People Who Need People

No such thing as too many pumpkins. Front step in Cabbagetown.

Last night, I and about eighty other people had the exact same idea: we all wanted to eat dinner and drink a beer on a patio for possibly the last time this year.

Bruce and I and a friend sat at a socially distanced table on the patio in front of Blake House, one of the last grand mansions on Jarvis Street, a relic of the time before Jarvis became a barely habitable four-lane highway cutting from the tony homes of Rosedale to the high rise office towers downtown.

We wore our masks as we waited in line for a table to be ready, but, like everyone else except the wait staff, took them off when we sat down. For the first time this year, I had to strain to hear our conversation because of the roar of the crowd around us.

It dawned on me that I was not 100% comfortable. The situation was higher risk than anything we'd done since the first days of the lock down. These were the complicated thoughts that went through my head:

• I'm glad to be giving the restaurant some business before the winter comes and their income stream is reduced to take out orders
• I'm happy to be eating a tasty meal I did not prepare myself and drinking a draught beer I couldn't pour at home
• It's nice to see so many people
• I wonder if any of them has COVID
• We're outdoors, but there's not much of a breeze and we're under an awning and everyone's laughing and talking loudly
• Case numbers are higher now than they have ever been, so the chances are good that someone here is a loaded virus gun
• But even with the case numbers, hardly anyone gets COVID
• And even with the case numbers, all these people - some of them with small children and some of them elderly - seem prepared to take the risk
• Maybe we put millions of people out of work and drove thousands of businesses into the ground for no good reason
• I'm still not going to hang around here any longer than necessary
• There are still people waiting for a table
• There's still a pandemic

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen