COVID-Era Life Lately

Kushikatsu at Izakaya Toribar. We were mainly there to eat yakitori, but those dishes were less photogenic. The restaurant was very popular, all the indoor and outdoor tables were full when we came in around 7:30 PM on a Saturday, but we were able to sit at the bar so we didn't need to wait.

Very brief post today, as I'm quite busy with both work and personal matters this month! K and I's courthouse wedding will happen very soon, and even if there really wasn't that much to plan at all - we're doing this wedding in just about the most informal and low-key way possible - it's still a bit stressful. 

I've now been back in the office full time on a mandatory basis for roughly two months. Much more recently, my workplace finally got around to formalizing a policy that if any employee develops cold or flu symptoms - in other words, possible COVID - they should, in fact, stay home from the office. In hindsight, it's pretty wild that even though my colleagues and I have been required to return to the office full time since July, this particular issue was not explicitly addressed by our workplace policies until barely two weeks ago. 

I guess because most people in NYC are still masking on public transit, in grocery stores, and in many other indoor settings, no one at work had actually gotten sick with a cold or the sniffles in the past few months. So we're lucky that the lack of quarantine policy never really became an issue. Well, at least we have such a policy now, I was getting a bit worried that we were never going to get clear instructions on what we should do if we got a cough or sore throat. 

We're also officially back to being required to wear masks while around colleagues indoors. Though as I've mentioned, I never actually stopped wearing a mask at work - and in other public indoor settings - whenever I'm around people from other households, except when I'm actively eating or drinking. 

Because I'm a pretty big fan of US women's gymnastics, I originally wanted to attend the Simone Biles Gold Over America Tour ("GOAT" tour), at Barclays Center on November 6. But because that's the type of event that would almost certainly attract a significant audience under age 12, I don't think I'll ultimately be able to go forward with it, even if I'm happy to stay masked throughout the show. 

Under NYC's current rules, I believe all attendees over 12 at large events would definitely need to show proof of vaccination to attend. Maybe that means the NYC Simone Biles GOAT tour stop would actually be a relatively safe event for all guests, and I shouldn't worry so much? Either way, I'm more than 95% sure I won't be attending. It just doesn't feel right to me at this time, and I'm not optimistic that I'll feel better about it by early November.