Category: SARS-CoV-2

I said it on twitter

As my dear old Onty Mary says, “I’ll quit wearing a mask and self-isolating when they quit trying to kill me.” Closest I’ve been to her in three years was 3 m and we were both masked.

This in response to a friend IRL commenting on the events she is not participating in because of the cavalier attitude of the organizers towards masks.

Now I know Mary never said those exact words, but the sense is correct.

Eggs over easy on sourdough muffins for brekky. NOM

 

it was ‘the last perfect day’

Peggy has completely recovered from COVID – her second bout according to her, but without an antibody test we’ll never know. She was certainly well enough to feed me and Paul roast chicken, spaghetti squash, the least bitter radicchio+tomato salad, and boiled new potatoes with butter, with homemade plum meringue tarts and storeboughten pumpkin pie and ice cream for desert.

A filk never got off the ground. We’re coming up on the anniversary of Tom’s death (a year goes by like nothin’, once again) and Peg’s house is a warren of piles due to trying to get Tom’s excess after death into the correct place and also due to the internal construction (just barely replaced the floor tiles upstairs to learn that every potable pipe in the house had to be replaced. MANY HOLES. HOLESINWALLS HOLESINCEILINGS holes… holes)

The dead wizard in the poem is Tom, of course. He’s been pressing for remembrance, so I’ve been having crying jags thinking about him. The ‘chromatically’ is a musician’s joke, to put colour on a word that is sound.

I was thinking in bed how if I died in my sleep that it would have been the last perfect day – weather good, peace at home, saw friends, peace in the family, got some writing and practicing in, ate yummy food. Don’t know how many days more like this I’ll get – statistically around 7000 – but yesterday was a good one and nobody has to be thankful but me. And I am. Undeservedly lucky and content.

Kaossilator ip ip ip

  • Brief walk and lovely sit in the sunshine with Paul. He had a good time on the Island and Jim being in better shape really put the heart back into him. Paul’s at his volunteer job today.
  • Dragged him into the music room and made him listen to what the Kaossilator sounds like when the battery is dying
  • HEY pOp RYERSON CHANGED ITS NAME TO Toronto Metropolitan University. Given that he was a colonizer who thought Indigenous people are scum I’m cool with that.
  • MUST go to the bank today, I still haven’t paid Keith back.
  • Otto back tomorrow or the day after, that’s good.
  • President Biden is apparently going to declare a climate emergency. Don’t be too happy; those parts that are useful will be turned into money making opportunities for big Democrat donors and when the next president is a Republican it will all be swept away anyway
  • The gay mayor of a town in Oklahoma has been assaulted and frightened so much that after five years of service as Councilman and Mayor he’s resigning. I spend a lot of time in fanfic talking about states where you can’t be out in public and Kansas and Oklahoma are definitely two places where it’s as much as your life is worth to be openly gay, especially outside of places like Lawrence.
  • The entire world with the exception of New Zealand and parts of China is wandering into the seventh wave like a bunch of fools. ERs are crashing and apart from the people who visit them and work at them nobody cares.
  • Despite a century of doctors and health care professionals wearing masks, the far right and the ignorant are still claiming that wearing a mask makes for ‘too much CO2, you’ll choke.’ Showing them pictures of your pulseox before and after masks is ‘fake news.’ Now I’m not saying people deserve to die, but some will die, with belief systems like that. And it will be the young, the elderly and the disabled who pay most dearly, just like fucking usual.
  • I predict that people between forty and eighty will just ‘start dropping dead’ as the effects of multiple undiagnosed COVID infections spread out through the population. Since these deaths won’t get added to the COVID total (no active COVID infection??? CAN’T be COVID!!), the ignorant will claim that it’s the ‘stress of lockdown when it was unnecessary’, ‘drugs’, ‘chemtrails’, ‘the heat’ and ‘the government’ that’s causing these unusual deaths.
  • If you don’t have a will please make one. I have a will, it’s out of date. After all, I no longer have any assets except my intellectual property, which is LOLOLOL completely worthless except to about 3 people. But I still have to change the will so the intellectual property is specifically called out.
  • Apparently the CME is pretty much missing us but check for nice aurorae tonight in western Canada if skies are clear.
  • Don’t blame me, the wordle of the day is ‘angry’
  • 393 words on Part II

