Lockdown Miscellany

  

  

The Allan Gardens greenhouse, normally decked out in holiday finery this time of year, is closed for the duration. It will reopen with everything else (with luck) on the 21st of December, but, will then swarm with COVID-breathing humans, so, please accept the above shots of the backyard as my tribute to the season. Luckily we had some snow and, so far, the squirrels have not chewed through the decorations.  

What I Gave Up For The Lockdown

It was actually before Ford categorically admitted for the Nth time with the lockdown that he has no clue what he is doing that I decided to give up the news. I cancelled my subscriptions to the Washington Post, the daily news aggregator WTFJHT and to the several podcasts I listened to each day. Hysteria masquerading as news about the US election and the pandemic was making me crazy. Now I keep a healthy distance between me and most of the chatter, even the late night comics.  

I've also given up my FitBit, the bossy little friend that's been wearing a dent in my right wrist for more than two years. The gadget's getting long in the tooth. A push notification recently told me that I'd need to buy a new one if I wanted the latest innovation in more-than-I-want-to-know about myself. But it's not the 'Bit's planned obsolescence that made me take it off. It's the cheap-ass wrist bands. The one that shipped with the unit broke about a year after I bought it. The replacement band broke in less than six months. I'd kept and repaired the original band, so I used that next. It broke this past week. Then there's the fact that, after ten months of practically identical days, there's nothing the 'Bit can tell me that I don't already know. 

Book Plug

A couple of weeks ago, Bruce and I attended a friend's Zoomed book launch party. Jamie Dopp, whom Bruce has known since childhood and I've known since university, just published Driving Lessons, a lightly fictionalized memoir of coming of age in Waterloo, Ontario. The protagonist's perspective is, of necessity, that of a brattish boy, so some bits may rankle, but it's a good, solidly Canadian read. There's even a loving description of a game of road hockey.   

Why the Lockdown May Not Work

Public health messaging and Christmas marketing campaigns are equal and opposite forces at work this holiday season. Everybody's best friend, Galen Weston, on the one hand urges social distancing etc., in Loblaw stores and, on the other, promotes purchases for large festive gatherings. And then there's this:

The first time I saw a truck like this 'way back in April, it was one of those previously non-ironic signs and advertisements. Now it's an incitement to anti-social behaviour.

Finally ... This

... in someone's window on Winchester Street. 

All that's missing is "U."

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen