First the good news

Someone comes up and says “I’ve got good and bad news, which do you want first?” My money is on good news. People feel they’ll handle bad news better if they get the good news first. Or maybe not; since bad news usually turn out to be worse news.

So anyhow here’s the good news.

This shitty year is finally rounding the corner. And to think everybody thought, “Oh, what fun! A year that has 02/02/2020 must be a magical year!” Yeah. Think again. 2020 proved a total washout if there ever was one. I refuse to turn a year older in a year I’ve hardly lived. The good thing is we got to August -still don’t know how- and we can see December 31 in the distance when supposedly all goes back to normal, right? Because honestly I can´t take one more month of cooking and scouring dirty pans! I want a life of leisure. The jet set life! Or the propeller set! Or whatever.

It’s gotten to the point where if someone is nasty I burst into tears; but if they are nice I burst too. I wear the same clothes day in day out. Nothing matches except my mood and my face. Courage! Help is on the way and next year is revenge time.

Not so fast. Here come the bad news.

We have postponed parties, weddings, holiday, trips, moving, etc. to 2021 “when things go back to normal”. Normal looks more and more like the Y2K kerfuffle: a non-event. I’m getting glimpses of a new reality, flattened curve or not, vaccine or no vaccine, that looks nothing like the old.

This week we attended a wedding 5k miles away: lovely setting, handsome couple, 30 guests sitting by the water. A bit sad to watch from afar but the happy couple looked, well, happy with their no-stress-low-cost-wedding. You gotta wonder. Will we return to mega choreographed wedding events with 400 guests, three different changes of dresses and a glass marquee? Afraid it’s going to look rather tacky and very pre pandemic. Virtual weddings make a lot of sense. First you are sure you are not doing it for the party -or the gifts, it happens. Second you save oodles of money and start life with some cash. The Queen who keeps a pulse on trends and on her purse strings did just that and what a success that was.

My English granddaughter is working until uni –hopefully- opens in the fall. She’d saved some money and fashionista to the core sprinted to the nearest Zara. The protocol in place had her marching round one way systems a meter form her friends, all donning “silly masks”. She could not try on anything, could not back track and had to continue the one way road –just like visiting Macchu Picchu- pay and exit to queue again. She’s not going back. Remember when they sold us “The Shopping Experience”? What a serious waste of ad money that turned out.

Gourmets who were dying to go back to restaurants have found them to be sad, silent, almost empty places where everybody, clients and staff, wear silly masks and a skittish waiter throws your order Frisbee- style from a prudent distance.

I am no fortune teller but my bet is on a low cost future where delivery and take out abound and shopping on-line and virtual weddings are de rigueur. As for Frisbees we’ll have to wait and see who gets sworn into the White House next January and watch what he throws at us.