Good morning, RVA! It's 37 °F, and today looks chilly and full of sunshine. Expect highs near 50 °F while we wait for warmer weather to arrive (like Santa) over the next couple of days. If you're celebrating this weekend, we've got forecasted temperatures in the mid-60—a perfect reason to move your get-together outside!
Water cooler
Today, from 9:00–11:00 AM, the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will host a free community COVID-19 testing event at the Eastern Henrico Rec. Center (1440 N. Laburnum Avenue). As holiday travel approaches, testing is big in demand at the moment, and you can't beat an opportunity to get a free, no-appointment-required PCR test—they'll even text you the results in 2–3 days! At-home tests are also available at the event, while supplies last, and, given the demand, I'd expect those supplies not to last very long at all. Also from RHHD, this handy step-by-step guide for what to do if you find a rapid test and end up testing positive. I know that lots of folks—because they've been so very careful and so very vaccinated—may not have given a lot of thought for the next steps after testing positive. Now you know (just in case)!
Bryan McKenzie at the Daily Progress reports that "the University of Virginia will require all students, faculty and staff to get COVID-19 vaccine booster shots in order to study, live, or work on Grounds in the coming spring semester." This is fascinating as it marks a sort of shifting of the definition of fully-vaccinated. Early on in the pandemic, UVA led the Commonwealth in early mitigation and vaccination measures, so this makes me wonder if we'll see similar moves from other higher-ed institutions. Any Wahoos home for holiday break that need their booster shot should check out this list of walk-up events which includes a bunch of dates at the Arthur Ashe Athletic Center. Over the past couple of weeks I've had at least a half-dozen folks tell me, unprompted, about their positive vaccination experience at Arthur Ashe.
Today at 12:00 PM, the Governor and the Department of Historic Resources will open the metal box they found inside of the Robert E. Lee plinth. Is it an empty box? Is it a racist time capsule?? Did anything in the box survive the 130 years entombed in stone and steel? We will find out today, and I imagine have some fun stories to read about it in tomorrow's media!
Ultra-quick Council FYI: They passed their redistricting criteria and timeline, so they're off to the redistricting races. Next up, on January 24th, Council will introduce "redistricting plan or plans for public comment." Then, immediately following on January 25th, a 30-day public comment period begins. I don't know what we'll be public-commenting on yet, but we'll have 30 days to do it. The aforelinked webpage does have some interesting info, though, about the way council districts have changed since the last census ten years ago. Did you know that the 3rd District is short about 3,000 people from the "ideal" number of voters (25,179) and the 2nd District is about 2,000 people over budget?
Logistical note! This is the last Good Morning, RVA of 2021! What a bizarre year of newsletters it's been, and I'm looking forward to an extended break. If you'd like relive the year by scrolling through the archive, you can do so here, but, I'm ambivalent. Half of me wants to cast the last 12 months into a fiery furnace and turn fresh-faced into whatever 2022 may bring, be it wonderful opportunities or unnamed horrors. The other half of me is very proud of the work I've done this past year—both here in this email and in my day job at the Health District—and wants to look back, holding the high points up to the sky like shiny gems. I'm leaning towards the furnace thing, though. Putting together this email (and podcast!) each and every weekday takes a lot of work, and, truth be told, I am not always excited to wake up at 5:28 AM to get it done. That said, I love doing this thing and am grateful for the folks who read it, listen to it, send me thoughtful emails about it, and support it with their actual money—either by joining the Patreon or by sending me a couple of bucks on Venmo. This last thing, money, while certainly not required, is deeply appreciated and makes the mornings easier. Regardless, thank you to everyone who reads and gives me a platform to have opinions on things! It means a lot to me. Now: On to 2022!
This morning's longread
We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever
OK, I promised a less depressing longread today, so here's a review of a spectacularly bad...dining experience? I'm not sure I'd call it a meal. Honestly, at first, I thought this might be too mean to share, but then I got to the picture of the foam poured into a plaster mold of the chef's mouth.
I’ve tried to come up with hypotheses for what happened. Maybe the staff just ran out of food that night. Maybe they confused our table with that of their ex-lover’s. Maybe they were drunk. But we got twelve kinds of foam, something that I can only describe as “an oyster loaf that tasted like Newark airport”, and a teaspoon of savory ice cream that was olive flavored. I’m still not over that, to be honest. I thought it was going to be pistachio.
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