Instead of talking about things we miss because of the pandemic, how about some pandemic things that you liked and have now gone away.
I miss the stay-at-home talk shows. Jimmy Fallon’s home was so cool, and his girls were a hoot (I loved his slide at the end of each episode). His show was actually watchable. Now that he’s back in the studio, it’s the same old schtick.
Likewise, I miss Seth Meyer at home. His interaction with the talking sailor portrait and the wasps in the attic - how I miss them!
(Stephen Colbert at home never really clicked with me.)
Another one - the governor (of Minnesota) closed all eating establishments, including fast food. It left few choices for truckers. Since the Interstate rest areas remained open, he allowed food trucks to park at rest areas for a few months. I suppose business wasn’t very robust, but I thought it was a cool idea.
In the DC metro area, that was quite amazing, miraculous even, seriously. I was one of the last people still going in to the office before we went full telework, and that last month commuting was just delightful, no sarcasm!
When the restaurants were allowed to have seating again, our nearest restaurant started offering spare ribs at lunchtime, which suits us. After the next opening stage, they returned the spare ribs to the evening menu, and they were no longer available at lunchtime, which is normally the only time we go out to eat. Haven’t had spare ribs at that restaurant since June.
As of October 20th, the restrictions are back so spare ribs are again available at lunchtime.
Are they still banging pots at 7 PM outside of windows in NYC? If that was gone, I don’t think I’d miss it (it sounded cool the for the first week though).
The first few weeks when it hit hard, everyone was terrified to even leave their houses and when I’d go for walks, I’d have everything to myself. The whole park, the whole street. Now it’s sparse enough I don’t generally have to wear a mask because I can keep far, far distance, but I liked having everything empty.
Plus all the dog walkers were gone too and the few I did see were always leashed and always kept close to the owner. Now they’re running loose and all over the place.
There was a point where a friend of ours was going stir crazy. I invited him to go for walks in our woods. We made some hand drawn maps showing him hikes he could go on, with estimated time. I’d leave the map in the barn at an agreed upon location so he could go on a hike without ever seeing us.
As things opened up again he hasn’t needed his hikes, but it was fun while it was ongoing.
Yup re traffic. We live in a mountain resort county. It’s usually pretty busy with day trippers and vacationers. The first few months where great though. NO traffic.
Now we are in shoulder season. Between Summer activities and skiing. And it’s more crowded than usual. My only guess is that it’s mostly day trip people sick of being stuck at home, so they descend (ascend) on us folks in the mountains. It’s surely helping businesses, so that’s a plus, but I miss when we had no traffic. It’s going to be an interesting ski season…