Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Saturday, May 1st, 2021

Open Season

What a wonderful day today! Temperatures were in the 20C’s.The sun was out and over the course of the day the winds died down.

It was a busy Saturday. Since I had hit bed by 21:30 I was awake by 7:00 and spend the early hours of the morning foraging social media and the news. Nothing of interest turned up though.

At 9:45 I made my way to the park for Saturday practice. I am overjoyed to report that the dojo plans to reopen in the third week of May, when all of the “regulars” are fully vaccinated. Class schedule to follow! I am not sure if it will be advertised on the website as only fully vaccinated people can come, and we will all need to sign disclaimers, which I find fair enough. From the dojo I headed for the pool to find an open lane.

I did not use my full swim time as I wanted to be home to make lunch for EM to avoid last weeks food crisis. Turned out there was no need as she had eaten yesterday’s left overs so I ended up having a meal of fried Duck breast and cabbage by myself.

After 45 minutes of lizzarding in the sun I had a quick shower and hopped into the car to head to the Marina for the first sail of the season. I met my friend C. there. I learned, when payingfor the boat, that the marina has a new owner. Sadly my friend Chip nolonger works there - by choice - but Andy isstil around. The new owners have refurbished all the boats, which are nowmuch faster, and all emplyees waer yellow t-shirts.

Perfect weather for a sail. A nice breeze, the sun out and I even got a bit of a sunburn, which I know will turn into a nice tan by tomorrow. The tide was super low. We actually had to pull up the center board a few times to be able to move! Today was the first time ever that I managed to sail to the Washington Bridge and from there almost all the way to Fort Washington and back! Our way back into port, when C. was the skipper, turned out to be less fortunate as we managed to get ourselves stuck on a sand bank with less than 10 cm of water under the keel. Embarrassingly the Marina guys had to come and wade us of the sand, but we did manage to sail back into port thereafter. Our two-hour sail thus turned onto three all in the setting sun. The season is now offically open and I plan to resume my routine of goig for a sail every Friday afternoon - weather permitting that is.

What a perfect day! I ended it with a trip to Trader Joe to complete the grocery run for the week. I came home at the same time as EM so had help unloading the car and putting away all of the groceries. EM had ordered Indian food, so we ended up doing a TV night watching the final episode of the third season of the crown. I need more seasons!

EM and I ended the evening with a chat about the past and the future and things to do tomorrow. I am not sure how or when I managed to raise this perfect human being!

My friend C. had unhappy news today, Her father-in-law-to-be passed away of COVID earlier this week. The mother in-law-to-be is also sick as is one her fiancés aunts after having been fully vaccinated. From what C. reports the situation in India is more than dire. This brings the Indian tragedy closer to home. Meanwhile the USA reports “only” 4k new infections over the past twenty-four-hours to bring the total count to 33.1 million.

On the bright side 100 million residents are fully vaccinated. That is one third of the population and I am so glad I am one of them.