Happy (?) New Year

So here we are, January 1 of another year. Will this one be better than the last? Read on; I'll try to parse that question.

But first: as is our wont, last night Ransom and I had dinner, watched some Netflix and went to bed long before midnight. I actually went to Times Square once — I was 17 years old — and for a long time I'd stay up to watch the ball drop, but that lost its luster years ago. What's New Year's Eve without Dick Clark anyway?

Today I'll cook a small standing rib roast so we can have Prime Rib and we'll finish the meal with crème brûlée.  Ransom made a great suggestion over breakfast which, yes, included black-eyed peas for luck. He said we should take the day off; no unpacking of boxes, no carting stuff to the dumpster, no rearranging stuff. I'm happy to concur.

On that front, we still have a long way to go to be fully moved in, but we have made a lot of progress. The living room is finally box-free, though that means that the last six boxes were simply moved from there to my office. There's still no room to put away any of that stuff. But the living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathrooms are fully functional and in good shape. Not one framed piece has been hung on a wall yet but, hey, we've only been here six weeks — give us some time.

I just took my first shower in "my" bathroom. It had been completely renovated and we were waiting for the shower doors to be installed. They're here and it was nice to take a shower in the same bathroom where my stuff is.

To sum up, the condo is coming together. It's totally livable and we're on track to finish, maybe this month, maybe in June. As Ransom reminds me, there's no schedule, no deadline, but I'm pretty sure that by next Christmas there will be room for a tree.

On more important matters, we are both healthy and have so far avoided the plague. We've been vaccinated and boostered since September and have tested negative, Ransom many times, me once. We do go out to restaurants on occasion but do not hang out in large crowds very often. I did, however, do exactly that during my trip to New York last month. Saw three Broadway shows (Caroline, or Change;  Slave Play and David Byrne's American Utopia); one opera at the Met (Eurydice); and attended Ransom's concerts with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center twice. It was a good, but very weird, trip to New York, unlike any that preceded it. Two days we never left the hotel room except to pick up takeaway for lunch or dinner. Luckily, it was a comfortable room with several seating options.

As I write this Omicron is sweeping the country, setting infection records almost daily. Will this ever end? Not entirely I think. Likely we will learn to live with Covid like we live with the flu, or, in a worse case, like we live with HIV-AIDS. That pisses me off, being in the age bracket and health bracket that has a lot to fear from this virus. What can we do to make this better? Here's a thought:

What if you had to prove vaccination status to be admitted to a hospital if you were diagnosed with Covid? We don't let people into restaurants, at least in the more intelligent parts of the country, without said proof, so why should we spend precious resources treating the idiots who refuse to protect themselves (and us) by getting a couple of shots? Let's cull the unvaccinated and protect the rest of us.

Good idea? Too cynical?

So will 2022 be better than 2021? I don't think so. I think we're racing toward oblivion and it's likely we'll get there sooner than we used to think. If you haven't seen Don't Look Up yet, I highly recommend it as a primer in how head-in-the-sand we can be. The word's ending but I'll have another oat-milk latte.

Cheers!