I went old-school today to combat some of the impacts of COVID isolation. Early this morning, I had coffee with a friend and coworker at a local Starbucks. She and I have future plans to do ice cream, etc., but today we started with a coffee at Starbucks. We wore our masks in the store, sat outside on the patio a decent distance apart while we noshed and sipped. It was so much fun, I made her late for her 10:00 a.m. meeting, just sitting and chatting. Like normal people used to do.

I posted to our work chat area that I had done that, and that it was almost worth having showered, shaved, and put on real pants to leave the house instead of living in track pants and shorts. I had whip cream on my hot chocolate, but if I had remembered chocolate or cinnamon powder to sprinkle on top, that would have put it over the top. 🙂

And yet, it’s not going to last as an option once the cold weather hits. We sat on the patio, which was fine, nobody else around. Meanwhile, inside, there were people set up like old times with their laptops, just hanging out. None of them wearing a mask. Because of course they’re sipping, in theory. Although most of them were sitting with empty plates and empty cups, just typing on their laptop or playing on their phone, no mask on. It wasn’t crowded, people were still distanced, but I did NOT feel comfortable. I had thought that maybe we could go to Tim Horton’s some time, perhaps Jacob, Andrea and I, for lunch, but apparently it’s relatively the same. People with no masks on lingering long after they finished their food. Sigh. Is it any wonder we’re in a second wave?

Later today, I had to run out to get groceries as I keep forgetting to do the grocery list online at night to order stuff. But today, I managed to plan ahead sufficiently earlier in the week and charge my bluetooth headphones. Which means I could listen to music while I shopped. Oh. My. Goodness. I’ve forgotten what it is like to just tune out the world and tune into the music. It used to be one of my favorite things with grocery shopping. 30-40 minutes of just me listening to music, no need to think, or talk to anyone. Just drift off and zone out. I can’t quite zone out in a COVID world for shopping, but it was still pretty great. The GoGos still had the beat. Jim Stafford had Spiders and Snakes and no clue what he was doing with his girlfriend. Bob Seger reassured me through Shakedown that no matter what, he’s going to take me down once I step across that line. I didn’t care, I let Apple choose the music, didn’t even bother with a playlist. It was a small piece of heaven. Even if it took a little work to figure out what order I had to follow to put on my mask, glasses, and headphones (MGH, for those curious).

Today I choose to buck the new normal and kick it old school, albeit safely.

What choices are you making today?