Collected Item: “Bill's Covid Journal #8”
I agree:
Yes
Name:
Bill Hogan
Date(s):
May 15, 2020
Title:
Bill's Covid Journal #8
Text:
"Let us go then, you and I...Let us go through half-deserted streets." I guess I missed using T.S. Eliot's line, "April is the cruelest month", so I was searching for another appropriate Eliot quote, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, when I realized his start to that great poem seemed more appropriate in this week of The Great Re-opening. (I always knew my English degree would come in handy. Finally!)
Yes, lockdown is easing although not enough to affect Pauline and I much. So now you can go right into the hardware stores and garden centres and go back to work in construction. I used to have someone who worked for me whose greatest joy in life was to prowl hardware stores. Alan, you go for it. Me, if I never set foot in one again I could die contented. I am certified dangerous with any tool, and all things mechanical, electrical and computerical are my enemy. It took me three years to finally learn how to open the hood of my first car. Pumping gas still flummoxes me so I know every Niagara location of Gales Gas Bar which will not allow me to pump my own.
With a warm long weekend around the corner, golf courses, marinas, pet grooming, off-leash dog parks and other sundry places too, will be allowed to open Saturday, none affecting us. I remember when a long weekend really meant something. Now every weekend is a long one. This weekend is sure to cause strife in Ontario. Cottage country, with limited health care facilities and smaller grocery stores do not want city folk visiting. Lake Erie municipalities will issue fines, some Muskoka ones are refusing to connect the water. Niagara-on-the-Lake has blocked parking lots. There will be fireworks of two kinds this long weekend.
Hey, I Zoomed this week! Wow, what a trip! One of the supervisors from The Hilton set up a Zoom-in and Pauline quite helpfully did all the computer stuff for me. I think she was secretly trying to be really nice after trashing me last week about freaking out over the computer's war against me. There were about ten of us on, out of the 65 valet driver staff (all laid off). Everyone commented on my new Santa Claus beard. I loved the format with a yellow square lighting up whoever was speaking. Cool! Most of us are older so not many really felt like going back to work yet, or even venturing out, except maybe to golf. Two knew people who had contracted Covid-19. It's unlikely The Hilton will need valet service until late fall, if then. Once the conversation switched to Netflix etc. I signed off. It was fun until it lasted.
Got a long overdue oil change and check-up this week. (The car that is.) With no shuttle driver, I just waited in a converted car bay that offered strategic seating. There is no going into the dealership and no test driving of cars allowed. Niagara Motors phoned me, sent a notice, sent a $20 off coupon and ran ads saying their service department was still open. They're suffering like everyone else. They always wash the car after servicing it, but I noticed that guy was laid off, too.
V.E. Day has passed since I last wrote. We were too young to remember it in this family, but Maggie next door sure remembers it in her home town of Glasgow. She said everyone was outside and they hauled her mother's piano out of the house and into the street for the party. Because she was only eight, she still had to go to bed early but the parties continued all night, she said. There won't be that kind of rejoicing when this "war" is over, but I'm sure there will be a profound worldly sigh of relief when a vaccine is announced. Who will get to it first? The U.S.? China/Canada coalition? Germany? Britain? And THEN, who will get it first. Aye, there's the rub.
Mother's Day just passed, too. This year it was flowers from the garden and a home-made card, but I did manage some chocolates when I had to go to Shopper's. We talked to the kids and grandkids on Skype on Mother's Day, and the artist known as Maddy congratulated me on my home-made card and immediately abandoned the call to go do art. She's irrepressible and really talented. No, that's not just proud Grandpa talking. She's good. We did a book together last year, copy by Bill, 27 colour illustrations by nine-year-old Maddy.
While talking to the family, who live in Switzerland, Zeke also abandoned the call at 8 p.m. their time, to go bang pots off the balcony for the health care workers. Now I've seen this stuff on T.V. too, but there's nothing like it on our street and I'm not going to be the one to start it. We went for an evening walk around the block (about a mile) this week and the shocking thing was not a single kid outside. This is a very populous kid area, especially Vine St. North, but it was eerily dead silent. Spooky. One house had blue ribbons out for a health care worker in the family, another flew a special care-worker's flag. The only other "street" news is that Maggie next door got a new clothesline installed so I'll miss her Cirque de Soleil performances the old one required.
Tim's news. (A recurring theme in these blogs in case you hadn't noticed. I don't get out much.) I saw them piling up tables and chairs outside and asked if there was going to be a patio in the parking lot. No, they were just removing half the seating in anticipation of re-opening. My guess is June for Ontario.
Usually I try to keep my diary local. Others can trash Trump much better than I. But Celia Walden in Britain's The Daily Telegraph had a pithy take on international response to our pandemic.
Besides being the best medicine, humour's at the very root of Britishness.
It's who we are. Italians battled Covid-19 with song, the French rioted and
some in the U.S. --spurred on by Donald Trump--defended their Second
Amendment right to kill themselves and each other in large numbers.
As Pauline said last week, we're both introverts at heart so probably coping as well as most in this isolation. I'll still never get every book written read, but I'm working on it. If you want fiction recommendations let me know. We've discovered Cogeco has opened some movie channels for free as a Covid response, so we sometimes watch T.V. as well as read. I garden more, Pauline cooks exotic meals more. The times have made us more contemplative, too. Not about death, though, but about the absolute richness of our life pre Covid. We have travelled extensively, raised a family, both worked at very, very rewarding jobs and done some good in the world. We have friends, our health, and still find things to laugh about. And somehow this Covid thing has left us in awe, not fear. Who would have thought it, who could have imagined it! What's next? Just as we're cocooning, we will break out of the chrysalis to see "what's out there?" and look forward to a brand new world, just as rich I'm sure after Covid as before, just different.
