on a venture

It's been a red-letter day. On February 29th I drove up to the City for a concert. Today is the first day since then that I've crossed the line and left the county I live in.

Not very far: I went just outside to Menlo Park, which hugs Palo Alto (which is within my county) so closely that they share a telephone exchange. I went there to return a book to their public library which I'd had out since before the shutdown. Ironically, it was a guidebook to Indiana (not a state popular with the guidebook industry, which is why I had to go up there to get one), a place which in normal times I would have been visiting two weeks ago.

Ever since I got the book in February, I've been waiting for the libraries to reopen. On different schedules and with differing rules, they've finally begun to do so, with some variant on "put holds in the online catalog for the items you want, and then come by and pick them up from an outside table during certain limited hours; we're not letting patrons inside." Most of the websites are not so clear on returns, but I got info by phone from the two I had books out from, and MP has its outside bookdrop open during the same limited hours it runs pickup, so I drove by this morning.

Then I got lunch to go from my favorite fish-and-chips place a couple blocks away - good vigilance on the social distancing there - and skipped back home. Out later for the somewhat different limited hours of the library with the biggest stock of the American Presidents series, so I now have the books to continue that review project.

Jotting down various musical, theatrical, and other online events of interest, and we'll see if I remember to attend them. One proposes to send registrants a link on the day of the event; I call that a useful reminder.