with backyard croquet. (Shades of Hyacinth Bucket's "candlelight supper with riparian entertainment"...) We also spent an afternoon at the Floyds', playtesting Jerry's game with Chris. Lately, we've going over to Eaton on Sundays to practice Japanese on the back patio with Matt & Jon. Oh, and we had a nice picnic supper at the local park with Van (takeout from Wishbone) a couple weeks ago. All wearing masks the whole time, of course, which is annoying, but at least we get to see our friends some.
Municipal Advising The work on policing policy for my municipal advisory board continues. I'm chairing a committee meeting over zoom every week or two, and our last board meeting was dedicated to a discussion with the police chief, which went really well; there were a couple items that I thought might be a hard sell (changes to training and unbundling first response) that it turns out they're completely on board with, so that's pretty heartening.
Haircuts. Two, so far, six weeks apart. It's not so much that I've been pining for a haircut - the trim Jerry gave me back in April was perfectly serviceable - but I like my barbershop and don't want it to go out of business, and since America apparently doesn't believe in safety nets... Masks are required for everyone and there's no waiting inside, plus both times I got there first thing in the morning and was one of the first two people there, so I think it's been acceptably low risk given rates in Colorado over the last couple months. I'll have to see how things look a month from now, though.
Gaming. Neal's D&D game is ongoing, and now we've added Jeff to the group. We've played Dominion online a few times with various folks (Joe, Matthew, Jon, Peter), and done a couple game nights on BoardGameArena. I haven't run my Star Wars game, but I finally have gathered enough focus to start prepping it again. That's still a work in progress, though. I have also played a whole lot of Monster Prom (humorous dating sim), a full playthrough of Arcade Spirits (romantic comedy visual novel), and a fair chunk of Into The Breach (turn-based tactics game, rec'd by Floyd).
Running out of oomph. A while back I just hit a wall, and ended up working half-days for about a week. I've had a couple more days like that here and there, but I'm getting back into the swing of things. Of course, I recently lost about a week and a half to dealing with migrating to a new work laptop because the battery started swelling on the old one, so I still have a pretty full to-do list.
Of course there have also been assorted one-shot things, like walking to city hall to drop off our ballots, and big zoom get-togethers with folks from college (though hopefully that one may become more regular.
We are very much enjoying having the house to ourselves again. I was talking to my mom about it and she pointed out that when something starts out as just a couple weeks and stretches on and on, you don't realize how much accommodation you're doing and how much chronic stress it generates.
So yeah, things may be grossly unacceptable at the global scale, but locally we're making do.
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Date: 2020-08-06 03:48 pm (UTC)