Small Things I Will Continue Post Quarantine
Mostly, the fact that it is unclear when we will return to anything resembling normal is harrowing, heartbreaking and dangerous. My daughter’s daycare is open and that is a relief, but I cannot imagine navigating having school age kids and not knowing when they can go back or how safe they’ll be. Here’s a couple things I am excited to keep doing after we return to some sense of normalcy.
Planning Menus in Advance
Pre-COVID my wife and I might plan our meals one, maybe two days in advance. That turns out to limit how long one can get excited about their different meals. I’m having slow cooker vegetarian lasagna on Saturday night. Yes, it has carrots and kale and it’s great. But I get to spend days thinking about it, looking forward to it. And I’ll wake up on Saturday with no confusion about what I’m setting up. Less stress before going in to the radio station. And, you can save money by shopping advance, planning et cetera. And in my relationship, when we plan, the responsibility is more evenly distribute. (emphasis on the more, as I don’t want to pretend like the work of our home is evenly distributed).
Eating Vegetarian More Often
For a handful of months the slaughterhouses of America were uniquely dangerous incubators for COVID outbreaks. There are 365-days-a-year problem with our food production system granted, but I can’t believe that we mandated that the meat plants stay open when folks were getting sick for us to get our meat. Did you read about the Victory Gardens in WWII? Are you aware that you could have a grilled cheese? I get that grocery stores have to stay open, but we coulda closed the meat plants for awhile. So I want out of that as much as possible. I can’t yet go 100% vegetarian, lunch being a particularly meat centric part of my diet, but, I’m doing a lot less.
ZOOMing
Let’s be clear, ZOOM being the only available form of social engagement is absolute crap. It’s no substitute and it is exhausting. But, there are a lot of meetings that I will be zooming into for the rest of history. Some new company has some new loyalty program where when you buy a beer it tells a bunny a trivia question for charity. . .set up a ZOOM and let’s talk BUDDY!
Kicking It With My Neighbors
I knew my neighbors before COVID started. We’d been to some parties at people’s houses, we had some good laughs. But now we see each other for a weekly happy hour. We text as a group maybe like four times a week. It is not NextDoor b.s. about a suspicious looking tree stump we noticed around the neighborhood. We joke, we borrow groceries, we have fun. I’m sticking with that. Why didn’t I do more of that. You can drink comfortably with friends without having to drive home!