Just be normal

Getting back to normal, albeit a new normal, means the County will be hosting the 2022 County Marathon on Sunday, October 2. Yep, it’s ba-ack. Roads will be closed. Traffic will be redirected. Volunteers will be out in force to help keep everyone safe. The OPP will be at the major intersections. People will be standing alongside the route, cheering for their favourite participant. Other people will be sitting in their cars whining because they didn’t get the message. It won’t be easy to get from your house to the coffee shop, the grocery store, the bookstore, Church, the laundromat or to Mom’s for lunch, but it won’t be impossible. So, now you’ve been warned. It’s coming. It’ll be County Marathon Sunday normal. Be nice. Be patient. Give yourself extra time to get where you’re going. LOM and I will be back on Lake Street, volunteering and cheering and handing out water to the runners!

As far as normal goes, our new “normal” is that COVID hasn’t gone away and it’s not likely to disappear. In the past week I’ve heard from several friends who have tested positive for COVID-19. Mostly, these are people whose vaccinations are up-to-date and have been very careful about being careful and here we are, surrounded by people who have COVID-19, or some kind of vaccine-defying-variant. Likely those folks were careful, but someone else wasn’t. That’s the new COVID normal. Like I said, COVID didn’t go away, but being vaccinated helps. Another new normal is the very high price of food, which may or may not be COVID related. Generally speaking, the cost of food has risen by about ten per cent from this time last year. If we tell ourselves it’s only ten cents on a dollar we trick ourselves into thinking it isn’t much, but that’s the average price rise. When we realize it’s ten to twenty dollars (or much more depending upon the products we need or want) per grocery shopping trip, this new grocery normal isn’t a dime on a dollar. Basic food is becoming a luxury. The new/old normal, for a lot of people, is getting to the checkout and having to decide which item you can do without this time. The new normal is switching from a healthier choice to a cheaper product. Often the less expensive products are filled with saturated fats, sugars and preservatives. Another of our new normals is not being able to purchase Tylenol For Children™, or similar, without a prescription from a physician. If your little person has a fever the adult you will now have to make an appointment with your family doctor, have tests done and wait three to five days to get results and perhaps get a prescription for one of those products. The prescription for Tylenol will be compounded by the pharmacist, it has a very short shelf life and it isn’t inexpensive. And, on that note, our new-ish normal is not having a family doctor. And while that’s not really a brand new normal, it is becoming far more commonplace. This normal—no family doctor— now forces people to rely upon Urgent Care visits or Emergency Room visits with a feverish child. Yep, bundle up the little one who might have spiked a fever in the middle of the night, jump in the family Rolls-Can-Hardly and head to the worst place in the world to bring a kid who’s feeling poorly. Visiting ERs and Urgent Care exposes you and your child to whatever the heck is floating around, virally, bacterially and iatrogenically speaking. And if you don’t own a family vehicle you might have to call a friend or try to get a taxi in the middle of the night.

The new normals aren’t always doom and gloom. The lockdowns have encouraged us to check on friends, family and neighbours. We’re more likely to share food, drinks and make offers of assistance these days. When we’re out and about we seem to be a bit more chatty with people we meet along the way. More people are working from home and for some, that’s not a bad thing. We have so many new normals to deal with these days. In the “olden days” I carried a lip balm in every jacket pocket, in the glove box in the car and in each of my purses. Now I’ve paired the lip balms with masks and Purell™. Sooner or later I won’t be able to leave the house without a diaper-bag-sized tote. Maybe I should invest in cargo pants— they could be part of my new normal.

Just try to be normal.