COVID Outside

Double posting today with a few snippets just about COVID. I think you'll appreciate
the first piece, even if you gloss over the rest.

Baby, It's COVID Outside

A light moment for you: this couple is making the best of it. The sound isn't great, but they're good.

Unglovely Behaviour

I despair. Apparently some nitwits are just dropping the gloves that they had been given for shopping. They just leave them in the parking lot.

In Ottawa there is not a $365 fine for doing that. It doesn't seem like enough to me. I haven't heard of fines in our town yet.

We are not as highly evolved species as we like to think, are we?

One Way Sidewalks

This is interesting. A section of Montreal, called Westmount, now has one way sidewalks, and they have even widened the sidewalks onto a portion of the road where applicable.



This wouldn't be much of an answer in neighbourhoods such as ours where there is only a sidewalk on one side, but in denser urban areas, it is an idea. However, Sue and I have been known to switch to the road when it seems appropriate such as others coming toward us.

Close to Home

There is a long Term Care Facility (aka nursing home in old terminology) in our very town town in which at least 28 residents and 18 staff members have COVID.

O America

It took you 10 weeks to go from 1 - 250 000 cases and 1 week to go from 250 000 to 500 000.

Vaccine Possible

Wouldn't this be splendid?

I have also read that there are 70 labs worldwide working on a vaccine and that three are in the early testing stage.

Easter Wrap

This clip of our prime minister explaining about flattening the curve is more than a week old, but I have just seen it. It might be worthwhile viewing for those who don't understand the concept. I am happy to report that, in general, so far our hospitals have been both surprised and pleased that the ICUs are operating below capacity. However, there may be a spike coming in the few few weeks, so we shall see.

While Canada has its fair share of numbskulls, I am pretty happy with and proud of our response so far. It hasn't been perfect, but I think most are trying their best, both leaders and the general populace.

We are expecting major winds today. It could be worse; we are in the yellow zone. I hope roof shingles and fences hold on.

My Easter Morning Breakfast: English muffins toasted and buttered before adding cheese and pre-cooked bacon. It was then heated in the microwave to heat the bacon and melt the cheese. Easy peasy but a little bit special. Sue added the chocolate treat, which were small despite how they loom in the photo. Back to oatmeal today.

Stepmom made sure the kids weren't neglected at Easter. She does a fab job.



We didn't do a selfie per se yesterday. Instead, Sue did this little video clip in which she has one of our traditional Easter decorations wish the family a Happy Easter. Sue has always been in charge of our selfies.

Happy Easter

Let's keep it on the short and sweet side today.

We have a coconut cream pie for Easter. It was made especially for this weekend, and we ordered it more than a week ago, paying by e-transfer. When I arrived at the shop yesterday, I called to let them know I was there. They brought the pies (also an apple) out in a box, put it on the table, and I picked it up and put it in the car. A pretty safe treat, I'd say.

I hope this ↓ news about a possible early vaccine is correct, but it is the only thing that I've seen like this, so I won't get my hopes up too much. Still, it's a glimmer of hope.

I do have a nasty thought to add though.

I think all of those American Evangelical pastors who are keeping their churches open today are doing it for one reason — money. Ironically, they don't have faith that god will provide. Prove me wrong.

Speaking of nasty. But it is so deserved.

Signs and Silly Walking

I hope you stick around for the last item in this post: a video a Sue and me silly walking.

Signs of the Times Around Town: No more sitting on that park bench. Sigh. Of course, at least some of these restrictions have been put in place because people cannot be trusted to do the right thing of their own. Double sigh.

Gatherings

We are not to gather with more than 5 people unless they are family members living in one house. This includes inside gatherings at Easter.

Emotional Video

Oh dangitall: more leaky eyes from this virtual choir of female physicians in Toronto singing Rise Again. (I recently sang tried in vain to sing this with my worsening singing voice at a jam session where others weren't sure of the tune. It was awful.)

I'm getting too maudlin in my old age.

Another Sign: which perhaps led to the item that follows.

We Do Silly Walking

For a different sort of video, and call it the daily selfie if you wish, Sue and I engaged in our version of the Monty Python Silly Walk. I hope you get a kick out of it. Watch it large if you will.

I think that can be a wrap for today.

It Snowed

Let us begin with The Daily Selfie as you might want to skip much the rest of this post which is COVID-related, but not so much the Cooking section which comes next. So maybe read that even if you are going to checkout early.

That ↑ was our standard selfie, but then it snowed. All of the accumulated snow is gone, but it often snows once or twice in April, sometimes heavily. Of course, this very wet snow was melting quickly.

This is Danica's Selfie while she's doing her laid-on schoolwork.



Cooking

Speaking of cooking (as we were at the end of the previous post) I am not much help in this isolation phase of our lives.

You see, the way my brain works, or as it happens doesn't work, my cooking method is to decide on a recipe and then find the ingredients. If they are not already in the house, I go out shopping. And since one can't willy nilly get to the grocery store these days . . . well, I am somewhat lost. Sue, however, is queen of the quick fixes, so we aren't starving.

