Danica Has a COVID Birthday in Our Garage

What to do? It was raining, so driving over to hers and standing out in the rain to celebrate her birthday, no longer seemed like a good idea. So, we held a little gathering in our garage. This is the setup.

Sue and I were planning to sit on the stairs which is the camera position. We will be about the proper 2 metres from Shauna who will sit in the blue chair to the left. The kids and their dad, who live together, will sit in chairs by the door which will be open.

It's just a garage, but Sue made it as nice and welcoming as possible.

And here is Shauna and the others observing the 2 metre distance and eating cake.

The Birthday Girl

She opens her birthday collage of photos taken during her 13th year.

She realizes that she's getting an iWatch

Some video, which I managed to pare down to just over a minute from a number of sometimes lengthy clips.

As birthdays blend together in what will, hopefully, be a long life, I have a feeling that the COVID birthday in a garage will be remembered for a very long time.

Doodad and Hyacinth

A most noteworthy event today — Danica enters her teenage years. I will, perhaps, post more about it tomorrow, but for now, I present a little collage of Danica on her 12th birthday last year.

Let us continue with the doodad of the title, which you can see in the selfie, below. We are back in our masks again but with doodads this time.

The doodads were part of an unexpected surprise from Shauna. The surprise included hyacinths, girl guide cookies, and bread.

But what be these doodads?

I think this graphic explains, without necessitating any superfluous and bumbling words from yours truly.

It is a COVID-friendly, door-opener and button pusher, made by someone local with a 3D printer. Amazing. Sadly, it did not come with that handy dandy holder shown in the third part, above. Life is so hard.

As for the hyacinths, there were two but only the pinkish one is in bloom, so I made a few macro photos.

The Details Bedevil Me

The Daily Selfie

Rooftop Sunrise

We don't have much of a view with townhouses across the street, but when the sun peeked over the rooftops, there was a bit of a pillar.

That &arr; was the colour that came out of the camera. I wondered if it would make a decent mono image.

I Am Not a Details Person

We came across this ↓ on fb.

Well of course I could do it. I could circle my foot clockwise and then keep going into the 6 by beginning the 6 at the top of the bottom circle.

The problem is that I didn't see the hand part in the 2nd instruction. I just started drawing the 6 with my foot.

I am not a details person.

This was the same morning that I asked a fellow blogger if she really walked 25 miles as she wrote. Except that she didn't write that. She informed me that I missed the decimal place in 2.5.

I am not a details person.

When I play Sudoku on my iPad, which I do several times a day, sometimes and too often, in fact,  I make the mistake of thinking I am in the mode in which I add notations when I am really in the mode in which I enter my actual answer. For example, I want to note in a certain square that there could be a 2, but that it is just 1 possibility along with others. What I, too often for my liking, end up doing is mistakenly entering the 2 as my chosen answer, only to find that it is wrong.

I drive myself crazy when I do this. I make other careless errors too, such as dragging my finger across the screen which may cause the app to insert an stupid answer. Or how about this? I mean to put the answer in a certain square but happen to tap the adjacent one. Very seldom do I make an actual logical error, but the stats counter doesn't know this. lol

I am not a details person.

Real Selfie with Real Masks

Daily Selfie: Real Masks

Sue's sister sent us masks. Sue is also working on others.

Funny Thing

What a hoot! Sue was getting exasperated because no one had been commenting on her fb posts for the past 2 weeks, not even me, her loving and adoring husband.

When I checked on her computer, I found that she had been directing her posts to just one person — her sister, who doesn't really do fb. Hopefully, we have now rememdied the situation. 😀

Syrup-less Spring

We generally make the trip into the hinterland in the spring during or slightly after the maple syrup run. This year, we are isolating, and they are closed anyway. We often do the excursion in the autumn too for the colours, which is when I took this photo. Maybe there's a chance still for autumn 2020.

An old shack: the very nice and commodious restaurant is behind me.

New ER Measures

In light of COVID, our community hospital has set up a special entrance and screening area for ER patients. link

No Planets

There are a lack of photo ops lately, especially with the pond being nearly deserted of waterfowl life. The moon, saturn and jupiter were supposed to line up nicely yesterday morning around 4am. I happened to wake up around then but couldn't spot them from either the front or back window and with the temperature below freezing, I was not inclined to go out and search.