Taiwan’s little EU problem and other things

  1. So the EU ambassador to China, a Spaniard, has announced that the Spanish government’s position on Taiwan (peaceful reunification for 1 China) is actually the EU position. It’s not. Horror across the internet this morning at this blatant contradiction of the majority stakeholder view across the EU.
  2. I’m so itchy I’m having trouble sleeping. My tear ducts seem to be blocked up too, and my eyes are sticking shut.
  3. Started working on Part II – 73 words so far.
  4. Three shootings in Toronto last night, one dead, two gravely injured, shooter or shooters still at large.
  5. Words cannot describe how much I’m hoping – and I’m an abolitionist – that Steve Bannon goes to jail in the same country where someone said that the economy would fall apart if jails didn’t contain almost free labour.
  6. Putin says Russia’s high tech sector is facing ‘colossal’ problems due to sanctions.
  7. They’re emptying the jails and putting the dregs of Russian society at the front, according to sources inside Russia.
  8. 110 degrees F in Fort Worth TX today that’s 43 degrees C. The grid in TX is teetering thanks to Repulsigan policies and chronic underspending by ERCOT on maintenance. Bad things are going to happen, it’s like sunshine and gravity.
  9. Wonderful Nova program about the JWST and the first pictures. I knew it was a hellaciously complex and overbudget project, but just HOW complex and HOW overbudget was kind of heartstopping, so thank science it worked. Ain’t nobody going to fix it if it quits.
  10. CBC is reporting lightheartedly that repeated COVID infections will be the norm and don’t pose a problem and this is directly counter to every reputable clinician and epidemiologist that I follow stating loudly and clearly that every repeat infection raises the spectre of disability from Long Covid. Fuck them for saying that.
  11. With Jeff’s kind assistance, I have taken Otto to the krankenhaus. I will receive word on Thursday.
  12. Keith reports that Jim is doing much better.
  13. I have finally seen “The Trouble With Harry”. Damn but John Forsythe was hotter than August in his prime, and what a freaking voice.
  14. 40 degree C weather in Britain. Monuments and bridges are at risk of cracking, damage and failure. Brits don’t take heat seriously so the betting is it will be super hard on the disabled and elderly. Australians and Americans on twitter are trying to help with inexpensive advice. From today’s twitter: In more “country totally prepared for hot weather” news: Blackpool Victoria Hospital (note, in the UK) has propped its doors open to keep the building cool, but now the hospital is full of seagulls  AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE “SKY NEWS REPORTER, CITING MILITARY SOURCE: UK ROYAL AIR FORCE HAS HALTED FLIGHTS IN AND OUT OF ITS LARGEST AIR BASE IN THE UK BECAUSE THE “RUNWAY HAS MELTED” IN THE HOT WEATHER and ANOTHER:

    UK airport suspends all flights as heatwave melts runway tarmac

    A spokesperson for Luton Airport said: “Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway.”

  15. My dad does not like seagulls. Not in his aircraft engines and definitely not in his hospitals. NO WORD ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT MELTY TARMAC
  16. The ERs at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater and South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver are on diversion due to staff shortages.
  17. let’s talk about everything that’s wrong with this article. First off, fuck that family for booking a Disney cruise in Alaska during a pandemic. Second, Air Canada SAID it was going to be cancelling flights left and right at the end of June. Did they not get the memo? What did they think was going to happen. THIRD their daughter HAD COVID BEFORE THEY STARTED TRAVELLING or she wouldn’t have popped symptoms on the fourth day…..they would have ended up on a boat with a sick child anyway. How the fuck is that a vacation? fourth they got treated terribly by Air Canada and had to sleep in airports and it’s like HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS? EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM CITED IN THIS ARTICLE has been part of the nightly news since the travel season started. There’s NO ROOM in the current Air Canada schedule for aircraft going mechanical.
  18. Maybe Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is a more important figure and musician than the Weeknd and Drake but why the fuck would he say so in public? I’ll tell you why!! HE DIDN’T GET REVIEWED IN THE MAJOR PAPERS! Oh, you poor poor man.  that’s get off my lawn style crankiness and RACISM. PS I hold no brief for either of them and Drake’s a creepy asshole who macks on minors and makes for great memes but HE’S A HOMETOWN CHILD IN TORONTO so of course it was a big deal. Not understanding the local politics doesn’t make you a likeable figure dude.
  19. Time to back up your computers, earth’s about to get smacked hard by a coronal mass ejection.  Radio and GPS disruption expected, low latitudes aurorae, first thing tomorrow. Chances of being an x event is 10% but we’ll get something for sure….
  20. WHO confirms a Marburg outbreak in Ghana.
  21. Zelenskyy remains pissed at Trudeau, line forms on the left pal.
  22. July 2022 heat dome temperature gradient europa
  23. Above is the atmospheric ‘ pot lid’ on Europa.
  24. NASA’s ‘climate spiral’ video.
  25. SO ITCHY