Since I start with the recipe and not the ingredients, what my brain can't do is figure out what I could do with the ingredients that we already have in house. For one thing, I don't have a good handle on what we have in house.

Oh, I can fry an egg and probably make a meatloaf because its ingredients are pretty well always at hand, but even my light macaroni would require cottage cheese, which we don't usually have in the fridge.

Sigh. I am pathetic.

The Plague

The seniors residence in nearby Almonte is being hit hard with two deaths so far. Unlike Shauna's place, it is an older style home with wards that hold up to 4 patients per room. They also have other accommodations, but 50% of the residents reside in such wards. The residents there also tend to be older and more feeble: not a good combination. Updated: the latest news that I have of this home is that there have been 30 caes and 10 deaths. This is awful.

Our health unit, which covers 3 counties, reports that, as of Wednesday, there are 45 cases in long-term care homes within their remit. There were 123 confirmed cases in all, and there have been 8 deaths.

The good news for Shauna is that her residence can come out of isolation on Tuesday if nothing else occurs. By out of isolation, I mean out of their rooms. They will still be confined to the residence: at least they will be if they want to continue to stay there.

Increase Your Distance When Exercising

On one day, Sue told me of a fit fellow who contracted COVID when he stopped while cycling to talk to another cyclist who had supposedly recovered from the virus. They kept their distance, but he caught the virus anyway and had quite a miserable experience with it.

The next day I came across this article. Without recounting the details (I will leave that up to you), here is part of the conclusion.

On the basis of these results the scientist advises that for walking the distance of people moving in the same direction in 1 line should be at least 4–5 meter, for running and slow biking it should be 10 meters and for hard biking at least 20 meters.

Sometimes, two metres (6 ft) are not enough.

The Border and Health Care Workers

I just came across an article stating that health care workers should not work in two different places in these times or perhaps any time. That reminded me of the Detroit-Windsor situation.

There are 1500 or more Canadian nurses who cross from Windsor to Detroit daily. Some of them work in both countries. At this time, the Canadian hospitals are asking them to choose one or the other.

The Detroit-Windsor situation came under some scrutiny when tRump was holding up 3M supplies at the border. Our economies are so interconnected that Canadians didn't appreciate this short-sighted maneuver. I don't think Detroit, which is a bit of a viral hotspot, could easily cope with losing 1500 workers.

What's Cooking

Phew! It does appear that Shauna's residence may escape the pandemic, for now at least. Here's hoping anyway. So far, the only positive test result has been that initial worker. She was very careful at work and also self-isolated when she only suspected that she had it (because her roommate tested positive). Also the most suspected resident has had a negative test, and I think they're caught up with testing for now.

I keep knocking on wood, but that leads to a headache since the easiest wood within reach is my noggin. I live in hope, but we shall see.

To lift your spirits, I present the All Abilities Choir in Australia's Got Talent. It is an odd crop, but it works well enough. Warning: this video may induce wet eyes.

Daily Selfie: do you notice how Sue always smiles but that I often ham it up?

Isolation Humour



COVID Assistance

Doing their best: we live in an imperfect country in an imperfect world, but our governments are trying to help people as quickly and efficiently as possible. Here is one person's experience with, CERB, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

This compares to the huge (and unsafe) benefit lines that I saw taking place in Florida this morning. No, I 'm not trying to rub it in but showing how comparatively well Canada is doing. It could be worse.

Isolation Learning: Life Skills

The kids' step (not really but almost) mother is doing a marvellous job. For Sue's birthday, she had Danica bake a cake: just Danica with only verbal instructions. This week, Danica made pasta from scratch.



And Jonathan did homemade pizza and made the crust from scratch.

This is great and probably not something that neither their mother nor Sue and I could be bothered to do. I have made homemade pizza once, but I cheated and used a pre-made crust.

getting out for photos just a little bit

We are into a supermoon these days. Monday night when I met Sue in the bathroom at 4:30 (it happened) it was casting a bright light along with shadows. The problem is finding a good spot for a photo. I get fussy. I shouldn't really.

Last night, I did go out to shoot the moon. I made it to the driveway, looked up, saw only a faint yellow through the clouds, and turned right back into the house. I would have been a bit late for the actual rise anyway.

But, I have gone out the past 2 mornings to get a photo of those trees (or two trees) across the river. One morning, I was too late to get the best light; the next morning I was too early.

The first morning was a fake long exposure (I won't explain today) to smooth out the water.

The second morning was a genuine long exposure. That tree didn't come out as well, but other than that I like it somewhat. Not sure which I like better, however, although I do like the water better in the second one and I guess I like the tree in the first one.

Since someone mentioned the bw photo on the previous post, I am including one of the first photo, above, too. I generally find that it is better not to show the two versions concurrently because they have their own moods, but I often do it anyway.

Only two geese remain in the pond consistently now and usually no ducks. They were closer together than they are in the photo when I started setting up for this photo. Dratted birds.

The daily selfie: we have a lot on our minds, but I don't think Lacey is impressed.