2020 Hindsight: Year in Review

Yowzer... what a year, eh?

2020 started out with high hopes... 

I'd read in the Economist about a new virus in China, but even Penny Cooper thought the outlook was fine as she strolled through Hartley Park in Duluth. 

 
BELOW: In February, I lobbied to enter my workplace in the annual Best of the Cities contest. (I'm far right.) Look, no masks!

On March 17, the governor's Stay-at-Home order went into affect--to "flatten the curve" of the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019).
We began to practice "social distancing". (One day the idioms of 2020 will be a distant memory.)

Marz & Penny Cooper visit through the window:

Meet outside, wear masks, and keep 6 feet apart. In bink's backyard:

 

I sewed my first masks. L-R, below: me, Marz, Crow:

Marz was the first person at the food co-op where she worked to wear one voluntarily. Soon it became mandatory.

Social media booms and zooms.
Easter 2020, I text, "We have locusts":

Life in the Time of Corona is a drag (and tragically far worse for many), but Stay-at-Home sparks creativity in some folks. Inventive graffiti and chalk sidewalk messages, window displays:

 

bink & I send regular pix to Auntie Vi.

Warm weather makes it all easier.

 

Julia, who is in lock-down for a while, airlifts hummus I brought her:

Coworkers strip the floor, preparing to reopen as Stay-at-Home lifts.

And then, on Memorial Day...

"George Floyd was murdered here last night"
Police murder George Floyd (one mile from where I live and work).

People create a memorial, a sacred space at the site.
This is my favorite image from the time, before concrete barriers went in.

Protestors take to the streets for Black Lives, and marauders for reasons of their own.
The store is broken into. Twice. With a coworker, I paint the boarded up windows.

Rage from every direction has melted the steering wheel.

 

Back to work, cleaning up broken glass...

And goofing around...

 

We all get tested when BB gets a mild case of Covid. (This was before they started doing saliva testing. You got your  nose reamed with something like a bristle tea-spout brush.)

Luckily we all dodge the bullet. For now.

Life: it goes on.

It takes two months for the store's windows to be replaced. Finally, we reopen on July 31 . . .

. . . and win BEST THRIFT STORE.
The inclusion of my book section's "printed ephemera" is a high point in my life.

(OMG, there's more? Aren't we done yet?)

Masks. Most people wear them. Sort of.

RBG, r.ip.

Picnic with Julia before Marz goes to work a goat farm in NM for a couple months, "Thattaway":

 

In October, Frederic, the potato I'd planted in May (it had been found in the closed store) bears fruit: four spuds! 

 

George Floyd Memorial Square has a free library in a bus stop (until the weather gets bad).

November 3: We vote for US president.
As I kneel on the curb across the street to photograph the girlettes, it occurs to me I could look like a shooter. I just snap a couple quickies.

On Election Day, bink & I go to visit Auntie Vi. The pink sign reads
"WOMEN FOR TRUMP: Safety Family Freedom".
I try to prepare mentally for four more years.

But, . . . what's this? We won???

HONK YOUR HORN,
WE WON!!!

 

So, as we wait for to get vaccinated, many of us feel more hopeful.

Still social distancing of course.
On Xmas Eve, old friends gather on FaceTime to put on our paper crowns:

And on Xmas Day, the girlettes hold a choir concert, because they can.

The humans are going to have to wait till next year to sing together, because singing spreads the virus.