Day 3891 - Janet's Birthday

Janet is two months younger than me. Neither of us can believe that the world considers us senior citizens now. It doesn't seem possible that the years have gone by so quickly. We went back to our favorite restaurant for dinner. It was the same place we went to dinner for my birthday two months ago. The place still seemed safe and the food was still delicious. I don't know how the restaurant can make money now with so few tables though. I hope the restaurant is still around when our birthday's roll around next year.

A lot of places we like just haven't been able to make it. The pandemic hasn't been kind to bars and restaurants. We wondered what we were going to do for Thanksgiving this year. For at least five years we've been going to a hotel that has an amazing Thanksgiving buffet. Buffets were one of the first casualties of the pandemic unfortunately. Nobody wants you serving your own food anymore. That was the very first thing they eliminated at the Astronomer's Lodge last March.

We keep hoping for normalcy to return, but the opposite seems to be happening. All the weirdness is just starting to seem normal. When we were walking this morning we saw an older lady and her dog that we haven't seen for quite a while. Evidently she lives in a nearby senior center and she told us that they had all been quarantined for several weeks. Today was the first day the residents could go outside again. Probably someone had gotten sick in the building. All this is going on right around us and yet on the surface everything still seems pretty normal.

I heard today that McDonald Observatory is going to start opening up again at the end of the month. They are not inviting visitors indoors yet, but they are going to have their first star party a few weeks from now. You have to make reservations well ahead of time and they will be operating at 25% of normal capacity. I doubt that the place will need any volunteers for quite a while with so few people visiting. I'm a little surprised that the observatory is opening up at all since the place is very remote and none of the staff can afford to get sick. I hope it all works out well for them. I'm still looking forward to returning to the Davis Mountains sometime in the foreseeable future.

Truthfully, I'm looking forward to doing anything in the foreseeable future. In the beginning I thought the pandemic wouldn't affect me at all since I'm a bit of a loner. You realize quickly though that everything is connected to everything else and when one thing starts to crumble, it doesn't take long for other things to fall. So many things I used to take for granted just aren't working properly anymore.

When we started on our walk this morning the temperature was in the low seventies. Dawn loved it. She had a spring in her step and we were able to complete our full five miles. It warmed up quickly later in the day, but for a while early this morning it was easy to imagine that it was already Fall. Fall is going to seem a little weird without the State Fair of Texas or the Dalmatian Rescue Golf Tournament. I'm still looking forward to the cooler weather though.

We got a late start this morning but we're going to try to do better tomorrow. I really enjoy these pre-dawn walks. I'm not so sure about the rest of the day though. Basically, the pandemic still sucks.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3810

It was nice to see something positive today. The Crew Dragon launch was flawless. It was amazing how clean and futuristic the capsule looked. Somehow the two astronauts even managed a change of clothes a few hours after liftoff. I wonder how long before scenes like this become commonplace again. I'll have to remember to watch TV again tomorrow when the capsule arrives at the space station. Maybe I'll get to see one of these launches in person someday. The world has to return to normal eventually.

Normalcy is already returning to Dallas. There are no lines at stores anymore. The grocery store wasn't even crowded this morning. It's still impossible to find Clorox wipes, but almost everything else was on the shelves. I wonder how long we will continue wearing masks? If there isn't a huge surge in new infections two or three weeks from now, I predict they will slowly disappear. We'll probably be like Asian countries where some people will always wear them. I'll probably ditch mine later this Summer as the virus fades from the news.

Of course, maybe it doesn't fade from the news. Maybe all the large crowds we are seeing on TV will trigger a whole new wave of outbreaks. Almost anything could happen in a year like 2020. I'm just waiting for hurricane season to start.

The weather is still very pleasant. We had a nice walk with Dawn this morning. We started before 7 AM, but there were already a lot of joggers and cyclists in the park. More people must be working again, because weekends are starting to feel different than weekdays. As the day grew warmer, large groups gathered in the park for picnics and play. I'm sure people are still being diagnosed with coronavirus in area hospitals. There are probably protests in town as well. Nevertheless, it still seemed pretty much like a normal Saturday in Dallas. Normal is good. We need a lot more normal.

I wasted a lot of time watching the launch on TV today. This stuff never gets old for me. I wondered whether the black boots the astronauts wore are actually part of the spacesuit, or were more like the rubber garden boots I wear on rainy days. Maybe the white space suit was under these boots. I wonder whether toy stores are already sold out of sparkly toy dinosaurs? I was surprised to see that one of the astronauts wore glasses. I guess perfect vision isn't a requirement. It's amazing these rockets even work at all. They are so complicated. My car doesn't even work all the time. Neither does my computer.

I went out and brought home a large pizza for dinner. Pizza and beer, a friendly dog looking for table scraps, a warm Spring evening, and a rocket launch. Sounds like a good day to me.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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