Labor Day or Chinese Death Virus?

American Gothic 2020; hat tip David Blaska

I'm not sure if it's Labor Day or not. Every day kind of looks like Labor Day here in 2020, the year of the Wuhan Rat. The lot where I used to leave my car to catch the bus into the city would have upward of forty cars every morning; now it seldom has as many as four. Some office-based companies have been reopening their work spaces, but more are reluctant. One client of mine announced that everyone (not just us freelancers) would be working from home until January at least. Another client permanently closed the branch office it opened in New England. Most of our local businesses seem to have survived the quarantine period, but by no means all. 

The schools have reopened, sort of. I have not seen a single normal school bus go by yet; maybe this week. New York schools traditionally open after Labor Day, but what's traditional about this year? I know kids were doing some orientation things, like driving by in a parade of cars to meet their teachers. And half the people around here expect the schools to close down again as soon as some kid gets a fever.

There's backyard barbecues on for today, I guess, but way fewer than normal, even though the weather has been perfect. Haven't seen much this weekend. One up the block. Another making a hell of a racket about half a mile away, by the sound of it. One kid's birthday party. A friend of mine in New Jersey didn't even bother to announce the cancellation of his annual summer shebang. We all just knew.

Essentially, every day since March has looked like Labor Day without the fun, with no one going anywhere. I don't know that tomorrow will look any different than today. I'm just tired of the whole damn thing. 

I hope your weekend was fun where you are, because here in the lower Hudson Valley we look like all the fun has been sucked right out of us.