Nudes of the world

    1. Just a reminder that I am a proud nudist (naturist sounds funny to me, sorry) and that if you really piss me off and I don’t have other recourse I WILL REMOVE GARMENTS. Starting with the legal stuff, and moving on. Since there’s apparently hardly anything that disgusts and freaks out bigots than fat old naked women, I’m keeping that one in reserve. Also, Peter Verigin LIVETH. (This last specifically so mOm can read it to her sister lol)
    2. Also, I did not order those copies of “Grandma Was a Nudist” they JUST SHOWED UP HERE.
    3. Jeff gets a hall pass. Poor guy. It is true that one of the first things I do when he goes away is walk around the house naked and yodelling (sometimes it’s kazoo, and it’s all very much sad for Buster, who has a demonstrated preference for me remaining clothed since I make a better lap that way and he loathes my music.) (Except in the laundry room, which has a security camera vs the raccoons and since Jeff reviews the security footage once a month I don’t want him clapping his hands over his eyes and going AUGH NOMAN HAS BLINDED ME.)
    4. Which is why, although I haven’t been over there for what feels like centuries, and so not recently, the first thing I do when I get to Mike’s is AUGH FREEEEEEDOM. (I even have a cubby for my clothes like at JJ Spa – and Mike’s place IS a spa, at least as far as I’m concerned.) Also he keeps his apartment about 28 degrees, summer and winter and he’s got it set up so you can sunbathe on the balcony year ’round. Sometimes I wave at the neighbours over by the Skytrain station. I don’t know if they’re watching, but you never know, and I don’t imagine anyone I know would ever tell me.
    5. Sigh, the salt room at JJ Spa. I MISS IT SO. But with this new COVID wave, nuh-unh.
    6. I should probably call Mike.
    7. I do very very very occasionally still wear a bra and pantyhose but that’s like a church/weddings/funerals/someone’s paying for a classy dinner scenario.
    8. I made Yorkshire Gold Tea for the household (which will end up in the sugar free iced tea, most likely), peppermint tea as a day-opener for Jeff, and coffee for me. Honestly, I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get coffee and sugar and cream all in once place again, so I really try to enjoy it while I can.
    9. I played with my Kaossilator yesterday and came up with an ABSOLUTE banger of a beat, 56 bpm / g20/ c_ key/EGY scale/94&96 percussion and yowza. In my life I’ve never spent that little money for a tech toy that brought me this much joy, and Jeff commented that a small child and an elderly adult can both enjoy it!
    10. Anyone doing waste water research says the balloon has really gone up for the latest variant.
    11. Suzanne’s computer has been scanned and will be returned to her shortly. She got a scare but it’s all good. THANK YOU JEFF.
    12. Tanya Basu reporting from Corpus Christi on Twitter: The harassment has real-world consequences. The Corpus Christi area teacher’s union president’s house got shot at earlier this week. School board members are being heckled online. Educators, mostly women & poc, are quitting their profession in droves. 
    13. There are rumblings of a NEW hemorrhagic fever out of Tanzania; it isn’t Ebola and it isn’t Marburg (so saith local testing with help from WHO) and it’s currently killing about 1 in 3 of the people it infects. Tanzania is one of the countries on earth most lethally affected by mosquitoes. It sure would be good to know what other mammalian reservoirs there are for this bug.
    14. Keith and Paul are on the Island visiting various and sundry folks and by reports a mellow and convivial time is being had and mOm was enjoying FOOD DELIVERY what a concept.
