happy hour, sort of

This unusual period of time in our country, the world, has created the all-new and perhaps enduring social distancing happy hour that brings friends and family sort of but not quite together in a sort of but not quite jovial time.

Being jovial has been a bit of a challenge, but over here at our distancing deck, we’ve managed on rare occasions to at least pull off fun. If you define that loosely and don’t get too caught up in details like carefree laughing and intimate close talking and of course wild dancing which used to punctuate a raucous evening at my house. Sort of.

Yet we’ve found many other ways to create a very happy happy hour, like trying to pass the napkins by barely holding their edges to maintain the 6-foot rule and marveling as these flimsy filaments drift away with the wind. Fascinating!

Or attempting to hold a glass without actually holding it because of paw prints, a balancing act that elicits rousing applause every time. Entertaining!

Or boldly pouring from a bottle of wine then wiping it clean with Lysol and standing back for the next victim to take his or her turn when they’re sure the air has cleared for exactly 3.14 seconds. Or is that something we used to call Pi? So scientific!  

All the while, the hors d’oeuvres pass across the demilitarized zone -- sticks of zucchini and carrots floating across the barrier strangely naked, no hummus, no salsa, no guac, no dipping across the circle of chairs. Well not quite a circle, more like bunches of chairs stuffed into far away corners where you think people you maybe recognize have taken up brief residence.

“I think I know these people,” I whisper to my pandemic partner, stuffed next to me. “They sort of look like old friends but I can’t make out the whites of their eyes.”

 “Or their mouths and noses,” he says. “Is it really them?”

When we travel to someone else’s home for their version of the sort of happy hour, we carry our own cooler, drinks, cups, napkins, plates, silverware, chips, hand sanitizer, masks, wear suits of armor, and don’t care much of a twit what we look like because so little of us is showing. So first we have to identify ourselves by answering questions like our mother’s maiden name or the moniker of our first pet.

Once we’re cleared, we’re quickly assigned a designated chair from which we will not rise for the rest of the event. No one is standing -- too risky because you could forget yourself and take a tippy step forward. Bad form! The invisible square edged around your chair not only defines the safe zone, allowing only inches of movement, but sometimes also comes with markings of pesticides -- something called People Off, lots of garlic -- to keep you in and other potentially noxious creatures out.

No matter how far away you are, you smell.

Most of the evening -- even though you’ve gotten out of the house for a rollicking good time -- is spent talking about the things we can’t stop talking about, none of them fun.

We discuss this for a while, a very long while. Then eventually we remind ourselves of the purpose of our gathering -- to enjoy ourselves! -- and someone laughs to get the ball rolling and suddenly we’re all hysterical. Well, not hysterical actually more like wincing -- but still it’s a change and we’re glad for it. Exhilarating!

Sort of.

It’s better than nothing, someone finally says. And with our heads bobbing up and down like corks on the ocean of life, we all wholeheartedly agree.

Let’s toast to that!

send me an e-mail