Four day weekend. Not terrible, other than the slightly cloudy feeling I’m likely to have until later this week when I was able to schedule a doctor’s appointment because somewhere between the larger medical group (which ate up my wonderful doctor’s smaller practice last year) and the pharmacy system, there was a hiccup that has left me rationing one of my antidepressants; I’ve done it responsibly to avoid all the scary sounding side effects; I just kind of feel tired and surrounded in bubble wrap, which I guess is better than constant weeping and irritability…so far.

I’ll manage. Otherwise, I rode a bunch of miles on the bike (and saw some cool animals along the way), had a successful grill experience, and have been trying to shake the earworm that is Hamilton since Saturday evening. I also learned that Dragoncon is going virtual (which sucks, but 100k in close quarters in downtown Atlanta 8 week from now? It was the best choice), so at least now I can put that aside.

And now, back to the grind. I have some powerpoints to adjust, some legal determinations to apply to proposals, that sort of thing; the usual crap in my usual universe of things. I’ll keep riding, keep working, and deal with the drag that is the rest of the world as it comes.

…but not without expressing my disappointment with one thing I saw this morning. It’s become my habit over the last couple of weeks to, after knocking out the original barrage of emails and taking care of morning ablutions, to a couple of times a week take a quick trip out to one of the local convenience stores to grab a beverage and maybe a bagel if I don’t have any in the house for breakfast. This was one of those mornings. While I was out, I was again disappointed but not surprised to see a somewhat less than 50% mask use rate among customers (this county is #4 in the state for total cases for a reason), though extremely let down and disappointed to observe several members of the county police force milling around in a very crowded Wa-Wa store leisurely drinking coffee, pointedly not observing social distancing (amongst themselves or the public trying to use the coffee station) nor wearing masks.

These folks are supposed to be the example, right? That’s the idea? That the “blue lives” are people to be looked up to?

On a morning when I discovered the wife of a dear friend is in the hospital thanks to COVID-19 complications (someone who lives in this very county), this was not the kind of thing I needed to see.

Shit is broken, folks. Please, please, do your part to make it a little better?