So, it's been another odd week. The kids were off on Wednesday, so I took off. I was looking forward to a four-day week, even if it meant my plentiful work might have to wait an extra day. After last week I just needed a day to regroup and get a few things done. Well, late Tuesday afternoon we got a call from Jacob's school. These brief robocalls that instruct us to check our email are usually sharing that there were new COVID cases in the school. There had been a couple calls over the previous few days, totaling nine cases, most of which were related. But this time, the news was that they were going fully remote for three weeks, until the end of the month. Ugh. Jacob is usually pretty good about handling his own work, so I'm not too worried about that, but it definitely complicates days when Carter is home and completely takes away our adult-only days on Tuesday and Friday. It's like a throwback to the chaos of spring, and I'm not looking forward to it.
Cases have been growing everywhere in our area--more so in Buffalo, but steadily rising to record levels here, too. The state put a bunch of new restrictions in place on Monday, mostly limiting gatherings and closing bars, restaurants, and gyms early. The most immediate ramification was that in-home gatherings were supposed to be limited at 10 people, which effectively would put the kibbosh on our Thanksgiving with Craig's family, as we're usually at least 12, if not more. The second ramification is that I realized the wedding we were scheduled to attend on Saturday, which was already limited to 50 people for each of two shifts, would now be down to 25, which seemed completely impossible. Thankfully, we got a message Monday evening that the reception had miraculously moved to a venue outside the "yellow zone", which would enable them to keep their 50 people per shift! Whew.
In other news, we continued last week's gorgeous summery weather through Tuesday before starting to return to normal on Wednesday and being firmly back in pre-winter by Thursday. But on Monday, the tree in the front of our house looked like this--that after being almost completely green a week earlier:
The colors were really pretty--more gold on the house side and redder toward the street. But by Wednesday, we had this:
And Friday we woke up to this. At a glance it looked like it had snowed:
The tree is now almost empty save for a handful of green and red leaves near the bottom. And if any of those survive the 65mph wind gusts today and another windy day tomorrow, I'll be shocked. Looks like the cold might be here to stay. On the bright side, a year ago this week we had nearly a foot of snow, so I guess I'll still take this. As much as everyone is decorating for Christmas early to bring some holiday cheer in the midst of this ridiculously difficult time, I just can't get there yet. I'm already dreading the holidays a bit because I know they won't be the same, and while I do look forward to a cozy, decorated house and a seasonally appropriate coating of snow, there is a part of me that worries it'll be setting up false hope for a holiday that won't be the same.
For the most part this week felt a lot like that week in March when things rapidly got worse. We even had another Friday the 13th like we had that week, which essentially ushered in the first round of shutdowns. Cases have worsened all over the country to previously unseen levels, hospitals are filling (even locally), and I presume Carter going fully remote is inevitable. As it was, the restrictions this week also included a stipulation that open schools needed to test 20% of their population every week using less invasive rapid tests. A similar strategy has seemed to work well at U of R this semester, but obviously when you're dealing with little kids it becomes a bigger deal. If not enough parents opt-in, schools will have to go remote. We'll see how this goes, if we even make it to that point. But as a whole it's worrisome. It's worse than it ever was and so many people just aren't taking it seriously. They've announced more than once that private gatherings are driving the majority of infections, and it makes sense because people generally wear masks everywhere except restaurant tables (whether they're worn correctly is a different story, but...), but it always feels weird to mask at someone's house. We need to normalize it somehow, because people just aren't making wise choices. We all miss normalcy, no doubt about it, and after eight months it's getting really hard. Since those private gatherings can't really be policed, schools and restaurants are bearing the burden to try to minimize the further spread from those infected at unstoppable gatherings.
The thing is, we all know none of this is ideal. People are complaining about the rules and hating on the governor, but truth be told, this is only getting worse and something needs to be done. Let's say that the death rate is 2.2%, which is the current rate based on reported cases and deaths. The U.S. population is 328 million. If we let this run unchecked through the population so everyone gets it and we can "get it over with", you're looking at over 7 million deaths. Even with a fraction of that so far, we've heard so many nightmarish and sad stories about losses, so I can't even imagine deaths in the millions. We've already seen on a national level what happens when no one champions any immediate ways to manage it, and I can't say I want to see that happen on a more local level. I think the weather-driven need for indoor gatherings is mostly to blame for the latest spike, followed by Halloween parties--which means Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be nightmares as well. We all already feel so isolated, deprived, and stressed from the last eight months that human contact (outside of our household) is probably the #1 thing we're craving. And now to think we might miss out on the two last events of the year that we all look forward to the most? It's almost unthinkable. But it's probably the only safe thing to do.
