Sam (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
l33tminion) wrote2022-05-15 05:51 pm
l33tminion) wrote2022-05-15 05:51 pm
Spring Gets Hot
First hot weekend of the year, and a busy one.
Yesterday was the first day for the Union Square Farmers Market. I've been looking forward to that so much. It was back to the parking lot at the Union Square Plaza, the 2020 layout. Some of the less-effective communicable disease mitigation have been ditched, and face-masks are required only for the first hour. There's still hand sanitizer at the entrance, which seems like a good idea in general.
(It's not that surprising that the location changed back. 2021's plan of "close part of Somerville Avenue in the middle of every Saturday" was quite surprising to be able to pull off for even one year. Maybe next year it will be spread out over the plaza again in the 2019 configuration.)
Later, we had lunch at Bronwyn with a school acquaintance of Julie's who'd just recently moved to town. Somerville Porchfest, the city-wide music festival, was in the afternoon, and Erica's school friend's family was hosting their dad's band and having a potluck dinner after. Porchfest turns the whole city into a sprawling party that rolls across town, and people were out in Union and Prospect listening to music, enjoying the weather, picnicking, selling lemonade, and flagrantly violating those stringent open-container rules. (Legalize having a beer in the park!) The potluck had enough food to feed several armies (I brought rolls from the farmers market), and Eris had fun playing with several of her school friends.
Today, I made beer-can chicken, something I'd been thinking about doing again this winter but failed to get around to. I cooked a whole chicken from Stillman that I picked up at the farmers market. And Eris had a birthday party to attend, at Prospect Hill Playground.
Last week was record-setting-by-far in terms of how many COVID cases were caught in testing at kid's school. It seems that we've wandered from "the CDC isn't recommending masking anymore" to "okay, so they are recommending masking again, but the time for expecting anyone to do anything in particular is over". People have baked in the assumption that the second Omicron wave can't be worse, but the numbers only look a hair different from five or six weeks short of the previous peak.
In addition to case counts, I really wish I had more data on repeat cases: Percentage of all cases, distribution of time since last case, correlation with severity of last case. Would help us know what we're in for.
Yesterday was the first day for the Union Square Farmers Market. I've been looking forward to that so much. It was back to the parking lot at the Union Square Plaza, the 2020 layout. Some of the less-effective communicable disease mitigation have been ditched, and face-masks are required only for the first hour. There's still hand sanitizer at the entrance, which seems like a good idea in general.
(It's not that surprising that the location changed back. 2021's plan of "close part of Somerville Avenue in the middle of every Saturday" was quite surprising to be able to pull off for even one year. Maybe next year it will be spread out over the plaza again in the 2019 configuration.)
Later, we had lunch at Bronwyn with a school acquaintance of Julie's who'd just recently moved to town. Somerville Porchfest, the city-wide music festival, was in the afternoon, and Erica's school friend's family was hosting their dad's band and having a potluck dinner after. Porchfest turns the whole city into a sprawling party that rolls across town, and people were out in Union and Prospect listening to music, enjoying the weather, picnicking, selling lemonade, and flagrantly violating those stringent open-container rules. (Legalize having a beer in the park!) The potluck had enough food to feed several armies (I brought rolls from the farmers market), and Eris had fun playing with several of her school friends.
Today, I made beer-can chicken, something I'd been thinking about doing again this winter but failed to get around to. I cooked a whole chicken from Stillman that I picked up at the farmers market. And Eris had a birthday party to attend, at Prospect Hill Playground.
Last week was record-setting-by-far in terms of how many COVID cases were caught in testing at kid's school. It seems that we've wandered from "the CDC isn't recommending masking anymore" to "okay, so they are recommending masking again, but the time for expecting anyone to do anything in particular is over". People have baked in the assumption that the second Omicron wave can't be worse, but the numbers only look a hair different from five or six weeks short of the previous peak.
In addition to case counts, I really wish I had more data on repeat cases: Percentage of all cases, distribution of time since last case, correlation with severity of last case. Would help us know what we're in for.