Stepping Out

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.      

I hope you had a wonderful day. 

We are both over two weeks past fully vaccinated and numbers (although there still are numbers) are down.  We are still a little leery about venturing out. Our area still has a mask mandate which is unfortunately often ignored and horrible attendance at vaccination clinics which isn't just nerve wracking for us oldies, but for our young grandchildren cannot be vaccinated at this time. 

My favorite part of the watching the children during this time is that they have no problem with mask wearing unless someone tells them they should. Our preschoolers like to wear masks when we go out even though they never leave the car. Sometimes they wear them around the house. The "big" kids put them on in the morning with their coat and hat so they can climb on the bus. When we pick up kids after school, I see most children in the parking lot still wearing their masks, even after they climb into vehicles or start walking down streets. It has become second nature to them and they are not uncomfortable protecting others. 

Mr. Merry has no intention of rejoining the world. He was never a people person and between retirement and quarantine, he had reached his happy place.  He has found a chain hardware store that enforces mask wearing and he is perfectly happy spending the rest of his life either purchasing home improvement supplies or doing home improvement projects all by himself. 

I have begun to break free! This weekend I took my daughters and daughter in laws to a nearby college town to visit an eatery. I know this very liberal town and college would be very covid conscious so that Mr. Merry would not be too upset and thought it would be a nice foray back into some sort of normality. Everyone wore masks, even on the street where distancing is difficult. All stores required masks and had limits on numbers. It was a nice start. 

Somehow the second lady in this generation has turned 40 (how can that be? how old am I??) and we tried to celebrate inbetween the baseball, soccer, running and other activities that my moms are shuttling back and forth to and from. We settled on a favorite spot with an amazing new brunch menu! My first time eating in a restaurant in 18 months was a rousing success. 

This Thursday I am going to the early bird dinner at a little diner with two of my neighbors. One of them works at a factory bakery that supplies McDonald restaurants in our state. Employees can purchase sandwich buns and English muffins at the end of shift if there are overruns and she helped supply us early in the pandemic when breads were scarce. I am treating to thank her. 

Then on Sunday (can you hear the chains falling off?) I have made reservations at a tea room about 2 hours from here. My most further daughter in law will drive 40 minutes to my house where my vehicle will leave with another daughter in law, a daughter, a granddaughter and myself to drive an hour and 45 minutes to my oldest daughter's house. We will carpool with my other granddaughter, her mother in law, sister in law, and niece to a tea room where we will take up the entire little private dining room.  The beauty of all these teachers and healthcare workers and retirees is that all of us over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. 

After the fiasco of the fire department chicken dinner drive thru (where no one selling tickets, fixing boxes or delivering to cars was masked) Mr. Merry has no interest in ever eating in a restaurant or socializing or really leaving the house. Luckily I have family and friends who are being brave with me.