Pete's Log: Strange Times
Entry #1906, (Life in General)(posted when I was 42 years old.)
I went into the office today. It's been almost exactly six months since the last time I ventured into the city. Unless maybe I'm forgetting a trip in. It was weird.
I had to get some updates installed on my laptop which I was told had to be done on our network and not via VPN. So into the city I went. Even got dressed up for it — had to remember where I kept my belts. I dropped JB off at daycare and then drove in. Only took half an hour, so traffic is definitely still lighter than pre-pandemic. The office was still a ghost town, although now there's a station in the lobby where I got my temperature checked by an automated kiosk.
I also scheduled a dental checkup for my time downtown, since my dentist is just a couple blocks from the office — something which made sense pre-pandemic. My temperature was checked there as well.
My laptop updates were actually handled by a couple help desk technicians, so I actually interacted with a number of people today. Enough to confirm that my social skills do feel like they are atrophying. And also to reinforce that I do miss interacting with people.
My time downtown was probably the longest I've been apart from Jamie in quite some time. Which is weird to think about. We got through it though. Walking around downtown felt almost dream-like, though. It felt incredibly surreal. There were some people walking around and some traffic, but it was definitely pretty quiet.
As is my luck, WBEZ is in the middle of their spring pledge drive and since there isn't an "I'm already a member, give me regular programming" option, I opted to catch up on podcasts during my extended drive time today. On the way home I was listening to the most recent Skeptics' Guide to the Universe and during the opening chit-chat, two of the hosts mentioned their garages filling up with more cardboard during the pandemic than their recycling bins could handle. And it felt real nice to know that we weren't the only ones, since our cardboard recycling overflow has been probably the biggest sore spot in our garage. There used to be a spot in town to drop it off, but it went away about a year ago and we haven't found a replacement yet.
On the topic of atrophying social skills: Saturday we went on a bike ride around town with Mary, Bert and Ruby. We made a stop in a park for the toddlers to run around in the grass and were approached by some other parents for some socially distanced chit chat. Which was nice. But man did talking to strangers make my mind go blank.
The number of people we know who have been vaccinated seems to be trending upwards more and more rapidly lately. And based on Illinois guidelines it looks like we will be eligible ourselves pretty soon here. So that's exciting.