I'm as jealous as if you said you'd been to the House of Sussex to meet Archie. My outdoor cooking club was rained out. No picnic for me.

I have a few dear friends coming for a socially distanced luncheon next week.

Our street has socially distant cocktail hours almost every week. A guy with a sense of humor brings a yard stick to make sure we’re in compliance :)

We are having a cul de sac birthday party for someone on our street on Saturday. We’ve all signed a big card, everyone brings a chair and their own drinks and we will sing to the honoree. Rumor has it that cupcakes will be available! I am as excited as if it were Joe Biden’s inaugural ball! We are lucky to have landed on a street with such great people. Katz, your gathering looks like ours except we are in the middle of the street.

Your happy hour looks exactly like the ones we have in our neighborhood. Same decor, same guest attire. Enjoyable for all til the bugs come out!

i have a wake and funeral to go to today and tomorrow. It’s for a friend’s parent who was in her 90’s (not Covid related). I am a bit hesitant and hope to get in and out quickly.

Even the gathering of chairs is an interesting and eclectic one! Looks like fun!

It seems people are DESPERATE for social interaction and are coming out and less competition of other invitations is a thing too. We were noting ourselves yesterday...

We have had several "drive-way" meet-ups with our besties and have been to one funeral (graveside). We are invited to a cook-out this weekend with our besties and their children's families. We will most likely go.

Yes Arcy, some people are desperate for social interaction. This pandemic (along with the other changes) have been extremely hard on my father. He went to assisted living and barely 2 weeks later, they were on lock-down. A hard move to start with as he moved from his home of 56 years. He lately spent several days in the hospital and now is in a new facility for rehab. When my sister and I were able to see him in the hospital, we were shocked at his decline. He is a bit of a loner, but used to seeing family and neighbors, etc. The solitude of this pandemic has been hard on him. Nursing homes, AL facilities, etc. are starting to allow visitors next week although extremely restricted (which is fine). It may be a while before we see him. His facility has 80 residents and we will have to visit by appointment with only six visitors per day being allowed into the facility. We are hopeful he will move out of the quarantine unit in the next few days and have a room with a window we can visit. His present window looks out into the courtyard, which is a nice view, but the courtyard can only be accessed by coming inside the building. I am counting the days to see my precious dad again.

Tina Marie - I'm sorry that your father is having to deal with this. It's hard enough to leave your family home but this pandemic is making these transitions so much more difficult.

We have our first driveway dinner tomorrow night. We take our own chairs and beverages and the host/hostess provides pizza. Luckily it's right next door so I won't have to lug our kitchen chairs very far.

Apparently when we moved we gave our folding spectator chairs to DD so I'm going to order new ones.

I've been having a Monday brown-bag al fresco lunch with a friend since the beginning of the shutdown. It's a glorious hour of feeling normal. Last week we invited another friend, and next week his wife will join us. Breaking bread together has helped keep us sane.

My two best friends and I have had a couple of back porch visits (BYOB, no food), sitting 10-12 feet apart. Once, the spouses were included. We just placed three sets of seating-for-two, again 10 feet apart. It was So good to see them in person and chat.

I’ve also had a couple of backyard visits with two neighbors, BYOB, no food.

Thank you Maire Cate! It is awful how this is affecting some of our elderly. I have had several conversations regarding this with medical personnel, facility personnel, etc. It is really hard on this group. I am so thankful the restrictions are easing up a bit! Dad has had two psychological evaluations (due to some very confusing conversations, etc. we were worried) once in the hospital and now in the facility he is in. He does not have dementia, but the CONFUSION caused by this pandemic can play havoc with their mental state. Thankfully, in this new facility, the psychologist is the director of a local geriatric program so we are happy for his input. Dad has about 80 more days for rehab and then we will decide what happens. I really do not see him going back to assisted living, but maybe he will prove me wrong! That's another bad thing, with the restrictions, we were not able to visit facilities before we moved him! It all fell into place though, this facility was the only one where we knew someone who had recently had a family member there and the only facility that had a private room open. I think it was meant to be.

Our family does a cousins zoom every other week. With the cousins spanning 9 time zones, this is the most often we have gotten together, even though it's virtual.

I'm jealous. we were invited to a couple of outdoor socially-distant small parties, but my husband felt too uncomfortable. I think he's finally coming around to the idea of hanging out with one other couple, like a tiny friend bubble. please, YES.

I felt very comfortable in this situation as we all brought our own stuff and plenty of room to keep your distance. Not so sure I’d want to be in someone’s home where they are serving food and/or beverages.

I'm comfortable too. My friend has COPD and is very cautious about exposure to risk. We have met in my garage a couple of times when it was cold or rainy. The ambiance was, um, garage-y.

I think outdoor events with social distancing are quite reasonable, esp. if no one involved is in a high-risk group. I personally would have no issue with food either, just as I am willing to do take out and dine in (with masks as appropriate and distancing).

We went out to dinner tonight. It was very very exciting!! Just our family, you know, the same people I’ve been eating with for 3 months, but someone SERVED us. 🥳

I have gotten together almost weekly with a group of 4-5 women. Outside, 6’ apart, BYOB. It’s one of the things that’s kept me (relatively) sane.

I've been walking socially distanced with a few friends during this time. Two of them are nurses working with covid patients, and so I trust their judgment about what's safe to do. But last night I attended an outdoor Pilates class. It was so fun! And I despise group exercise classes during regular times. It was a beautiful evening, the participants were far apart (there were only 7 of us), and, really, it was just nice to hear the instructor's voice and words of encouragement. I'm a natural introvert but forgot how much I appreciate others' voices.

Tonight we went on a boat ride with our neighbors - BYOB and keep your distance - just four of us. I so much appreciate these get togethers after months of time in isolation.