Kids now doing school work online

I was on Facebook when I heard a computer beep and a flashing light on my computer monitor indicated I had a message. Before I knew it I had my granddaughter on the screen, a little image in the bottom right corner showing the image that I was transmitting and I was having an online chat with my youngest granddaughter.

The little girl and her older sister are now doing their school work online. They are using a program called BlueStacks. BlueStacks works with Facebook and so with her school work done, the kid tried calling Judy and me. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough. I now have BlueStacks loaded and I'll see how our online chats go in the future.

Social Distancing at the grocery store

I finally got out of the house. I made a quick trip to Costco with a stop at the small, family market on the way home. Tuesdays and Thursdays Costco opens an hour early for seniors. I was done in less than an hour and so had time to stop at Remark which opened at nine a.m.

The early morning shoppers were lined up right around the store waiting for the doors to open. Line-ups seemingly go forever today. When people are frightened and leaving eight and ten feet between themselves and others in line, lines grow fast. And when the doors open, the lines move fast.

I feel like I'm living in a bad, made-for-television movie. This simply does not feel real. And yet, not only is this real, but it will continue in some form until a vaccine is available and herd immunity kicks in.

Raccoons have always practised social distancing

 

It's definitely spring. The raccoons are back. It's too bad our granddaughters are not back. They are missing seeing all the wild visitors enjoying our backyard.

I'm not sure what this raccoon was enjoying but it sat on the top of our wall and quietly dined. Sometimes I'm tempted to put out carrots and train the wildlife to stop by for a quick dinner. Seems wrong but then is eating old cookies from someone's garbage an improvement?

Aren't kissing booths just a cartoonist joke?

 

With my wife and I are practising self-isolation, Getting out and about to take pictures is hard. So, I spent the afternoon tidying my basement storage room. I found some photos taken during my career as a staff photographer at the daily paper.

I have always found this image, taken about 1980, a very strange photo. The Board of Education was holding a park activities event for all the city's public schools. One event was a kissing booth. I had never seen such a thing. I had thought kissing booths were a joke. A figment of the imaginations of slightly off-kilter cartoonists. 

This young girl was selling kisses for 3-cents a kiss! Yuck! And dozens and dozens of young boys were crowded around the booth with one of the boys waving a dollar bill. I took the picture and I thought I had something, something weird, something that should never be but was. The picture made the paper but the editor thought it was very ho-hum'.

I entered it in photo contests sponsored by photojournalist organizations; it went nowhere. I entered it in a photo competition at the fair; it collected no votes. Maybe today, some four decades later, someone will be shocked that this was ever allowed to happen, let alone encouraged. I feel it makes a clear statement as to the state of thinking back then -- or the lack of thinking.

Kissing booth. Disgusting.

 

Remembering the days before COVID-19

As my wife and I sat alone in our home self-isolating, we recalled the days before COVID-19 and, forgive me, before Donald Trump. The border between Canada and the U.S. was a friendly border back then. I can recall when a driver's licence was all one needed to cross into the States.

We would leave London for the U.S. in our aging roadster with a body that was aging more gracefully than our own. We'd visit friends in the Detroit area, we'd lunch in a wonderful small-town diner, we'd cruise the backcountry roads and enjoy the hospitality.

Those days may be over for awhile. Social distancing may become the norm. And crossing the border now takes a passport. It is not so easy anymore. The border restrictions have tightened on both sides. Just the other day Prime Minister Trudeau announced asylum seekers attempting to enter Canada from any entry point along the Canada-U.S. border will be returned to the States.

According to the Globe and Mail, possibly the most influential paper in Canada, "More than 57,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada through unauthorized border crossings since 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced a crackdown on illegal immigration."

"Most of the asylum seekers have been able to remain in Canada through a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement (a loophole the U.S. under Trump has not honoured) . . . . refugee advocacy groups have encouraged the government to make it easier for people fleeing the U.S. to seek asylum in Canada, and are disappointed with the decision. Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, called the move 'beyond disappointing and disgraceful.' "

Some have called Prime Minister Trudeau's move downright un-Canadian.

You know, somedays being isolated isn't so bad.

Healthcare from a COVID-19 safe distance

 

With COVID-19 making visiting a hospital a questionable thing to do, even if normally you'd jump in your car, or call an ambulance, today you think twice, pick up the phone and make a call. I called.

I was asked if MyCareLink Patient Monitor was indicating a problem? An out-of-control arrhythmia or tachycardia event? Nope. I'm jsut a little dizzy, I said. My blood pressure is 62 over 41 with a pulse rate of 50.

With a reading like that, there is no surprise that you're dizzy, I was told. It should pass, If not, call us again. Your pacemaker won't let your pulse drop below 50 bpm and your blood pressure should slowly comeback up. 

Take comfort in the fact that your low blood pressure won't kill you. I smiled and hung-up Healthcare in London in the year 2020.

Snow: nothing surprises us

 
It's early April. The days are longer, warmer and snowier. Snowier? Don't ask. It is a strange world in which we are living. Last night we were kept awake by numerous bright bolts of lightning followed by oh-so-loud cracks of thunder. Earlier in the evening, hail the size of golf ball hit North London, punching holes in plastic siding.

So, when does the plague of frogs arrive?