My Life

Year Two Of The Pandemic

By Wil C. Fry
2021.01.09
2021.05.22
Pandemic, Family

The novel coronavirus, against few odds, survived and flourished into its second year, 2021, despite our meager, disorganized, and halfhearted attempts to do anything about it. So, once again, I’m here to provide a running list of pandemic-related life in our household. I learned some lessons from last year’s blog entry, and will apply them here. For example, this time, I’m more pessimistic than before about how long it will last. With that in mind, I plan to be more brief with my updates.

Again, this entry is concerned with how we (the four people who live in my house) lived and perceived life during the pandemic, not with the political or medical nature of the thing.

This page has many sections and updates. Use these in-page links to navigate:

Intro
Week 43 (01.02)
Week 44 (01.09)
Week 45 (01.16)
Week 46 (01.23)
Week 47 (01.30)
Week 48 (02.06)
Week 49 (02.13)
Week 50 (02.20)
Week 51 (02.27)
Week 52 (03.06)
Week 53 (03.13)
Week 54 (03.20)
Week 55 (03.27)
Week 56 (1st Dose)
Week 57 (04.10)
Week 58 (04.17)
Week 59 (04.24)
Week 60 (2nd Dose)
Weeks 61-63
Weeks 64-66

Week 43 (thru Jan. 2)

Week 44 (thru Jan. 9)

Week 45 (thru Jan. 16)

Week 46 (thru Jan. 23)

Week 47 (thru Jan. 30)

Week 48 (thru Feb. 6)

Week 49 (thru Feb. 13)

Week 50 (WINTER STORM)

For details on this week, read We Survived The Historic 2021 Texas Winter Storm (So Far), my entry on the historic weather-related blackouts and water shortages.

Week 51 (thru Feb. 27)

Week 52 (thru March 6)

Week 53 (thru March 13)

Not much of import occurred this week — it was basically routine, for the first time in a while.

Week 54 (thru March 20)

Week 55 (thru March 27)

Three Dreams, 2021.03.25

In the first dream, I was with family (as I understood it in the dream), though none of the people were recognizable as either immediate or extended family in real life. We were in a multistory house set into the side of a steep hill, with all the outward facing walls made of windows. The house was spacious and well-appointed. Someone had brought their pet (friend?) chimpanzee, which got excited about all the windows. I was sitting inside one window, with the chimp outside, and it began to bang on the window. Some people in the house grew fearful that the animal was angry and would hurt someone or break something, but I had the distinct feeling he just wanted to play. Sure enough, it figured out where the door was, and chased some of us through the house. Most people were screaming in fright, but I was having fun. When I grew tired, I let it catch me, and the chimp hugged me with a big smile. “See?” I told the others. “He was just having fun.”

The second dream was set in a town I knew to be called “Bowlegs, Oklahoma”, but it resembled the real-life Bowlegs not at all. (Yes, Bowlegs is a real place in Oklahoma, with a high school and everything.) In the dream, the town was modern and extensive, sometimes referred to as the “Bowlegs-Konawa Corridor”, because it stretched from the location of real-life Bowlegs to real-life Konawa. A massive superhighway ran through there, with beautiful buildings incorporated into the highway — in places the highway ran through buildings and in others, shorter buildings supported the highway above. Below the raised highway were parklike grassy and tree-covered areas, and all the buildings were of white concrete and red brick, with lush green growth coming from planter boxes built into the buildings’ sides and roofs. But my destination was a small and dingy night club, where I hoped to drink in peace and anonymity. The underground night club was located in a former roller skating rink for some reason, and that night the owners had invited a troupe of roller-skaters to entertain the customers. This was the dream in which every person was wearing a facemask, including all bar patrons, employees, and even the roller-skating team. I traded good-natured quips with some of the women roller skating, until one of them skidded up to me, lowered her mask, and said: “It’s me, Nah.” (She pronounced it “naw”, and I somehow knew she meant that was her name.) As if I was supposed to know who she was. In the dream, I suddenly realized I did know who she was, and felt bad for not remembering her earlier, and continued to fail to remember her significance to me. Had we dated? Was she a relative? I continued to feel bad that I couldn’t remember, nor could I guess what “Nah” was short for (Hannah, perhaps?). Afterward, as the roller skating team boarded their bus to head to the next town, I met her outside and asked if we could talk. She apologized that she simply didn’t have time for that, because the bus was about to leave and her roller skating life was very busy. But she said she thought of me often and hoped we could stay in contact. She seemed kind and like she truly wished me the best. Even after waking, I can still recall her face from the dream, but can’t match it to anyone I’ve known in real life.

