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.