Of all the lovely things, a recent WordPress update! There are grand new features that offer no obvious benefit but complicate what was once simple and, in the case of yesterday’s post, make six paragraphs disappear. Poof! Don’t you love updates?

The string of grey wet cold days is getting to me. I felt like crying for most of the afternoon. In another week, I might not recognize myself.

But I have fresh produce! Did this grab bag thing down near the Fenway. I emailed on Wednesday. Pick up on Friday. A beautiful selection, especially of greens: Romaine and red leaf lettuce, a HUGE bag of spinach, rabe, asparagus, corn, potatoes and more (but no onions!)

Too bad the pick up process was so careless. I hoped for curbside pick up: we’d pop the trunk, they’d put in the box, we’d slide money out a barely cracked window and off we’d go with barely an interaction.

Instead, when I went into the tiny cafe, I found it a little like business as usual. One customer chatting away with counter-person, two waiting off a little further. No clear process for pick up. No acknowledgment of me, either, and I’m sorry, I worked in the service industry for a lot of years and it doesn’t take much to nod in the direction of a waiting customer. And now? When we’re reinventing social customs to accommodate a pandemic? Nothing? You’d think it was a Tuesday in 2019 or that making lattes was nuclear fission.

Later, I notarized a document for a friend. We performed an elaborate series of steps to avoid contact. The contrast! And, it seemed sensible to deem a photo of her husband about to sign the document good enough in the age of coronavirus!