It’s mid-August, and summer is in full swing.  Gorgeous hot days, nights that are starting to get a little shorter, reminding us that fall is now approaching.  Soon, it’ll be too cold for archery, or mini-golf, or walks along the lakeshore.  And with that knowledge comes a sense of dread.  When it turns cooler, will the stupidity–the people who don’t believe in masks, or who think their youth protects them– move inside, causing a spike in infections?  Yes, numbers are low now, but not completely gone.  Are they low enough to allow the Ontario government’s plan for schools to work?  Will all that money pledged today to improve ventilation have any impact at all?

I find myself hoping the cases don’t actually go down much farther.  What we have right now is keeping us vigilant.  We’re not going to declare victory over this thing.  What we need is a good truce–keep the defenses up while we adapt, while we wait for everyone to realize that hoping this is a short-term thing is no bueno and to spend the money to make the adaptations needed to keep it at bay.

Yesterday we heard we can have SCA meetings again–just meetings, no martial activities yet. Preferably outdoors. With distancing, of course.  I’ve not yet heard if there will be any.  Unlike others I know, other than our social bubble friends, we’ve had no backyard or park visits with others.   We’re awfully literal about these things.  Which I know is good, but maybe too good.

Holidays loom.  Thanksgiving.  If the kids are back in school, there go the social circles with grandparents.  The Halloween things are appearing in Michael’s and the dollar stores.  Will there be a Halloween beyond the decorations?  Will there be Zoom trick-or-treating?

I already know there will be no traditional sing-along Messiah.  I sincerely hope Tafelmusik comes up with something virtual–maybe we all record ourselves singing the Hallelujah Chorus and they stitch it together.  That could be fun.  And an online sing-along, with Ivars Taurins doing his traditional as Handel in this strange new world.

I’d buy a ticket to that.  I already have one for a mid-November concert that the Hamilton Philharmonic is doing virtually.  I’ll finally hear a live(ish) performance of the Shostakovich 8th Quartet.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society has actual live concerts scheduled in September, with Beethoven quartets.  But I’ve sort of promised myself my first live concert will have to be Shostakovich.  Whenever, wherever, and whatever that is.  I am hopeful, but I am also not getting my hopes up.

I once laughed about the 900 days of the siege of Leningrad.  Now I’m wondering whether that comparison is actually more accurate than I want to believe.