Someday, we might look back on these days as one of the greatest “Darwin filters” of modern times. The problem is, nobody knows for sure which behaviors are too risky. Danita and I are staying fairly conservative. But there are folks in our neighborhood that are more conservative than us. They never walk inside a store or restaurant. They wear masks when they exercise outdoors. Then there are those (mostly younger folk) who wear masks in stores (as required by Maryland), but don’t bother with any other precautions. And a surprising number don’t cover their noses. Are Danita and I being silly or risky? Nobody knows for sure. We’re just guessing as we go along.

Meanwhile, our neighborhood had a red letter day yesterday. We opened the pool. It’s for residents only. No visitors. No grand kids. All the community pool furniture has been stacked in a corner. Residents have to bring their own chair. They have to wear a mask until they are safely situated at least 6 feet apart. (No masks while in the pool, of course.) Residents have to sign a legal waiver, which they exchange for an ugly orange wrist band. All in all, the COVID rules are a page and a half long. (That doesn’t count the legal waiver or the regular rules, which are also in effect.) The maximum permitted in our pool at any time is 47. The board was worried that the pool would be too crowded because there’s nothing else to do. I never thought the pool would be crowded. Carrying your own chair down a long, steep ramp to the pool is something a lot of folks our age don’t find attractive. And truth be told, there always were a lot more people laying on a lounge chair than in the pool. 200 residents got orange wrist bands. Yesterday, a little over 30 people came. Danita is a big pool person and went over for some exercise yesterday and today. Both days, she has a lot of time where she was the only person in the water. I think it’s amazing how much gossip community news Danita picks up even when she sees only a couple of people she knows.

I spent a lot of time on our community computers. They wanted a new report with more information to use as a check-in list at the pool. That shouldn’t have been very hard, but somehow I ended up spending a day on it. We have a pool book with the pass numbers and photos of everybody who requested a pool pass. Our office manager had problems printing that out. This was hard because the cause of the error was obscure. That was another day of work.

We have one more piece of “big” news. Ever since we got back from our last trip, there have been items we wanted to buy but couldn’t find. The list kept on shifting. At different times, it was toilet paper, hamburger, hand soap, and so on. Thursday, I closed the list when I scored a 3-pack of active dry yeast. Woo-Hoo!

That’s a lot of excitement for one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It was a quiet week. No big excitement. No drama. Just nice.

Danita watched a cooking show sponsored by Howard County. Howard County uses WebX, so of course they started with 5 or 10 minutes of technical difficulties. The cooking show was less than 5 minutes long. I was surprised when she came back upstairs.

The Men’s club Zoom meeting worked well. About a dozen men showed up. One resident is still in Florida but zoomed in to join us. That was nice.

The Columbia Association decided to open their indoor pools. Danita has a CA membership so she can swim in the winter. She had one day to decide whether to pay for her membership or suspend it for 3 months. She decided to suspend. The next day, she got the restrictions on pool use. She made a wise decision. The pool might be good for some folks, but it is unusable for her. It looks like our neighborhood will open our private pool. It will be residents only — no guests at any time.

I hope everybody is doing well.

It’s been a quiet week in Columbia. We didn’t join any protests, or eat in at any restaurants, but we have been zooming more. Circle, grandkids, doors. Our neighborhood men’s club is going to try a zoom tomorrow morning. It’s bring your own bagel and make your own coffee, which works for me. But sometimes I also steal a piece of doughnut. How am I going to get 1/4 of a doughnut?

Our neighborhood had a meeting largely dedicated to whether and how we will open the pool. Columbia runs several outdoor pools, all of which will be closed this year. Their issue is funding. Our issue is avoiding liability. Do residents have to sign a waiver to get in the pool? Does somebody have to be at the gate admitting people? On and on the discussion goes. I attended to make sure they didn’t try to have an electronic signup that guarantees the resident has signed a waiver. Our database isn’t that good. People move out, others move in, the swim passes are on the counter. End result, we have residents swimming who aren’t in the book. The board decided to buy colored wrist bands. I think that’s a sensible decision.