Stay strong. The half-deserted streets are just starting to fill. Sunrise is coming.
Bill
Yes, lockdown is easing although not enough to affect Pauline and I much. So now you can go right into the hardware stores and garden centres and go back to work in construction. I used to have someone who worked for me whose greatest joy in life was to prowl hardware stores. Alan, you go for it. Me, if I never set foot in one again I could die contented. I am certified dangerous with any tool, and all things mechanical, electrical and computerical are my enemy. It took me three years to finally learn how to open the hood of my first car. Pumping gas still flummoxes me so I know every Niagara location of Gales Gas Bar which will not allow me to pump my own.
With a warm long weekend around the corner, golf courses, marinas, pet grooming, off-leash dog parks and other sundry places too, will be allowed to open Saturday, none affecting us. I remember when a long weekend really meant something. Now every weekend is a long one. This weekend is sure to cause strife in Ontario. Cottage country, with limited health care facilities and smaller grocery stores do not want city folk visiting. Lake Erie municipalities will issue fines, some Muskoka ones are refusing to connect the water. Niagara-on-the-Lake has blocked parking lots. There will be fireworks of two kinds this long weekend.
Hey, I Zoomed this week! Wow, what a trip! One of the supervisors from The Hilton set up a Zoom-in and Pauline quite helpfully did all the computer stuff for me. I think she was secretly trying to be really nice after trashing me last week about freaking out over the computer's war against me. There were about ten of us on, out of the 65 valet driver staff (all laid off). Everyone commented on my new Santa Claus beard. I loved the format with a yellow square lighting up whoever was speaking. Cool! Most of us are older so not many really felt like going back to work yet, or even venturing out, except maybe to golf. Two knew people who had contracted Covid-19. It's unlikely The Hilton will need valet service until late fall, if then. Once the conversation switched to Netflix etc. I signed off. It was fun until it lasted.
Got a long overdue oil change and check-up this week. (The car that is.) With no shuttle driver, I just waited in a converted car bay that offered strategic seating. There is no going into the dealership and no test driving of cars allowed. Niagara Motors phoned me, sent a notice, sent a $20 off coupon and ran ads saying their service department was still open. They're suffering like everyone else. They always wash the car after servicing it, but I noticed that guy was laid off, too.
V.E. Day has passed since I last wrote. We were too young to remember it in this family, but Maggie next door sure remembers it in her home town of Glasgow. She said everyone was outside and they hauled her mother's piano out of the house and into the street for the party. Because she was only eight, she still had to go to bed early but the parties continued all night, she said. There won't be that kind of rejoicing when this "war" is over, but I'm sure there will be a profound worldly sigh of relief when a vaccine is announced. Who will get to it first? The U.S.? China/Canada coalition? Germany? Britain? And THEN, who will get it first. Aye, there's the rub.
Mother's Day just passed, too. This year it was flowers from the garden and a home-made card, but I did manage some chocolates when I had to go to Shopper's. We talked to the kids and grandkids on Skype on Mother's Day, and the artist known as Maddy congratulated me on my home-made card and immediately abandoned the call to go do art. She's irrepressible and really talented. No, that's not just proud Grandpa talking. She's good. We did a book together last year, copy by Bill, 27 colour illustrations by nine-year-old Maddy.
While talking to the family, who live in Switzerland, Zeke also abandoned the call at 8 p.m. their time, to go bang pots off the balcony for the health care workers. Now I've seen this stuff on T.V. too, but there's nothing like it on our street and I'm not going to be the one to start it. We went for an evening walk around the block (about a mile) this week and the shocking thing was not a single kid outside. This is a very populous kid area, especially Vine St. North, but it was eerily dead silent. Spooky. One house had blue ribbons out for a health care worker in the family, another flew a special care-worker's flag. The only other "street" news is that Maggie next door got a new clothesline installed so I'll miss her Cirque de Soleil performances the old one required.
Tim's news. (A recurring theme in these blogs in case you hadn't noticed. I don't get out much.) I saw them piling up tables and chairs outside and asked if there was going to be a patio in the parking lot. No, they were just removing half the seating in anticipation of re-opening. My guess is June for Ontario.
Usually I try to keep my diary local. Others can trash Trump much better than I. But Celia Walden in Britain's The Daily Telegraph had a pithy take on international response to our pandemic.
Besides being the best medicine, humour's at the very root of Britishness.
It's who we are. Italians battled Covid-19 with song, the French rioted and
some in the U.S. --spurred on by Donald Trump--defended their Second
Amendment right to kill themselves and each other in large numbers.
As Pauline said last week, we're both introverts at heart so probably coping as well as most in this isolation. I'll still never get every book written read, but I'm working on it. If you want fiction recommendations let me know. We've discovered Cogeco has opened some movie channels for free as a Covid response, so we sometimes watch T.V. as well as read. I garden more, Pauline cooks exotic meals more. The times have made us more contemplative, too. Not about death, though, but about the absolute richness of our life pre Covid. We have travelled extensively, raised a family, both worked at very, very rewarding jobs and done some good in the world. We have friends, our health, and still find things to laugh about. And somehow this Covid thing has left us in awe, not fear. Who would have thought it, who could have imagined it! What's next? Just as we're cocooning, we will break out of the chrysalis to see "what's out there?" and look forward to a brand new world, just as rich I'm sure after Covid as before, just different.
Stay strong. The half-deserted streets are just starting to fill. Sunrise is coming.
Bill
Location:
St. Catharines
Publish online:
Yes