One year ago today I was working only my second Saturday shift at Goway. What a day to be working in a travel agency. The day the world was closing down. I have written about this day and night before, you can read about that here.

In the beginning

In the beginning there was fear and that created chaos in every grocery store. The shelves were stripped bare. Supply chains were broken and it took months for some items to return to the shelves. I remember at the time looking at the bare shelves thinking to myself, “I hope in six months the food banks are overflowing with all the cans of food that people hoarded that they now realize they will never use”. Let’s not get started on the hoarding of toilet paper. Later on once the toilet paper supply was fixed, it was paper towel that became a scarce commodity.

Speaking of hot commodities, let’s talk about the broken supply chain of flour and yeast that went flying off the shelves faster then they could be stocked. Everyone was baking. How many of you baked at least one banana bread those first few weeks? How many started your own sourdough started and named it? I did neither of those two things.

I did share photos of meals. as did many others at the start of the lock down. Facebook groups were created for people to share photos and meal ideas for their families. It was a great source of comfort in those very first days of the unknown. For me, I think it made me feel less alone.

In the Beginning

In the beginning we lit Shabbat Candles together as three households. That of course led to Zoom Passover, Zoom high holidays and Zoom everything. This has become something we have become ‘used’ to the last 12 months. It does have some benefits in truly connecting people that would otherwise never have been at that particular event. During the High Holidays my brother had ‘surprise’ guests come into our room from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and more.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my birthday that I celebrated two weeks ago. My brother facilitated a zoom room and my mother became a super detective and in the span of two hours in two zoom rooms, there were close to 100 people that joined in from London to Vancouver, to Montreal, Texas, Northern and Southern California, Chicago and much more. You know I love to plan birthday parties, but not in any of my party planning dreams would those people have been here in person to help me ring in 50.

In the Beginning

In the beginning it was winter. But then the snow melted and the weather started to go from winter to spring. We had a very cold and rainy mother’s day on my brother’s driveway. About a week after that I planned a picnic for my parents and I at the park across the street. I brought a huge bag filled with pre packaged snacks, place mats, Lysol spray and wipes. My parents picked up subs. We had just finished our lunch and a Vaughan city worker came and told us the park was closed and we had to leave. My dad’s 75th birthday was in June. We had a visit with family in my brother’s backyard and then we had planned for a few of his friends to meet in the park. There were a lot of people in the park that day. Along came a Vaughan city worker and told us we are not allowed to congregate in the park. We had to move along. So we did. This photo was taken from my balcony. A balcony that does not get ANY sun. It was very hard in those early days not even having a place to sit out side and enjoy the sun.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, let’s go there. Grocery stores. It took me a couple of weeks to get over the hoarding experience I mentioned above. But, we all need to eat. I ventured out in the cold, waited in line outside and went to the store, mask, gloves and fear all rolled into one. This is when I started shopping for my parents and myself. It took a while to get into a shopping grove, figuring out what day of the week and time of day would be best for me. I did this for both households for 11 months, until I got covid.

I found that not working allowed me to go in the morning, in the middle of the week. After the first couple of weeks I never waited in line again to get in and stumbled across check out lane 3 to Susie, a fantastic cashier at No Frills on Centre. The first two weeks I ended up at her lane by accident, but after that I started to wait specifically to check out with her. She is fun and friendly and helps you out when you miss something that may be a price match. She has quite the following. One day in January, there were three of us in line waiting to be served by her. Her manager was mad at her. I told her that he should be happy that people are regular customers and want to be served by someone that makes their experience better. If you shop in the morning at No Frills on Centre and happen to end up at lane 3 – if it is Susie, you can tell her Lisa Simpson sent you to her.

In the Beginning

In the beginning I was taking photos of CNN’s case number counter every couple of days. I am sure that I am not the only one that did this. I did this for a long time, as you can see below. I stopped taking pictures a long time ago, and I think CNN stopped their counting screen a long time ago as well. Now the focus is how many vaccinations are being done, which really is where we all should be thinking now. For America, that was such a mess during the days of pandemic has now emerged out front and blowing Canada out of the water on the vaccination front, we are all now waiting our turns.

Where am I now

Where am I now? That is an interesting question. I did have Covid. I am very grateful to be in recovery of pneumonia with some lingering issues that I hope will clear up in the coming few weeks. I have not ventured out past the park across the street. I have started ordering my groceries on line. I am really in need of a hair cut so that may be the first place I venture out to in the short term. I am craving a restaurant meal, to be served, but I am not in a rush to do that just yet.

I am cautiously optimistic of getting my vaccinations by September. I am praying each day that Canada gets its shit together and it can be sooner, but I don’t know. I am putting it into the universe that I will have a stamp in my passport in 2021. I know that 2022 is going to be a big year for travel. I have plans for 2022 and I am hopeful that come summer time we can actually have legit conversations on moving forward with plans.

Until then, I wait.

In life we are reminded of historical events in many ways. Of In the song American Pie, Don McLean sings about “the day the music died” referring to the plane crash on February 3, 1959 that killed musicians Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

Perhaps your Facebook Memories are reminding you about what you were doing this week one year ago. I know mine have been reminding me each day. A week that was not normal by any imagination. As a travel professional that specializes in Europe my world was already turning upside down, but still not even knowing what would happen as we approached the events of the week of March 14 – 20, where the world as we know it changed.

On Friday March 6th, 2020, my parents and I ate dinner at Sea Hi restaurant, as March 8th would be its last day being opening. This was a long time coming as I am sure regular patrons know all too well, but an institution in the community for almost 60 years. But like a great musical that has to close, the curtain needed to come down on this restaurant.

Not surprisingly, it was very busy on this Friday night. The demographic was an older crowd and many of them were reminiscing about their times in the restaurant and their experiences. There were people taking photos. It really was the end of an era in the community.

It was a neighbourhood spot. My father would tell the story about being 17 years old and parking cars for the patrons on a Saturday night. It may have been almost 60 years old and it looked its age. When you walked in and saw the Budda in the entrance way there was something comfortable and familiar at Sea Hi. If you look over the counter at the front door I am sure the calendar was still from 1959 and so were the piles of papers and receipts piled up on the desk by the calculator.

Their takeout business was large and you could tell because the restaurant was almost always empty. But as soon as you sat down, you were greeted with a large plate of their fried noodles and that delicious plum sauce. I would have loved to know where they purchased their plum sauce from because it was so good you could drink it.

Everyone has a different menu item that they enjoyed as was a staple every visit or take out order. I always enjoyed the honey garlic spare ribs and their fried rice. It had to be rice on the bottom, with ribs on the side with a nice helping of sauce on top of the rice.

There is a symbiotic relationship with Jews and Chinese Food. Everyone has ‘their place’ and to be fair, our places have changed many times over the years. I remember my father closing the store on Christmas Eve and we wanted anxiously for him to come home with our large brown paper bags filled with our favourite dishes from not just Sea Hi, but other places we have eaten from over the years.

This dinner was enjoyable for the fact that it was our last meal as this restaurant that we knew was closing. I wonder how many of you out there were eating at a restaurant that week in our lives that, perhaps due to the pandemic is not there any more. If you had known then what you know now, where you would have eaten that last week before everything changed.

Now that restaurants and establishments are starting to reopen it will be interesting to see the landscape as it starts to unfold. Many places have not survived the last year and there will be new ones that open in their places. As someone who loves food and the restaurant experience, I am looking forward to when it is time to start discovering new places to create new experiences in this new world we are living in today.

What do you remember about that week in March of 2020?