It’s been a week of doing things that we haven’t done since March 2020, and stuff is starting to gain some semblance of normalcy again. It’s nice.

Last Thursday, we had a Verizon technician in the house to replace the FIOS box in the basement. It was the first repair person we’ve had in the house since… before last March.

This past weekend, we went on a tour of garden centers with Silja to buy flowers. This included our first time riding in someone else’s car for the first time since last March.

On Sunday, we made our first impromptu “we need one or two things from the store” run to Aldi without planning beforehand or lugging a wagon to cart everything home for the first time since last March.

On Monday, Max came over for Rock Band. It was our first time having someone inside our house unmasked (and first time having someone inside period other than to quickly pee) since last March. It was also our first time eating food with someone inside our house since last March.

On Tuesday, there was voting, which happened (at least for one of us) in person. It’s our first time not voting by mail-in ballot since last March.

Today I went to a scheduled doctor’s appointment (eye doctor, in this case) for the first time since last March. (I’d had a couple other doctor visits during quarantine, but they were all for specific issues that were bothering me.)

Today we also ate at a restaurant for the first time since last March. In this case, it was People’s Indian buffet, and we sat outside, but was also just nice to do this seemingly normal thing and not be freaking out about it.

Here’s hoping variants don’t make the world go to shit again, although I’m still rather bitter about the CDC being so stupid and making things a million times more dangerous again with their new mask guidance.