The less friendly pandemic, Part 2 (Plus bonus more friendly)

The sign at Hume Park warning that the playground (er, “park feature or area”) is currently closed now has a new sticker on it warning of a $200 fine.

“You there, little boy. Let’s see some ID. You’re being fined 200 clams for riding on that swing set.”

“But I don’t have any clams.”

“It’s a metaphor, kid.”

“A meta for what?”

But while the city is turning up the heat in some ways, they are turning it down in others, as the first signs of going back to a kind of normal have emerged. Here’s another sign, this one at the tennis courts.

As long as you are unorganized and have few, if any, friends, you are good to play tennis again. So that’s something.

In the meantime, a weekend of unseasonably hot weather meant people were jamming the parks and beaches, physical distancing be damned. It will be interesting to see what new cases look like in a few weeks. The week ahead appears to be largely wet, so that should dampen a lot of venturing out.

Also in the meantime, I got confirmation today that the college is committed to online courses for the entire summer, as well as for the fall semester, barring those that require specialized equipment or face-to-face interaction–but only if it’s deemed safe to do so. It is expected that “most” classes will remain online.

My thinking on this is that they realize how difficult it is to do physical distancing on the campus–it’s essentially designed to jam people together, not keep them apart–and want to delay this until a vaccine or other effective workaround can be ironed out that would keep the majority of people safe, rather than turning an education into a trip through the plaguelands.

What this means is that I’m all but guaranteed to be working from home until September and may be working from home until December. Basically, for the rest of the year.

While I like my new no-commute very much. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this.

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