    15. I sent the first half of Totally Boned to mOm about a hunnert times yesterday. Finally I stripped off all the formatting and re-sent it and now I’m mentally hopping from one foot to the other waiting to hear back. Google mail barfing on a 30k word document just seems like bullshit to me.
    16. Forced birth advocates in the US seem to be under the impression that since they repealed Roe v Wade opponents need to shut up and be nice to them and it’s NO ACTUALLY WE’RE GOING TO PROTEST IN FRONT OF YOUR CHURCHES AND THROW RED PAINT ON YOUR VEHICLES AND RUN YOU OUT OF RESTAURANTS AND GIVE YOU AAAAALLLLLL THE CIVILITY YOU RICHLY DESERVE.
    17. Putin has signed a bill banning media outlets that don’t recount the Russian War of Aggression against Peaceful and Democratic Ukraine in a way he personally likes, for starters by mentioning that it is, you know, a war. A quote: The application scope of the law covers the adoption of measures against false information dissemination, smearing the Russian Armed Forces’ performance, or disrespectful manifestations towards the Russian Federation’s society, state, and official symbols.  
    18. LOL
    19. David Osland on Twitter this morning, retweeted by Potsherd Man Paul Blinkhorn of Time Team fame: Consider Britain and Saudi Arabia. One has temperatures that exceed 40 degrees, is ruled by a royal family presiding over a corrupt government that is militarily dependent on the US, and openly represses peaceful protest. But Saudi Arabia has its problems too.
    20. Wordle in four tries this morning, good lumosity brain workout. *here I am, sighing over having to do mental math* *here I am, trying to get my response time down under 1000 ms* *Here I am, measurably 20 percent less smart than I was in 2014 HEY NUMBAS DON LIE*  I find it funny that often, the less I’ve slept the better I do.
    21. What happened to US health care? Ronald Regan was elected
    22. Jeff reports that at 5 in the morning THE ALLEY IS CRAWLING WITH EXTREMELY LIVELY RATS. Small ones medium ones some as big as yer ‘ead! When he takes Buster for an alley walk he sees them. MANY MANY RATS. ZIP ZIP ZIP.
    23. Today I shall read the most recent Capilano Review. It’s a really good literary mag y’all.
    24. Weather most fine; a/c still working well.
    25. Stomped hard on a Facebook friend yesterday. Women contestants are tired of the pure whites of tennis, and he said IT’S A UNIFORM WEAR IT and I said FOOLISH HUMAN HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PERIOD WHILE BOUNCING UP AND DOWN AND FIRING BALLS AT A 105 FUCKING MPH AT AN OPPONENT yeah I didn’t think so. Siddown and shaddap.
    26. 33487 WORDS end of Part I. Part II – Blossom’s return, Steve and Jack get their asses handed to them, Richie shows up just in time to make things a) better b) more dangerous c) more complicated (THANKS RICHIE YOU LITTLE B-) AND MORE SHIT ABOUT EMIGRATING TO CANADA THAN ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT.
    27. I love doing research, I end up finding out things that are both hilarious and realllllly unexpected, but I now know that the Fran’s closest to TGH is open 24 hours and then I learned something actually demonstrably useful about how horselaugh bad the March time change is. See below for illustrated figure.
    29. that cliff? that’s the cliff your body falls off when there’s a time change. I had never actually seen it represented and HOOO WEEE THERE IT IS. Now imagine you’ve gone to Iceland or whatever and the cliff is literally 8 times taller.  And do you know why I saw this data set in the first place? Because I wanted to know the angle of the sun coming in to the side of TGH so I could visualize a scene (last scene in part I.)
    30. I learned that plots of land are as low as $40K out by 70 Mile House and it sure would be nice to have a family campground. This is not compatible with my current political leanings so I am irked by my inability to be consistent. If someone else tees it up I’ll help pay for it.

