Due to the hassle of removing the food from the cartons BEFORE bringing our take-out order into the house, the table isn't set up like it normally would be. Nevertheless, having our Memorial Day dinner from a restaurant gave a touch of normality to these abnormal times. For the past 20+ years, we have dined in this restaurant as a Memorial Day, family tradition. Sadly, a lot of traditions are being broken this year. This year we ate at home.

Today was our first restaurant take-out since Stay-at-Home isolation first started. I missed this restaurant's real life ambiance, and I missed being able to share the meal with my elderly mom. However, I enjoyed dinner with my husband.

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Update: May 26, 2020, 04:23 GMT
USA
1,686,436 confirmed cases of COVID-19
99,805 American Deaths

NOTE: A sizable percentage of Americans really don't care if they can catch or spread coronavirus to others who may die.
So the idea of breaking the virus transmission by social distancing obviously isn't going to work in our country. Many Americans are even still convinced that the novel coronavirus is no more serious than the normal, seasonal flu. Quite a few say it's all "a hoax". So scenes like yesterday Pool Party at Osage Beach are going to continue no matter how many other people may get sick & die from the fall out. Younger Missourians have actually said that it's not their problem if someone else dies. In their opinion, the vulnerable need to stay away from "regular people". If the vulnerable do get ill & die, that's totally the responsibility of the vulnerable - not party goers who have the right to have fun & do whatever they want.

Although the Mayor of St Louis has asked Lake of the Ozark party goers to self quarantine for 2 weeks after going home, the Mayor of Kansas City is not doing the same. He said that such a city order is non enforceable: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/st-louis-area-and-state-officials-issue-stern-warnings-after-lake-of-the-ozarks-parties/article_ee998d93-0792-5d85-abd7-5d32faf97790.html

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A part of our normal Memorial Day would have been spent going to the cemetery to pay our respects to lost loved ones. Due to the larger than normal cemetery crowds shown on the news, I'm glad we didn't try. No one was wearing a mask; plus people were not respecting social distancing even at a cemetery. Without going into detail, I'm quite sad about not being able to lay flowers. Our normal Memorial Day would have also been spent with a public honoring of America's Gold Star veterans. At least, we were able to watch formal ceremonies on TV; followed by the special PBS televised only "Celebration at the Station" (another real life, ongoing tradition of ours).

This is our 4th Holiday in Stay-at-Home isolation. Based on how America is handling (or actually mishandling) the COVID pandemic, I can see many, many more holidays stuck at home. The days have turned into weeks. The weeks have now turned into months. Hopefully, the months now don't turn into years. But staying alive is staying alive.