Bland opening.

Our town, like a lot of towns these days, has an older section that was built up around the old railroad station, and a newer section that has box stores and things. There's always a push on to keep "downtown" alive, but generally it does all right. Hell, it's only about five blocks and it has two pizzerias and four other eateries as well that are going concerns. Which it why it was a nice idea for the town and these restaurants to partition off the main drag (two blocks!) for a combined outdoor dining experience. You can sit at any table and order from any restaurant on the strip. It seems to be popular, but you can't tell from the picture I took, because when I got home I realized I only had a blur. So no picture. 

Anyway, all the stupid 2020 restrictions still apply--masks required except when you're actually placing food in your mouth, tables all socially distanced, hectoring about washing your hands, and the traditional no smoking even though you're outside. New York's reputation for being tough is overrated.

We won't be joining them. My wife hates dining al fresco. She doesn't like eating around bugs or bums or other "bu-" words, or in our quickly changeable summer weather. 

There are other possible reasons.

The town plans to have this dining experience on weekends for while, but maybe not much longer. It fell into the low 50's overnight. Pretty soon it will be in the low 50's all day. Maybe the New York government should have eased up on the dining restrictions in this state a little earlier.

"Evil Eyes" Cuomo finally posted rules to open up New York City restaurants for indoor dining starting on September 30. Eater gives us the run-down:

• Restaurants will be able to reopen at 25 percent capacity, which is half of the 50 percent capacity everywhere else in the state except for NYC.
• Masks must be worn at all times except when sitting at a table.
• Temperature checks will be required for anyone who enters the restaurant.
• Patrons will not be allowed to sit at the bar.
• One member of each dining party will have to leave their information with the restaurant for contact tracers to reach out in the instance that there’s a COVID-19 case.
• Restaurants will be required to have enhanced filtration systems installed, though Cuomo did not immediately clarify what this entailed.
• Tables will need to be six feet apart.
• All restaurants will have to close at midnight.
• Every restaurant will be required to post its full capacity outside and provide a phone number to report social distancing violations, either via voice or text.

This isn't even strict enough for Mayor Warren Wilhelm Jr., who wanted a later start date and a trigger to close everything if "the city’s positive test rate hits 2 percent on a seven-day rolling average," according to Politico, Because he hates the city's restaurant industry and wants it to die, I guess. Maybe he blames it for making him fat. I suspect it's the munchies. 

I'm glad we're not in the city anymore, but we still have to deal with Cuomo. If you don't live in this state, pity us. I heard him on the radio announcing the conditions, sounding as usual like a teacher who is pissed off at his stupid students who can't absorb his genius teaching into their stupid stupid minds.

I have called him Sonny Corleone, but that's an insult to the Godfather character, who was a pretty good liar and cheater until he got the lead special at the tollbooth. Sonny never planted sick people in Grandma's nursing home so that he could clear a bunch of old people off the books while leaving a hospital ship and two field hospitals empty. But I've beaten that drum all summer long. Andrew Cuomo is his father's vengeance on us from beyond the grave, because we deposed Mario I in 1994.

Enough of them. The people I saw dining outside on Friday night looked like they were having fun, but check again on those rainy October nights or November evenings where it drops to 30 and see how many show up.

I think there's a lot more collateral damage with this Chinese Death Virus safety dance we've been doing than we know. The mom of a friend of mine was having lunch outside at a diner. Tented areas set up in the parking lot. She tripped on a tent pole and busted her pelvis. Spent a week in the same hugely expensive hospital I visited last February. I hope she doesn't have Obama-mediated health insurance like mine. I've got two more payments to go.

The year 2020, like our governor, is stupid, thuggish, and persistent, and I hope they will both be shuffled off the stage sooner rather than later, without a lot more deaths.