No one likes living like this, but after our last round of restrictions brought numbers so far down, we made it a long time before things got worse again. Maybe we can do it again, but more efficiently if we all cooperate right now. At the end of the day, the state wouldn't have to regulate this stuff if people made wise decisions on their own. And as long as the state has a bill to pay for managing this, they probably have a right to limit citizens so that bill doesn't go any higher. I know people think this is step one to losing our liberties and think it's all overkill for something that's no worse than the flu, but a) there's no reason to believe anyone wants to keep these restrictions when no longer needed (what kind of jerk actually thinks this is a good way to live, and how could it possibly benefit them post-COVID?); and b) it is worse than the flu--the overflowing hospitals (even before the peak of flu season hits) make that case pretty well. Sure, a lot of people come through it no problem, but the problem is that the asymptomatic folks can unknowingly pass it along to someone who can't tolerate it as well. There's so much to think about right now to balance your life and the risks.
All that said, as I mentioned, we went to a wedding this weekend. We knew we'd be spending most of it masked, but we were happy to do it for Craig's cousin. We actually went through lot of COVID chaos beforehand trying to figure out what to do with the boys. Jacob was supposed to have basketball on Saturday, so my parents were going to come in and take him to the game, then drive the boys back to Buffalo, where we could meet them after the wedding. Then my dad got scheduled for a medical procedure and had to get a COVID test Friday, after which he'd need to socially distance. So then it was down to my mom, but it was also a little risky to have her with the boys and then go home to my dad, but we didn't really have any options on Craig's side, either. His mom just had surgery on Friday and it wasn't clear if she'd even be home by then, so it didn't really work to leave the boys there. In the end my mom came out to our house, but Jacob's basketball game got canceled (and the rest of the season postponed), so her exposure was pretty minimal. She was just going to stay with the boys at our house and decide once we got home (which was supposed to be pretty early) whether to stay overnight.
It was a cool but partly sunny day, actually pretty decent for this time of year. I was excited to wear a new dress (well, I bought it forever ago super cheap but had never worn it) that I was originally planning to wear to my cousin's wedding in March that got postponed. Ironically, unbeknownst to pretty much everyone, they got married in a private ceremony on Saturday as well! A party will be forthcoming, but I'm so happy for them, too!
The church for the wedding we went to was gorgeous.
The ceremony was sweet (aside from the coughing priest, anyway!). The mother of the groom (Craig's aunt) came in holding her grandson, Cooper, who you might remember me holding after the bridal shower a while back. He was so handsome! The mother of the bride had a baby in her arms, too--her granddaughter!
I loved the rose window in the back of the church.
Everything was so gorgeous. I know the Catholic church gets a bad wrap for the opulence (and related expense) of its churches, but they sure are lovely to worship in.
The groom is a fireman, and the truck was waiting to greet them outside the church. And yes, the bride was gorgeous as ever!
While the new venue was a ways out into the country to be outside the yellow zone, it ended up being a beautiful place. From the balcony and beams to the light fixtures and outdoor patio, it was such a pretty space. I would have loved to get married in a spot like that!
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Note the bride and groom up top!
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Every detail, from the table of family wedding pictures and another of family members who had passed, to adorable place cards and amazing desserts, was perfect. The bride did a ton of those touches herself, and it was really beautiful and elegant without being overdone.
We had to be masked unless we were sitting at the table, so we did take a moment to capture a selfie then!
The health inspector showed up mid-reception which prompted a little scrambling to make sure people weren't skirting the rules. That was some unneeded stress for the bride, but it all seemed to work out okay. I think as a whole people were trying really hard. It turned out that a few people dropped out of the late session, so we were able to stay later than planned (but not too late--everything now needs to shut down at 10pm). It was nice to see some of the late shift cousins and have a little more adult interaction before heading back to reality. We had such a wonderful time.
I won't lie, I felt a little like Cinderella coming back home to reality, after being dressed up for the first time in ages and having a night that felt at least a little closer to normalcy despite all the precautions. Now we just have the holidays to look ahead to, and those will probably be even more challenging, so it was a bit of a bummer to have this night behind us. So much is changing and it's hard to think of going back to stricter regulations. We marveled this week at work, as our at-home status was extended to at least February, about how we went from two weeks seeming like forever, to a few months, to half a year, and now facing down likely a full year out of the office. And yet here we are, still hanging in there. It's probably good we didn't know from the beginning that it would go this long because it would have been completely overwhelming. I've said from the beginning we basically need to take this one day at a time, and that's still my feeling. It's getting harder and there are days when the stress of it all gets overwhelming and deflating. I spend way too much time playing games and painting by number on my phone right now because it's a way to stay off Facebook and escape from the bigger problems. Probably not the best coping technique, but as we all seem to say lately, it is what it is. There isn't much we can do about it right now, so we just make it work. It might mean we have a few more problems to solve once this is over, but whatever gets you through right now might just be what has to happen. But for one night at least, it was fun to remember what life is supposed to be like, and I really want to get back to that soon. Mask up and be considerate, folks. We're all in this together.
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