There’s something “normal” about this picture…

(Sunday Paper, Year V, Issue 34)

I think we’ve been doing a good job of staying at home during this pandemic.

We’ve kept to ourselves as best we could, keeping our risk of transmission pretty low.

There have been a few visits (socially distanced), but certainly not as many as we would have liked.

This week, though, in a time when nothing is normal…

I kind of had as normal a week as I’ve had in a long time.

If we’re picking sides in terms of predicting what’s coming down the pike (pipe?), I fall squarely in the “things are going to get worse this fall/winter” camp.

So I’m realizing that now’s the time to take advantage of a couple of things before they’re not available later.

This week I got a haircut. An in-the-chair, not-cut-by-my-wife haircut. (Results pictured above.)

It was different, having my temperature taken before I went in and seeing the person cutting my hair wearing gloves and a mask. (And, of course, wearing a mask of my own.)

But I never really felt unsafe.

If you’re keeping score at home we had my last official haircut in early March…then a hack job in mid-April, and a shaved head in late June. The timing was right for this one.

I might not go back out for a haircut for another six-plus months…but I’m glad I took advantage of this window to get one now.

I also had to go clothes shopping, believe it or not. So on Saturday Kathy and I hit the department store. Two stores, as a matter of fact.

I needed to clear out some old dress shirts, and get some new ones to replace them, and I also needed some new shoes.

Kathy got a couple of things as well. She even went into the dressing room, which she said felt extremely safe and taken care of.

The most unusual part of the whole venture was that Kathy was with me. Usually when I tell her I have to get new clothes, even though I want her to come, she doesn’t have any interest.

This time I told her I was thinking about picking up some stuff, and she said, “Let’s go together!” (She wants to get out of the house.)

And, of course, there’s the grocery store, where the unusual is, weirdly, becoming usual. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve never been so concerned about the groceries that I’ve wiped them down…but I certainly am concerned about being in the grocery store and touching all the stuff there.

It gets easier each week…and it is each week that I am going to the store right now. I’ll back it off again to 10-to-14 days when things get worse, but for now it’s on a weekly basis.

I don’t mind the structure of the arrows pointing me which way to go, in case you were wondering. I just wish they followed my natural path through the store. (I’m an up-and-down the aisles shopper, but there are certain aisles I skip. Now I feel compelled to walk up and down each aisle and keep the pattern.)

Other than the occasional Target run for some non-essentials, or trip to the hardware store to take care of the yard, I haven’t been getting out as much as I usually do.

I don’t see it happening again like this anytime soon.

But for this week, at least, it was nice to remember what things used to be like.

Notes

*Thanks for reading and for finding this post. I had to switch to that new Facebook format this week, and if you’re coming here through Facebook, I’m just so happy you can navigate it and get here, because I’m having trouble finding anything on there.

*If you don’t already Like the John Sucich page on Facebook, you can do that here. You can also follow me on Twitter here. Thanks!

*Compost update - I guess Kathy gets a weekly e-mail update from that compost company I told you about last week. A few new sign-ups between last week and this one, so maybe I got some of you Framingham people to do it? Cool. We’re that much closer to a lower rate! (Let me know if you want in - we can get you the information.) Also, I didn’t realize this but Kathy also told me this week that next spring we’ll be getting a bag of compost from the company - the compost that our composting helped create. I think that’s cool.

*Also, a reminder that if you’re local one of the places you can help support is Exhibit ‘A’. They have the beer garden open and are arranging for food trucks to be there every time the beer garden is open to meet Massachusetts’ standard of serving food with drink. Kathy and I will be trying to get there a few more times before the summer is out, so maybe we’ll see you there! They also have beer to go and other stuff you can buy. (I’m probably going to get a baseball cap because I think they look really cool.) You can check out their website for hours and which food trucks will be there when or where to follow them on social media to stay up to date on everything. And hopefully we’ll be back there doing comedy before too long - I miss that.

*Lastly, it was a bummer that this weekend’s Mets games (and who knows, maybe beyond?) were postponed because of a COVID case in the organization. It would have been miraculous, I would think, for them to get through the season without something happening. The baseball being played right now is not great, but I’ve enjoyed watching it and having something to watch in the evenings like I used to. I hope the Mets (and every other team) can stay healthy the rest of the way and we make it to October without any major incidents.