Deja Vu All Over Again

‘Deja vu all over again’, I sometimes confuse Yogi Berra and Yogi Bear, but I’m pretty sure I’m not quoting Yogi Bear.  

OK, I think we’ve been good sports about this whole damn pandemic thing.  We did our part, we bought enough toilet paper to fill the garage, Ok, that wasn’t really helpful. But we did close our doors to anyone outside our household, we skipped weddings, funerals, and sporting events, some of us became woefully out of shape when the gyms closed.  

Restaurants closed their doors to inside dining. Many restaurants took to the streets with tables, chairs and umbrellas or heaters and presto we had street seating.  Carry out was available at a lot of places but, to be honest, carry out just isn’t the same as sharing a meal with your sweetie in a cozy restaurant with linen table cloths and candle light.  Those styrofoam cartons take all the fun out of the dining experience.  The scrunchy noise styrofoam makes simply opening the container reminds me of fingernails on a chalkboard.  

Eighteen months ago we thought masks were for Halloween or Mardi Gras.  Soon masks became everyday wear, we were willing to flatten our hair or create funny wings in an attempt to keep the virus at bay. We quickly learned to untangle our hearing aids from the mask before we tossed the mask in the glove box. We became familiar with the odd term, social distancing.  

We stayed home, learned to appreciate e-books because the libraries were closed.  Jigsaw puzzles sold out on Amazon, we hunkered down.  Holidays came and went practically without notice. No Thanksgiving turkey shared with loved ones, forget the Christmas tree Santa didn’t visit last year. 

Then came the vaccine, we did our part, and waited in line to get an appointment.  We followed the serpentine line of cars to hang our arm out the window for a Fauci ‘ouchie’. After doing the whole thing a second time we were issued a ‘passport to freedom’.  We rushed home and made a couple of copies of the passport, hid one away in the underwear drawer and carried the other one in our wallet.  

We waited until lots of people got vaccinated and then with a sigh of relief, we ventured out to our favorite restaurant now open to indoor dining, some of the gyms opened, and those gray roots disappeared as the beauty salons opened up.  I went to the library and after having my temperature taken and using the hand sanitizer I could grab a real book from the shelf. Signs in store windows suggested fully vaccinated folks could keep their mask in their pocket. Life was almost back to normal.

But nooooo, apparently Delta isn’t just an airline, this damn COVID 19 has mutated to another more contagious version (sure, what else would we expect)  Who would have guessed, we aren’t even through celebrating and BAAAMM we are rethinking social distancing and masks.  We were vaccinated and doing the happy dance but with the new Delta virus even vaccinated folks are getting a break-through flu-like illness.  I’m happy we aren’t likely to end up in the ICU but catching this new variant is not fun and still requires a personal responsibility to quarantine and notify anyone you came in contact with.  While grandkids stayed away from grandparents for fear of bringing the COVID 19 to the old folks the roles are now reversed. Now everyone is worried about the children too young to be vaccinated catching this more contagious Delta variety.   

Seems like a dirty trick to me. 

We went to Costco this week and guess what? No toilet paper. Deja vu all over again!