I don’t remember his exact words, but he made it seem dreary and boring.
Ooooh, Avignon, where the 2nd Pope resided during the Great Schism!
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The worst part is when two mask free individuals decide to congregate in the aisles and social-proximate.
Or the unmasked individual loitering near the entrance.
(I hate the one way signs on the floor. I don’t stare at the floor when I’m driving a cart.)
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I see those at Meijer a lot. Or did; we’ll see how things are after Sunday at 11:59 p.m.
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Journal of the Corona Year
4/24
I have survived another week without being fired. This surprises me. There were a couple of days this week when I had almost nothing to do. But it’s a Friday and I still have a job, so I will enter this weekend with as much calmness as that affords.
Last Sunday I took a walk up 5th Avenue for exercise. I got as far as 31st Street. I found a hardware store still open on 81st Street. Most stores and restaurants were closed and the sidewalks were quite empty. The only exception was the shopping area between 60th Street and Sunset Park. The sidewalks there were as busy as any average Sunday.
I had planned on taking a bus back south again. The busses are running infrequently now, so the ones I did see were crowded. Not crowded by normal standards, but more crowded than you would want to see these days. If I can explain, approximately one person per row on each side of the bus. This would make it hard to be more than two feet away from other passengers. So I walked to the 36th Street subway station and rode that back.
Late on Monday afternoon, my friend who was furloughed from Macy’s came over. He read what I wrote about he pharmacy on 87th Street, and wanted to get a mask there as well. He lives in northern Flatbush. It takes him about an hour on the subway to come. But masks are, as he said, “like gold.” He had just received his first unemployment payment, so he was feeling as good as anyone can under the circumstances.
We went in. We were told they had just sold out of masks a few minutes earlier. They would be getting a new shipment in on Wednesday. My friend started reworking his schedule in his mind. He was disappointed because he had called earlier and was told they still had masks. The Pharmacist said “wait a minute,” and he got a two-pack out of the employees’ supply. It was the same type I got. The cost was $10. I pointed out to my friend that this was his lucky day, I had paid $16. The pharmacist said they were lowering costs as they became more available. That pharmacy has won my heart forever.
On Wednesday I decided to go to the hardware store on 81st Street. As I was nearing the bus stop on 95th Street a bus was approaching. I ran to the stop, waving at the driver. The bus was filthy. Usually the busses are quite clean, but there were a few fast food bags on the floor and a marker graffito on the back of a seat. About as dirty as an average subway car. I suppose this is the result of staff shortages.
At the stop beside the Bay Ridge Parking Garage the bus became crowded. I’m glad I was wearing my mask. I hope it helps in some way.
When I got off at 82nd Street I looked back at the driver from the sidewalk. Because she stopped for me when she could have kept driving, I mouthed the words “thank you” to her. But then I remembered I was wearing a mask so she couldn’t see it.
I went shopping for groceries today after work. Raisins and cheese have returned. Peanut butter was, on the other hand, almost gone. Near the register was a display of some brand of KN95 masks. Five for $29.99. I don’t know if they were any good, but I guess they are becoming easier to find too.
As I was getting dinner ready tonight I got a text message from one of my recently-fired marketing colleagues. She wrote, “Everything good??? I heard there were more layoffs.” So, there went my complacency for this weekend.
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I hate that too. I think it’s better to quickly pass through the aisle with the least obstructions rather than stand waiting behind someone else just so I can loop around to grab something that is one aisle over.
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There’s probably an essay waiting to be written about how the managerial methods used to extract maximum profit from a grocery store are particularly ill suited to the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything from selling prime counter space, to maximizing foot traffic, to using a part time labor force, to logistics, to running those silly shop-play-win games.
But I’m not an expert in any of those things.
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Eh. He’s not wrong. We have quite a wet climate, especially in winter. It rains a lot. Given that we came here from southern California, which basically has no weather, it was a change. It’s been four years and we don’t hate it yet. Indeed, I’ve lived in places that have real winter, and I feel a vague sense of shame for complaining about a rainy week of 4°C. And the very rare snowfall is still always a treat. But if we minded the weather, yeah, “dreary” would be accurate.
And yes, Belgium has a reputation as boring. The thing is, I like boring. Boring is good. We came here intending to find boring. We have a big family and a lot of kids. We do a lot of stuff. Boring is having schools that are professionally run and have programs to accommodate working parents. Boring is a 37 hour work week, whether you’re the boss or the janitor. Boring is walking into a cafe that advertises dinner for €19,95 with €20 in your pocket. Boring is trains that go everywhere on time. Boring is having a big, racially mixed family and nobody gives a shit.
Are Belgian people boring? I’d argue not. Belgians can seem personally reserved until you get to know them, but mostly, they… aren’t. They know how to party and are mostly quite socially liberal. As for illegal stuff? Well, we don’t have much of that. Drinking is… common and encouraged. Drink driving though, is going to cost you big, and only the very stupid do it. Weed? Technically illegal but nobody gives a shit. It’s actually illegal for the police to prosecute for it unless there’s another serious crime there. Harder drugs? Handled as the public health issue that it is. Sex? Sorry, that’s legal here. Mostly safe, too. And the sex workers get health insurance. Right now they’re working on getting them unemployment, their business has dropped off to zero and nobody is paying for virtual sex right now.
“Staid” is a common word used around Belgians. Again, not wrong. We have to be. We’ve got the loony Dutch on one side, the crazy (but in much different ways than the Dutch!) French on the other side, and the currently sane Germans the other way, but you never know.
Anyway, if he wants to insult us, he needs to say something insulting. That wasn’t. 
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Yeah, I don’t want this to turn dark, but if things really go to shit, that’s where we’ll be heading to prepper it out. There’s a bunch of other rats living with my sister. Among us, we have a significant skill set.
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I want to see that movie!
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It was more his tone; plus, yeah, he’s trying to be funny.
I grew up in a neighborhood that was, at one time, predominantly Belgian and French. The Belgians kept pigeons; that was the Tolnai family. The DeVroes sold us their 1960 Plymouth Belvedere, as well as giving us a beautiful crewel-work in a lovely frame.
In Barbara Tuchman’s “The Proud Tower”, the character of King Albert I and his family, as well as that of the country as a whole, is depicted to be admirable.
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(I see that the new government was sworn in a month ago.)
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Yeah, it’s not really a problem. Happens all the time. If there’s no government, they can’t do anything stupid, right? And the EU government handles the important stuff anyway.
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Did I mention that our King, Queen, and Princess are totally cool? They have no power at all, but they do that royal thing just perfectly. They are widely loved here.
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Boring is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. I remember there being plenty to do while I was living there. And, there’s plenty of other countries within distance for a quick day trip…
It does suffer from the dreary wet weather. But someone from England calling Belgium out for that would be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. 
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Sabena?
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Yes, thank you! They served Stella Artois - looooooooooooooong before it was “cool” in the USA, I drank it at 30,000 feet! (Actually, I’d nearly forgotten about that, lol).
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This needs to be prosecuted as a crime against humanity. There is simply no acceptable excuse.
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