Travel in the 2021 COVID summer trough (BC/AB)

Smokey view as Yard Creek BC

It's been around a year since visiting the parent and in-laws in 2 provinces. Since then there's been a wave and mask mandates were implemented then recently removed. It was interesting to travel and how people are. We live in a small enough town that we never really had to mask up outside and we don't have public transit. We did mask when close contact with people and when outside.

That was then...

We were in the Vancouver area and met up with people we know are vaccinated. We went on the ferry and the workers and some of the passengers were wearing masks, mostly families We went to a couple restaurants and the servers were still wearing masks and I was most comfortable wearing a mask until seated so that's what I did. Even in my brother's shop, he was the only one not wearing a mask when helping customers. Fun anecdote, Fred and I were having coffee outside a Blendz and as I walked to our table a guy called out that he liked my mask 😀 It has seahorses on it, I said thanks.

Things were very different in Alberta...the pandemic is over. Servers aren't wearing masks and neither are patrons. We stayed in a Hilton and there was a shield at the front desk but that's it, luckily you can do everything through the app. The breakfast buffet was self-serve with people milling around, no masks. It was early and I just grabbed stuff and went. I was caught without my mask in an elevator and pretty well stayed in a corner as far as possible from others🙄

I would love to be more comfortable around other people indoors but the government really doesn't want to upset the vaccine-hesitant by restricting their access to venues (even though some of those same people were happy to lock up the elderly and anyone who didn't pretend the pandemic wasn't real🤷‍♀️) Fred is much more comfortable being around others when he forgets his mask. I hold my breath so mask up it is. I put it on before I get out of the car or before I enter a building if I'm walking. Fred asked when I thought I would be comfortable without a mask - a very good question because I do accept vaccines work to reduce my risk. Right now I would be fine working out without a mask because most of the people in my regular classes have gotten vaccinated (we exchanged stories) but I would wear one into class. In public overall? I think once kids can be vaccinated and there's 70% uptake for both shots I'll be happy to treat COVID like it has the same risk as the flu.

 

The trial of aging...and I don't mean my aging

When I started this blog, I was 45 and feeling life was finally settling down and it really has. Aside from getting hit by a car the worse thing to happen to us is the passing of our canine companion. That's likely to change soon as our surviving parents are past their mid-eighties and deal with hearing/vision/mobility loss. It sure seems like life has changed to make things as annoying as possible for them and really shines a light on accessibility.

While we celebrate online accessibility, in no way is this seamless for seniors who don't have someone computer literate to help them. For instance, my dad decided he wanted to donate an old vehicle to Kidney Car - a group I'd never heard of. I had to search, make sure I hit the right link, fill in the information, etc. My dad is vision impaired to the point of near blindness and crusty. His wife is busy working and doesn't seem that good with reading comprehension. This took about 5 minutes to complete but would have taken him ages.

My dad can't easily dial phones so I thought I'd set up an old Google Home for him so he can just ask it to call people. Google seems to use Duo unless you just tell it the number. He doesn't have a cell phone or Google account. His wife doesn't have a Google account. His contacts don't use Duo. This is annoying. We're with Alexa (despite Jeff Bezos) and it just didn't seem as big a deal to set up.

The worse is his hearing aid. I'm pretty convince hearing aids are a big scam. Elderly people keep getting sold hearing aids for thousands of dollars that they use pretty inconsistently because they tickle or their voice echoes or some other reason. Dad's hearing aids came with a plastic remote, but he used his wife to change the volume because it wasn't set up and he didn't have the dexterity to press the buttons. The remote is poorly designed for elderly people with flat buttons that have no click or edge, one little nipple to landmark a programmable middle button that wasn't programmed (probably a good thing).

And I get it, old people are annoyed because things have changed but pretty well nothing is meeting expectations and they can't get it resolved. They don't seem to be able to answer questions and if you can't understand, they just get irritable. And service people have to learn to not to take things personally which can be hard.

We really need a diverse group of designers for all equipment and tools. It can only benefit all of us.