I was used to my weekend routine- shower after golf, and that was it for the day. By 2p, my live Saturday/Sunday contact with outside humans often ceased to exist for two years. But last weekend a strange sensation overcame me post-golf. I realized that we actually had “plans” for Saturday night, plans involving other mortals. No books, crosswords, Zoom calls, binge/cringe-watching, numbing news numbers, or constructing my 453rd Spotify music playlist.
We’d actually made dinner plans to see people we hadn’t seen for over two years. Yeh, the world is still frazzled, the country is still polarized, but some things are getting back to recognizable, positive normalcy. As I also attended my first large-scale group event last week, it almost feels like the parties Prince told us about in “1999”!
Streets full of cars and a lack of parking spaces everywhere mixed in with recurring sagas that simply never get handled locally- Laniakea parking, the Stairway To Heaven dilemma, UH autonomy, illegal short-term rentals, the lack of truly affordable housing, sovereignty, planned economic diversity, North Shore sand berms brunting nature’s ways- it all feels so normal again. We may have a plethora of local problems, but at least they’re our problems. We see ‘em, we own ‘em, and I guess we love ‘em, since we never seem to resolve ‘em with final actions and solutions, not just words or edicts. So who needs COVID?!
Add in indecision on the TMT debacle, Waikiki Natatorium stasis, rapid (or vapid) transit, wayward feral chickens, Ala Wai Canal clean-up/flood mitigation, Red Hill water woes (who knew?), homes for a new Oahu prison and a new Oahu landfill, and yes, you can see things really are getting back to normal. No runs, no hits, just errors. While we were bubbled, almost nothing changed as little of the big stuff was fixed. But move over omicron, because the boyz and girlz are back in town and ready to (safely) party hardy!
Our outdoor Saturday dinner was great as we caught up on life, family, work, and included the occasional whine (that comes with wine) about things never getting done locally- all edified live and in person!
I’ll soon seek my first post-bubble concert venture to aid in restoring order to my personal universe. I’ll keep a mask handy for safety, and perhaps to avoid “Ainokea” anarchists in our midst. Party on!
Think about it…