Weapons of Mass Protection

The cancellation of so many events has left me at loose ends. I'm accustomed to having a full-on schedule of events, whether those are ones I'm attending or participating in.

Today was supposed to be 'my' choir's Spring Concert. My head is still filled with many of the beautiful songs we worked on, though it isn't the same as standing with friends in the front of a church and singing them in harmony.

It feels downright weird to not have any sports on tv. Recent Sunday afternoons have been filled with curling. Otherwise, it's often golf that's being broadcast here.

The sun is shining, though it's cool out, but we did a bit of yard clean-up earlier -- the results of yesterday's windy gusts.

Not even having our usual family Sunday dinner, as at least two of the regulars are down for the count, luckily only with bad colds, not the dreaded virus.

I can only think we're at least all learning better habits with all this hand-washing and leaving space for each other, not hugging or shaking hands. There's bound to be some good that comes out of this, even it's only some concentrated spring cleaning -- of ourselves, and maybe with the enforced isolation, of our house (or at least my office).

Here's to the power of soap, still they say the best solution of all.

Half a month, half a month...

...half a month onward -- already. And it feels as though I've accomplished very little. But for once at least, I have an excuse: the flu.

This hasn't been an ordinary flu. It's one that heard me cough more times than maybe in the rest of my life, or that's how it seems -- endless.

I've had rounds of advice from family and friends -- everything from apple cider vinegar to tea and honey. As you can see from the photo, I've invested in just about every kind of cough drop in town, most of which were soothing, but only offered the most temporary ease.

One good thing about this bout of illness is that I've had to stay upright. Attempts at horizontal sleep nearly always failed. But as result of my enforced verticality, combined with an amazing lack of energy, I've been able to do a fair bit of reading.

Best catch-up read was Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last. I bought it last fall, but never even opened it until this month. The ending is a bit lame, a little too happy-happy for me, but most of the book with its too-believable scenarios kept me turning pages.

Less engaging was Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins. Although I may yet persevere, I gave up at page 86. And yes, I did read her previous novel Life After Life, which also took a while to understand enough to follow. This may be just a case of the same sort of wizardry on her part.

But my most fun reading discovery was a series of tiny messages -- not just the ones on fortune cookies (though we did read plenty of those as we relied on takeaway food more often than usual) -- but the ones on the wrappers of all those Hall's cough drops. Almost too small to notice at first, the tiny words offer various encouragements: "You can do it and you know it" or "Nothing you can't handle" or maybe my favourite (I'm translating from the French here) "Don't let yourself fall down," especially appropriate for the icy-deck mornings we've been having.

But now, back to heeding Tennyson's word, the one that follows after all those 'half a league's: Onward -- and please, with no more flu-ish distractions.

And they call it the 'safe' way?

I've always wondered why they call our supermarket the Safeway. And for most of this winter, it's been even more puzzling.

For a couple of years, the store has supplied germ-killing wet-wipes near the entry to the store. I liked using these to wipe my hands -- but even more for the fact that I could wipe down the handle of my shopping cart. How many hands touch those each day? Yech.

But for the past few months, there haven't been any wipes at the door. Although I've spoken with both the manager and his assistant manager several times, each of them has always explained that they haven't received them despite their trying to order them.

When I've gone so far as to suggest one of them just go back into the store and bring an alternate supply to the front, they've replied that they couldn't do that. I've not really understood this, but the gentlemen in charge just shrugged and smiled and walked away, leaving me wondering. Could it really be that the store's discretionary budget can't deal with such an expense?

So today, because we're still in the midst of flu season (and experiencing a flu that this year's vaccine doesn't afford protection from), I decided to buy the poor grocery store a pack of cleansing wipes. After all, if their budget can't look after this, I can.

Gesundheit. And stay safe.