This morning, I did wake up early enough for a sunrise shoot, except that our locations aren't compelling, and it was less that 0C/32F out. I demurred and drank coffee.

But I Do Have This Shot

I have been trying a few across the river photos this spring. Some, like this one, have been salvaged through creative post processing, but I have been disappointed in most and have trashed many attempts. This one has a fake sky and fake birds to try to assist it a bit.

Snow and Stew

Danica and her stepmom made turkey stew. S-mom brought us a dish for supper.

Lacey has an outlook (and sleeping) post by the window in my den.

When I am puttering in my den in the evening, of course I pull the blinds. But when it is bedtime, I try to remember to lift them for Lacey in case she wants to keep an eye on the neighbourhood during the night.

This is what I saw when I raised the blinds for her on Tuesday night.

Yes, m'darlins, that is snow. Snow an April 14, and it also snowed a bit the next day, the 15th. I include a very short clip. (Blogger videos always come in small, but they can be enlarged for viewing.)

The morning view: there wasn't a ton of white, but still, April 15, with a high temperature of only 4C/39F for the day. Sigh.

For something to do, I made a composite of a few of the selfies from the past month. As you well know by now, we have many, so I will be likely to do one or two more collages in the fullness of time.

And . . . the daily selfie.

Sewers and Alliances

The Daily Selfie: Angelic ensemble but we look rather devilish to me.

Talented Sewage System

This made my chuckle when I came across it on a local fb group. Actually, it gave me an instant of perplexity before I got to the context.

Karma in Virginia

Virginia pastor, Gerald O. Glenn, died from COVID after defiantly holding a service.

From the NY Post article: “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus. You can quote me on that,” he said, repeating it a second time to claps, saying that “people are healed” in his church.

I don't feel one bit sorry about this. Does this make me a bad person? Mainly I hope (quite in vain, I realize) that it brings some clarity and commonsense to certain irrational faithheads.

Cats vs Dogs Obstacle Courses During COVID: Cats always win

Such videos are popping up while people now have time on their hands. I was surprised one day when Lacey managed to walk around items on my desk without even seeming to look. I have since learned that one thing that gives cats the advantage is that their hind feet land where their front feet preceded them.

Multi State Council

I don't know much about this, but apparently, a number have states have joined in an alliance of sorts to work together on a joint framework of measures. There is a West Coast Pact and a Multi State Council in the east.

I have often thought that at least some of these states are pretty Canadian in ethos. Some of them, particularly those western states, even talk pretty much like Canadians. Eh?

Pink Hearts

Back to the (Almost) Daily Selfie: Sue and I are in the pink of condition

Sha's Residence

So far so good: unless something unforeseen occurs, the residents can come out of their rooms tomorrow. Unfortunately, as of yesterday the other seniors residence in Perth has 21 patients and 8 staff confirmed. Shauna doesn't see how there could be any any cross-contamination to her residence since they have no workers who also work in the other residence. Her residents have also been quarantined for 2 weeks, so fingers crossed.

Frightening Figures Close to Home

The home in Almonte that I have spoken of is up to 16 deaths and 36 positive cases. I do not know whether the 16 deaths are part of the 36 or are in addition.

There is also a home right in our town that has been hit hard.  Twenty-nine residents and 19 staff members have tested positive, and 2 have died.

Both of these places are older facilities with older and more vulnerable occupants. In fact, the second one is already about to construct a brand new facility. But I imagine that the whole system will come under significant scrutiny post-apocalypse.

Food Pickup

After waiting for 2 weeks for our turn, we picked up a very big order yesterday. They nailed it completely. We, on the other hand, missed a few things, but they will be gathered by our helper-shopper, Tash, later today or tomorrow.

Then, I stayed up past midnight in order to grab the next spot that opened up — in 2 weeks, April 27.

Hopefully, we can keep up a regular, two-week rhythm with the grocery store from now on, and with Tash filling in on the week in between.

New Zealand has done well, but the UK and USA not so much.

Two Kilometres

Speaking of the UK, they are being pretty proactive now. Last evening, I watched a photography podcast from Ireland; they are to keep outings to a 2 km range, which is only a little more than a mile. That is for walking, but they should only drive to grocery stores, medical appointments etc. That is pretty strict, but it is a smaller and more crowded space.