the morning update

  1. 33091 words
  2. Anniversary of the storming of the Bastille today
  3. I have achieved coffee and the kitchen rugs (aka ‘Buster’s toilet paper’) are washed and dried ready to be put back down after Suzanne does her thing
  4. The repulsigans have once again distinguished themselves by announcing that there was ‘no proof’ that a ten year old girl had been raped and needed an abortion but I READ THE TWITTER ACCOUNT OF THE LOCAL REPORTER WHO WAS IN THE COURTROOM WHERE THAT LITTLE GIRL’S RAPIST WAS ARRAIGNED. Her name is Bethany Bruner and she writes for dispatch.com, just in case those MOFOs throw it in the memory hole again.
  5. Reddit esp. the sub trollxchromosomes is FULL of women getting sterilized and sharing information about good doctors. The next generation is going to have the lowest birthrate in American history and every time repulsigans complain it will just drop again. No jobs, no prospects, world on fire, pandemic, emerging illnesses, no abortion access, men have had 40 years to be trained out of how to be a marital partner; under the circumstances, who wants a baby? My mildly out of the common mold daughter I guess.
  6. An abortion yacht will be put into service in the gulf of Mexico, apparently. I’ll believe it when I see it, but apparently Mexico stands ready to be a friendly port of call since Texas has decided to war on those of us who can still get pregnant.
  7. District Court Judge Troy Daniel denied Tirany Savage a restraining order after her soon to be ex bought a gun and threatened her and her friends, so he shot and killed her, her mother and her 13 year old son. Then, in the standard coward’s exit of pissbaby men who commit DV, Bo Savage offed himself. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS murder WITH TRAINING WHEELS. Judge Troy Daniel is now implicated in murder, and so I’m making sure my blog makes his shame and Bo’s known for as long as this site is up.
  8. Have a long Covid source list.
  9. Yes it includes Canadians.
  10. Jeff has words for Microsoft and they aren’t happy birthday.
  11. Russian soldiers are leaving evidence for war crimes behind, as if they’ll never be prosecuted. Justice will come, justice will be done.
  12. MODERNA COVID VACCINE FOR UNDER 5’S HAS FINALLY BEEN APPROVED IN CANADA there is hope
  13. I’M LOOKING AT YOU AUNTIE MARY maybe you’re an alarmist and a crybaby about COVID BUT I THINK YOU ARE THE BEST and ha ha ha you’re also STILL ALIVE and I would very much like you to stay that way, so if you don’t see Paul and Keith when they come visiting I will just smile and nod over here.

RIP Meat Loaf

He was apparently once referred to in the NY Times as “Mr. Loaf”. Most famous for his association with Jim Steinman the songwriter and producer, and for his star turn as Eddie on both stage and screen in Rocky Horror, he did a lot of acting on network TV in the last ten years of his life and I for one was always glad to see him. He didn’t get vaccinated against COVID (there’s no evidence he did, anyway) and that’s what he died of. The talent is not bigger than science alas.

Jeff’s all over his post vax discomfort. Today I’m going to feed crows, load dishes, run laundry and enjoy this brief moment during which my room is tidy again. Thank you Suzanne. SHE FOUND AN APARTMENT IN BURNABY I’m so happy for her.

continued midsection weirdness

I’m fine this morning but once again had abdominal discomfort last night. Not exactly pain, just weirdness, in more or less the same place as before.

Didn’t stop me from making salad, chicken thighs and baked yams for tea.

Now waiting for the Expanse season/series finale on January 14. Please, no asteroids strike the planet between now and then (although we had another near miss last night, did you hear about that? 1/4 the distance to the moon, that little rock whipped by…)

I am going to quite openly state that although I am not at risk of self-harm and I’m not in any danger, my mental health is as bad as it’s been since the pandemic started. I just don’t feel like doing anything. What’s the point? my poor raddled body brain thinks. So if you get a phone call from me it’s because I’ve bobbed up through this state of mind long enough to contact someone and be civil… the rest of the time I don’t even want to imagine how a phone call might go. And despite all this Jeff and I are prioritizing being civil to each other. The idea of going through this pandemic without peace at home makes me feel like lightning.

I’m so worried for Alex. Ryker is breastfed and his mother’s vaccinated so he’ll likely be okay, but Alex has asthma and I’m so scared for him. Who knows when in class instruction will start again. (oh, apparently it has already o.O)

I was working on a poem about the Moloch energy and now I can’t because the child sacrificer is standing right in front of us all. It’s terrifying.

Time to acknowledge

Omicron is really, really fucking with my mental health. I’m terrified for my grandchildren – just because I’m not talking about it doesn’t mean it’s not true – and terrified for all the non-boosted and immunocompromised people I know and love, and you know who you are so I don’t need to call you out.

I’m angry into the next century at Dr. Bonnie. I’m filled with loathing at how immediate improvement to the ventilation of school classrooms isn’t on the top of the list of every school district in BC. I’m filled with despair over the testing situation. All of it has been a maelstrom; but since there’s no blood, no yelling, and no drama, it’s easy to dismiss.

Someone said on Twitter recently…. rather than misquote let me dig it up, because it’s HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW

@disnazzio
·
Jan 2
If the pandemic ended tonight I still don’t think I would ever get over the two years of constant relentless exposure to the fact that very few people think human beings have a duty of care to each other.