{"id":5141,"date":"2020-12-31T09:57:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T14:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/?p=5141"},"modified":"2020-12-31T09:57:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-31T14:57:11","slug":"2020-a-quick-look-back-at-the-year-no-one-wants-to-look-back-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/31\/2020-a-quick-look-back-at-the-year-no-one-wants-to-look-back-at\/","title":{"rendered":"2020: A Quick Look Back at the Year No One Wants to Look Back At"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Remember back in 2019<\/a>? When we thought, “what a bad year we’ve had,” and couldn’t wait for 2020 to get started? What is it the kids say these days? Ah yes, ROFLMAO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We began the year in January<\/strong> with optimism. We tried to opt out of World War 3<\/a> with a gift basket. We decided to completely eliminate Burlington<\/a> from the state. We had big plans for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We began to worry in February<\/strong> that maybe things weren’t going to pan out for us, especially when Tom Brady made some upsetting decisions<\/a>, but we still had some hope. We went to parties<\/a>. We contemplated getting new job, or moving to new houses<\/a>. We had no idea that the rest of the year was going to pass in one long, horrific blur starting in…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March<\/strong>. Ugh. We got word that some virus<\/a> was heading our way. We didn’t have any actual, you know, cases<\/em> of the virus, but it didn’t stop us from buying all of the toilet paper in the state<\/a> overnight. South Canada closed its borders<\/a> and now we have no<\/em> idea what’s going on up there. All the Pokestops were shut down<\/a>. It was chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we were promised that it would be over by April<\/strong>. Spoiler alert: It was not. Everybody got laid off, including us<\/a>. Only “Essential Persons”<\/a> got to go outside. The government promised to send us money, but then kept delaying it for stupid reasons<\/a>. People were drinking bleach, or doing whatever they heard last<\/a> to try and kill COVID-19, and there was no end in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were pretty sure that things would go back to normal in May<\/strong>, so of course they didn’t. Instead, we tried to see how many people could fit into one unemployment program<\/a>. There were some benefits to the pandemic, such as fewer people being probed by aliens<\/a>, but in general we were sick of it. Some restrictions started to lift<\/a>, but things still pretty much sucked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time June<\/strong> rolled around we were feeling smug about totally nailing our pandemic response, so we moved on to solving racism. We had riots<\/a>. We yelled at the police<\/a>. We fired the police<\/a>. We defunded the police that were left<\/a>. We painted things on the road<\/a>. And once we were reasonably assured that the problem was solved, we moved on to…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July<\/strong>, arguably the best month for us. Our COVID numbers were way down<\/a>. We were getting ready to re-open<\/a> things. I mean, the rest of the world was doing terribly<\/a>, yeah, but Vermont was sitting pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By August<\/strong> we had tourists again<\/a>, schools were getting ready<\/a> to re-open, and Jerry Falwell, Jr. left the public eye<\/a> to focus on the family pool boy. People were visiting with each other, confidence was at an all time time high, and so we plunged blindly into…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

September<\/strong>. Suddenly things didn’t seem to great. We were all sick of restrictions<\/a>. Nobody wanted to wear their masks<\/a>. Ruth Bader Ginsberg had the temerity to die<\/a>. Things were looking bleak. But they would get bleaker still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October<\/strong> COVID-19 started to take down the federal government<\/a>, which didn’t seem to affect their effectiveness at all. Dating was hard<\/a>. Racism was back somehow<\/a>. All of the gains we had made over the summer seemed to be evaporating quickly. And yet we were still doing better than everyone else<\/a>, which was very sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least in November<\/strong> we got that pesky election over with<\/a> so we wouldn’t have to hear from Donald Trump anymore. No, instead we get to hear from Rudy Giuliani<\/a>, which is somehow worse. And they still haven’t conceded the election, so I guess technically it is still going on? Jeezum crow, is this year over yet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope! We still have December<\/strong>. In which we try desperately to focus on something other than the pandemic<\/a>, which is still getting worse every day, FYI. Schools are bad<\/a>. Government is bad<\/a>. Even Christmas was bad<\/a>. Nobody got to see their families, Santa got COVID<\/a>, and all the toilet paper was sold out again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now, on this last day of 2020, we look forward, very carefully, to a new year starting tomorrow. We’re cautiously optimistic. There’s a vaccine. Nobody seems to be talking about the murder hornets anymore. I’m not saying it’s going to be great, because I don’t want to jinx it, but all I’m saying is that it won’t be 2020 anymore. And for now, isn’t that enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember back in 2019? When we thought, “what a bad year we’ve had,” and couldn’t wait for 2020 to get started? What is it the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"coauthors":[91],"class_list":["post-5141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vermont-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TWFI-2020_12_31.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8JVRF-1kV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5143,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141\/revisions\/5143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5141"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewinooski.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}