The really big excitement was my new cell phone. I cracked the glass on my old phone. The phone still works, but probably not for long. I picked out a “7.1” phone that costs about $200. A few months ago, it was $150 more. Now the “7.2” phone is out and the “7.1” phone is obsolete. That makes it a good deal for me. I happened to check the delivery. Amazon said I would be the next stop. Then there were 8 stops in front of me instead of 1. Then the phone disappeared. I had to wait two days to make sure the phone didn’t re-appear. Then request a refund. Then order the phone again. Again I happened to check after the truck was in our neighborhood. I delayed my bike ride to make sure it appeared. That also let me charge the battery while I was riding. The phone is in and it works fine. In spite of all the new features and software, it’s pretty much the same as my old phone. But without the cracked screen.

Everything else is quiet this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Things are starting to open up in Maryland. And also in Howard County. For a while, the Howard County executive, Calvin Ball, was refusing to open the county even when the state was opening — in spite of the fact that our county has far fewer cases of Covid than some other counties (whether counting total numbers or per capita). It didn’t take him long to figure out he got a lot less criticism if he just followed the governor. Now he’s making small adjustments to the governor’s plans. I think it’s a head game with him. Anyway, many businesses, including restaurants and barbers, are open with restrictions. A few are still closed, including malls, movie theaters and mini-golf. Our church is having outdoor services this weekend with a limit of 250, who must socially distance and wear masks. They sent parishioners a survey asking when we would feel safe coming back to services. Both Danita and I said “after there’s a vaccine”. We’re both over 65 and both have underlying medical conditions. So we’re pretty much hunkered down for the duration. We go to the grocery store, and wash our hands, and order two carry-out meals a week, and wash our hands, and social distance, and wear masks, and try not to touch our faces, and wash our hands.

In spite of that, we participated in several high-risk behaviors this week. We let a contractor in to talk about possible new doors to the deck. We let a plumber in to replace our busted garbage disposal. We let an exterminator in to get rid of some carpenter bees. (I asked him to walk around when he came, but before he was done it was raining. I couldn’t ask him to walk in muddy ground in the rain.) And we had a party! Our neighbors the Jones are as careful as we are. They have an extra good reason to be careful because her 90 year old mother lives with them. We invited them to our back porch Wednesday evening. We sat in chairs placed 6 feet apart. They ate their cookies and drank their wine while we ate our pretzels and drank our wine. Not sharing wine is easy. They drink only sweet white. Is that even wine? But we both felt a little funny not sharing food.

I wrote earlier about how hard it is to find cleaning products. I ended up scoring bathroom cleaner for free! I saw my favorite brand available at Walmart online and ordered 4 bottles. They were to arrive Wednesday. I got an Email from FedEx saying they couldn’t deliver the package because it is damaged. I couldn’t ask for a refund online because I had nothing to return, so I called Walmart. 20 minutes later they called back and told me they were out of stock, but they could refund my money. The next day FedEx delivered 3 of the 4 bottles. That was another call to Walmart to let them know to charge me for 3 bottles. 20 minutes later, they said I should just keep it. Pretty good score, if you ask me.

Danita and I have participated in several video presentations — talks, cooking shows, concerts. We’ve pretty much decided WebX is the most unreliable platform available today.

This should be an exciting week. Monday we have a virtual meeting with a contractor about deck doors. Tuesday I have a 1:00 neighborhood meeting to discuss speed bumps with an expert from the county. I’m not sure why I’m in that meeting, but I was invited. I like speed bumps. If there’s a few inches between the bump and the curb, they’re easy to skate around. Even if I go over them, they’re just about the only thing I can do faster than a car. That’s followed by a 2:00 neighborhood meeting to discuss opening our pool. I’m in that meeting because they might want an online reservation system. Then Tuesday evening it’s a condo meeting, which will mostly be about repairing water damage to houses. This might total up to more excitement than I can handle all at once. I might need a little wine Wednesday evening to calm things down. And maybe some Doritos. Or pretzels. Not that I’m anticipating.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.