The third dream was set in a large city which felt northeastern — probably not NYC, but maybe Boston or Philadelphia or something. I remember being lost, and at one point cutting across a railroad track near the lowering warning arm where a railroad employee was training a police officer how to lower and raise the wooden arm to stop traffic. The police officer looked at me questioningly until the railroad employee told me I probably shouldn’t cut across the tracks there. I told him I did it all the time, and the cop told the employee that it was probably fine. I kept going, ending up inside a restaurant where I asked for directions to something (I can’t remember), and they told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t welcome there anymore. There was a lot of walking in this dream, sometimes in the day and sometimes in the night, but the entire time I was trying to locate that one place that I now can’t remember.

Week 56 (thru April 3)

Week 57 (thru April 10)

Week 58 (thru April 17)

Week 59 (thru April 24)

Week 60 (thru May 1)

Weeks 61-63 (thru May 22)

I know I haven’t updated this in three weeks; there wasn’t much to report, related to the pandemic. RnB began to wind down their school year, I waited out my post-vaccination two weeks (supposedly, one isn’t “fully vaccinated” until two weeks elapse following the second shot), and we began loosening up our personal restrictions just a little.

Though May has been cooler and rainier than average, we did see a few warm sunny days so M started taking RnB to the neighborhood swimming pool, which has reopened.

May 22: We drove to my brother’s house in Flower Mound, for a nephew’s fourth birthday party. All eight adults in attendance have been fully vaccinated, and all four families have been following recommended safety protocols during the pandemic, so we felt comfortable hanging out with them for a few hours (it was mostly outdoors anyway). It was a nice trip despite raining during the entire three-hour drive back home.

Texas made the national news a few times in recent days, mostly due to harmful regressive legislation but also due to our pandemic relaxation (our restrictions were never very strict in the first place). On the ground, it looks like nothing has changed. Those who were wearing or requiring masks are still doing so, and those who weren’t still aren’t. Vaccination rates here are still lower than in many other states, but on the other hand, social distancing is relatively easy here with everything so spaced out and it’s easier for most of us to stay home because our homes are, on average, larger than elsewhere in the country.

Weeks 64-66 (thru June 12)

The week after returning from my brother’s, I had a sore throat and cough, much like what I experienced after returning from San Antonio in March, but again it obviously wasn’t Covid, and again it went away in a few days (a lingering cough lasted more than a week). This time, my wife and children came down with it too, just as I was recovering (first M, then B, and finally R), but everyone was fine after a few days. It would have been unremarkable had it not happened on the tail end of a pandemic when there are still worries.

The children finished school, both making the honor roll. I “attended” awards ceremonies via Zoom, and the children waved to me on screen, which was weird but futuristic and cool at the same time. R got singled out for the second-highest AR (advanced reading) score in her entire grade (and the highest scorer was in her class too). This fall, R will start her final year of elementary school. (!) Right now, it looks like Texas schools have already decided to start completely normally in the fall — no masks, no virtual option, etc., at least in our district. I’m okay with this, as new data shows schools weren’t one of the primary drivers of the pandemic anyway.

A rainier-than-usual May gave way to a sunny and warm June, so the lawn looks great and RnB have been to the pool several times. We let R host a playdate here, with a classmate (the only person in school who beat her AR score — we encourage her to befriend the smarter children). Also, several of her friends are online regularly, so they can talk via one app while playing games in another app. B joins them for many of these “get togethers”.

B turned eight recently, his second pandemic birthday, celebrated (relatively) quietly at home with cake and a few presents. All he asked for was money, so we gave him that, and the same afternoon drove to Round Rock so he could spend it all on Pokemon cards. (He also bought a Texas-themed wallet, and a few other trinkets.)

I don’t know exactly when I will end this entry and transition back into my pre-pandemic blogging schedule (which was intermittent at best the past few years), but I think it’s coming soon. Mask-wearing in businesses here is down to 20-30%, with the “required” signs all being replaced by “encouraged” signs. Any businesses that survived the weak restrictions Texas put in place are back open to full capacity. In other words, whatever happens in our lives moving forward will likely not be pandemic-related — though we’re still wearing masks when we go into stores, only eating at restaurants if they have outdoor seating or are mostly empty inside, and still washing our hands religiously.

Now I’m at the point of wondering what pandemic-related changes will be permanent in our lives, or at least mine. For example, will I continue wearing a mask when I go into businesses? If not, when will I stop? I haven’t shaken anyone’s hand in about 15 months, and I’m okay with never doing it again. Fist-bumps are fine with me, or even less contact if possible. And other such questions.

Newer Entry:We Survived The Historic 2021 Texas Winter Storm (So Far)
Older Entry:2020: Year In Review
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