Marysville — Blog — Healy Chen

Pandemic over

Finally, some good news about San Francisco: we are on track to become the first city in California to reach the herd immunity against COVID 19. We’ve always had the lowest COVID numbers of any major city, so it’s no surprise we would be the first to reach that immunity milestone. Soon as California fully opens back up on June 15th, I think San Francisco will return to normal really quickly.

Ergo there’s absolutely no excuse for the San Francisco Unified School District: full in-person classes must happen in the Fall semester. We should vote the school board members out of that isn’t the case. For shame.

In certain parts of California, the pandemic is effectively over already: no more masking, everything is fully open. This past weekend we were in the rural areas north of Sacramento, and walking around there felt rather jarring because it was business as usual. I would say only two percent of the people wore a mask at all. There are no covering requirements to enter an establishment. Our friend went into a coffee shop in Calusa, and he was the only one with a mask on.

I have to say though the people there weren’t mean about seeing someone with a mask on. It’s truly live and let live.

Moving on to Marysville, there was a taco festival in the city’s small downtown area. The scene looked like Disneyland before the pandemic. Crowds mingling closely together and having a good time. The only people with masks on were the vendors, perhaps to keep up with current rules. Everything else resembled everyday life before COVID. I absolutely love it. I didn’t care whether or not anyone else were vaccinated, because I myself am vaccinated.

Can’t wait to see the same here in San Francisco very soon indeed.

Heat training

The curse of living in San Francisco and this year-round mildly cold weather of ours is that we are rather fickle with temperature extremes. Especially when the weather gets hot. Far easier to to deal with cold when it’s always sort of cold. But high temperatures? There’s only so much we can do when weather in the 70s already feel like shorts and t-shirts time. Imagine making that clothing combination last all the way into the triple digits.

I just end up sweating it through. Traveling the grueling summer heat in Japan, I brought a towel with me everywhere, constantly wiping sweat away.

But that was Japan. I made the mistake of not bring a towel with me this past weekend when we went to Marysville, deep north of Sacramento. Back home in San Francisco it was a nice low 60s, but it was well into the 90s near our State capitol. A 30 degrees swing from departure and the destination. How would you prepare for this? We all left San Francisco with two upper layers and long pants - as you do. Upon arrival, we took off our sweatshirts to the t-shirt layer. That was it.

Suffice it to say, I was struggling in the heat. At least I had the presence of mind to wear canvas shoes instead of my usual wool Allbirds. Really should have worn shorts, but I would have froze at the beginning of the trip in. By mid-afternoon I was feeling the adverse affects, and had to find shade whenever possible.

I actually don’t mind hot weather. Because we only get it for one week out of the year in San Francisco, we never get a chance to acclimate. I think I can do quite well living in a place where it’s always above 80 degrees during the Summer. So long as there’s air-conditioning indoors, of course.

Overall I think it does the body well to experience temperature extremes once in a while. It’s good training for resiliency. Going to Marysville and being in the heat felt great the next day, as if I had exercised the day before.