02B49: The Trappings of Normal

Thursday Pasta

Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 817

I'm still counting our days in quarantine because technically we're still under a level of quarantine. It's still called Level 1, but what Level 1 means continues to change as well. Just this week, the IATF announced that businesses may resume operating at 100% capacity for vaccinated customers. Cebu is borrowing a page from the Singapore playbook by formally making mask usage optional while outdoors, although this is contrary to IATF national guidelines. So yeah, we have a level of quarantine in place mainly just to say it's there because we all know that the pandemic isn't over just yet. But at the same time, the government is basically letting people do almost anything they want to in the name of bolstering the economy. 

Mixed feelings about all this, of course. I want things to go back to normal but I'd like that to happen because we can legitimately go back to normal. Instead, we're still acknowledging the danger by leaving a quarantine level in place but we continue to move the goal posts and neuter this quarantine as much as possible so that we have all the trappings of normal. And so what we have is just weird and it still feels like your actual safety is really up to you because the government has sticks in their ears, if you get the old metaphor.

Today we got started on Vincenzo, which started very dramatic but is quickly becoming quite silly. And I get why our mothers recommended the show as something lighter to watch at the end of our workday versus some heavier fare.

For full irony, I loaded up Roadrunner, an Anthony Bourdain documentary right after, which is all sorts of heavy. But I've been looking forward to watching this given my love for Bourdain and the fact that I had only recently finished listening to the audiobook version of Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography. Big sigh.

I promise we'll end the night on a lighter note with Strange New Worlds or something.

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