Closures continue, though we’re not in full stay-at-home mode yet like California, where its population of 40 million people (more than all of Canada) are literally being asked to stay home and not go anywhere unless it is for an essential service.
Here’s the latest bunch of things I can’t do:
- Go out for dinner (all restaurants are closed except for take out and delivery)
- Get a coffee (Starbucks is closed. Technically, I still can go because they are keeping stores close to emergency services open and there is one a few blocks from Royal Columbian hospital that’s open, so if society begins to totally collapse and I want a final oat fudge bar, I’m set. For now.)
- Go to a playground in Vancouver (the ones in New West are still open for the time being, with signs basically telling kids not to play together which…uh, good luck with that?)
- Go to work (work from home started on Wednesday; staff are only going in on an as-needed basis)
- Buy groceries between 7-8 a.m. (reserved for seniors and those at risk, though I’d only shop this early if I was doing it in a dream, anyway)
- Go to The Other 11 Months local NaNoWriMo weekly writing group (postponed indefinitely for obvious reasons, though I haven’t gone for quite awhile due to my extended writing slump)
But to not go all Negative Nellie, here are things I can do:
- Grab a bunch of free games from services ranging from Apple’s App Store to gog.com
- Buy Serif’s line of excellent Affinity software for 50% off
- Go outside, provided I practice social distancing (as a bonus, the weather has finally been sunny and mild this week)
- Ride the bus for free and enter through the rear doors (to promote social distancing)
- Purchase a Nintendo Switch (just kidding, this thing is sold out everywhere)
- Buy the new iPad Pro with LIDAR! Why would I want an iPad with LIDAR? I do not know.
The next phase of this pandemic will be interesting. Everyone will adjust to the restrictions and the novelty of it will keep things interesting for a few weeks. But I suspect a lot of people think it will also be over in a few weeks and if it’s not…what next? People lived through years of war, but in our hyper social media-dominated world, will we as a society have what it takes to keep it together if all of this starts stretching past weeks and into months?
To quote Homer Simpson, “I don’t know.”
