Brief Impressions of a Semi-Post-Corona Day

Last night I worked longer than I should. But T. was over for a visit; and so at least I had company while I dug into a long task at the end of another series of long tasks.

But I woke up early this morning because of a serious traffic accident outside the house. As I worked the first half of the day on 5 hours' sleep I was unhappily conscious of the 'scene' a few metres away as ambulance personnel, police officers and crash investigators did their grim jobs with their customary competence; and construction workers watched and commented on the scene, respectful sympathy mingled with the air of having seen it all already.

The weather is beginning to be uncomfortably warm and the air stifling. But at least the leaves of the trees are burgeoning and we're reaching the green-gold-blue-white phase of the year where the foliage, sky, clouds and sunlight dominate the scene. Also, of course, the daylight hours are long, and the lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions has led to a happy, resumed hum: of sidewalk table diners in the restaurant underneath our apartment, and of passersby. Today I also trimmed the dried-out flower heads of the potted forget-me-nots I bought earlier this year; they are not happy with the intense sunlight.

During lunch I played a gloomy sequence of Brahms Hungarian dances, a Chopin mazurka or two, the first movement of Bach's 6th partita for the keyboard, and part of the slow movement of Mendelssohn's most famous Trio in d minor.

In the evening, T. ordered take-out fish and chips, mochi ice cream balls, and other delicacies for our dinner. When she came over to eat them with us, there were two bandaids proudly perched on her upper arm, where she had received her first round of a BioNTech vaccination. She also helped out Ge. with his university algebra homework, while J. strummed on the mandolin in his room.

Mama was out for various fresh-air social engagements. In the late afternoon, she also hosted her friend M. for their usual weekly Arabic session, with chocolate, tea, and biscuits. Meanwhile I joined another work team's planning meeting in a video call, helped put the finishing touches on a new client's integration, and gave up on a quixotic effort to run a small SQL query 1,600+ times to do the task that a large query should do.