Stay, Stay Away!

Cooking post-COVID requires more effort that doesn't seem to be in abundance right now.  I'm not taking it personally because the folks that i know that have fought the battle and returned are claiming the same.  One pot meals or this wok bowl are the doable kind.  Fresh tomatoes went in last with kale, Cannellini beans, cabbage and turkey kielbasa.  Just the clean flavors coming through. 

Retail is having a tough time too.  It's very changed, sad or scary depending on where you sit.  Brooklyn speaks its mind and due to limited resources I often feel I'm in an ungoverned town.  There are more confrontations that easily feel they could go dark quickly.  People are on edge, yet shopping? My coworkers yell at customers to put back on their mask or they'll call security regularly, loudly, angrily.  We're only letting in 25% of normal capacity but even that amount feels too much.  The bathroom sinks have caution tape to ensure 6 foot distance.  There are feet stenciled all over the floor to help.  Hand sanitizer is everywhere in bottles, and fixtures on the wall and giant stand alone units.  We're being fed for free and bottled water or canned drinks are limitless all day. That somehow instills the sense we're still in an emergency state, that things are not normal.   The store hours have changed and are now going to reduce down further.  A 3rd of the crew calls out on the regular, so no one does their own job, instead we're moved around like chess pieces and spread thin to barely get by each day.  Customers can't hear as well with these masks and now we're behind plexiglass, some wearing additional face shields over the masks.  Darting eyes are everywhere.  There is something so big in just that one detail.  Breathing into a mask for 8 hours, like a spaceman, hearing only your own breath, feeling so much more internal, using only your peepers to portray emotion.  You try not to touch or be touched and all of us have learned to do the step dance. Customers draw closer, we move back, careful not to get near another person as if we're all radioactive.  A very strange waltz.  And in my head I'm screaming 'stay away!'