Restaurants

[adrian_turtle]

I have carefully avoided eating in restaurants for more than 5 years now. I remember the last time I casually got a cup of tea and a macaroon in the library cafe (in early March of 2020. That was the trip where I checked out a doorstopper of a short story collection that sat on my headboard shelf for 10 months.) After the 3 of us were vaccinated in 2021, we went out for lunch, rejoicing. We didn't know how little help the vaccine was on somebody immunocompromised, nor how little it helped with the new variants. That was probably when Vicki got Covid. And pneumonia. And she's coughing yet.

For a long time, I've heard some people saying Covid has been thoroughly suppressed already and we can go back to doing what we like. The economy needs it, or everyone is exhausted, or it just isn't necessary to be cautious anymore. And I hear others say common courtesy requires stringent precautions: masking everywhere, not eating in restaurants, etc. Brunch? You would risk everyone's health for something as trivial as brunch? Yes, I am taking stringent precautions, but it's a loss. And it has been a real loss that I have not been able to have a festive meal in company. That I have not been able to invite someone over for dinner. That I have not been able to stop off for a sandwich as part of a long day of errands. It's not trivial. (footnote) I've missed it.

I spent most of last week at a shiva out of state, eating meals at restaurants. Cousins very kindly drove me everywhere, as I can't drive. There are restaurants that one or another of my relatives really like, so all eleven of us went together. Sitting under flickering lights, in a large group that contained Cousin Shouty, it did not seem feasible to keep my mask on OR ask detailed questions of waiters before each meal. Are the eggs cooked in butter? Is there beer in the fried mushrooms? I took a lot of LactAid, but it wasn't for dairy foods that I enjoyed. I ate in restaurants without masking, but they weren't foods that I enjoyed, and they weren't experiences that I enjoyed.

So now I am wearing a mask at home. To protect Vicki, in case I caught something from all that unmasked running around Ohio and eating in restaurants.



(footnote) I do eat outdoors in company in good weather, but I live in Boston and good weather for outdoor dining is not predictable, and just doesn't happen for much of the year. Especially for those of us who can't tolerate serious heat and don't have our own comfy backyards.

Comments

[redbird]

I may have caught covid while riding a bus, in that brief period when I thought the vaccine would keep me safe.

[evalerie]

Hugs!

As a person who is mostly trapped at home, though for different reasons, I hear you.

[silveradept]

I also miss being able to eat in like that. But I suspect I spend, if not overspend, my risk budget at work, even with my precautions, because of being somewhere that all the other people aren't masking.

I wish you had at least had enjoyable times while you were being required to do the risky things.

[adrian_turtle]

My sense of my "risk budget" tends to slides into focusing very hard on the pennies I can control and not paying that much attention to the dollars I can't. I'm more rational than the cousin who left her N95 in the garage and traveled with protective essential oils and a scarf she could hold over her face if she were in a place she had to worry about covid. But I'm not being all that rational.

[silveradept]

The hardest part about being rational is that we don't know what our actual risk is and therefore we're grasping at what things we think we can control. There's some things we can be rational about, but they're few and far between.