On October 19, 1989, 3.8 inches of snow fell in Chicago. We dodged that bullet. The weather was perfect for the Porchlight Icons Gala, and a gentle breeze flowed in from the multiple, large openings to the outdoors. We weren’t pent-up indoors with a few hundred people. And yet, there was no need to sit under a space heater.

But, just in case, I brought my new toy (not made out of LEGOs this time), a portable carbon dioxide monitor, a device that has become fashionable in schools as a means of measuring the effectiveness of air circulation efforts in the time of Covid.

According to a report in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, scientists, relying on the fact that “infectious people exhale airborne viruses at the same time as they exhale carbon dioxide”, concluded that “wherever you are sharing air, the lower the CO2, the lower risk of infection” from Covid.

I am pleased to say that, despite my dropping it on the floor at one point, and hopefully not because I did, my monitor continued to signal a level of carbon dioxide equivalent to a totally outdoor environment.

So, I was able to completely enjoy the honoring of Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson for her glorious theatrical career. Who? Chita Rivera.

The entertainment was top notch, as always with Porchlight, and Ms. Rivera was charming and gracious. And the wine was flowing (perhaps the cause of the dropped monitor), as were the donations, buoyed by an auctioneer extraordinaire. And it didn’t snow.