In Normal Times, today would have been the day in which we would have been setting out for Spring Break in Santa Fe: we'd be at La Posada tonight, I'm sure. But USC isn't giving us a Spring Break this year, in case students rush off to Cabo or Miami Beach and come back Covid-ridden: instead of which we have five "wellness days" distributed between now and the end of the semester, in which there are no classes and, in theory, we're supposed to try and recuperate, too. OK, to be sure, I needed to do some departmental admin today, and that got taken care of - a couple of hours, maybe. But - we are two weeks out from vaccination! So off we went - coffee out; lunch out; dinner out - and a great trip to Lincoln Avenue Nursery, in Pasadena, to stock up on lots of plants and potting soil, a walk ...
Yes, indeed, it still feels like a ghost town, in many ways. But things seem to be hanging on, mostly. We were really struck by the ubiquity of food delivery service people who are clearly keeping restaurants going - even if, of course, the establishments have to hand over a huge amount by way of fees to them. And signs of life in a pandemic are everywhere - not just in ubiquitous mask wearing, but in all the varieties of signs saying distance, distance, distance. But we felt optimistic: it was just so good being out in the world again. So we hope our students and colleagues took the idea of a Wellness Day as seriously as we did ...especially, of course, if they've been able to get vaccinated, too ...
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