In A Journal of the Plague Week 50, Jessica Spengler writes, in part:

But we’re not out of the woods yet, and “end of lockdown” does not mean “end of pandemic”. There seems to have been a lot of confusion about that over the past year, with too many people equating what they’re allowed to do with what it’s actually safe to do. Bars and restaurants didn’t open last summer because it was safe, they opened because an economic decision was made at the expense of a public health decision (and the subsequent rise in infections—especially following the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme—which ultimately led to our second lockdown bears that out).

While I think there’s a general awareness that anything short of “everyone stay in your home and eat the dregs of your pantry for two weeks” is a compromise, I think many fall into the “if it’s allowed, then it must be safe” trap. I certainly have, by times. 

Things have taken a turn for the anxious here on Prince Edward Island this week COVID-wise, with an uncommon number of new cases, cases not tied to travel outside the province. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Heather Morrison has held three briefings in the last 24 hours, the latest of which just ended.

I noticed that as the briefing was finishing up there were 3,414 viewers in the YouTube stream, and that’s only one of the places it was available. There are about 103,000 adults on the Island, so that means at least 3% of us were watching, likely many more.

We went for a walk at Fullerton’s Creek Conservation Park in Stratford this afternoon. If not for Oliver visiting a few times last year without me, I never would have known it existed.

The sun was shining and the trail had been packed by those who walked out earlier; it was a very pleasant walk to the overlook that affords a view of Fullerton’s Marsh.

Although the park is clearly signed prohibiting snowmobiles, snowmobiles clearly cut through regularly, so I’d avoid the area around dusk or when visibility is poor.

I walked into my bedroom late this afternoon to find the sun shining through the blinds, for a fleeting moment, so as to cast a single perfect sunbeam on my bookshelf.

I walked into the kitchen tonight to put the dishes in the dishwasher and found a mouse standing on the stove looking up at me. It was a cute mouse, as mice go, but still.

For the longest time it was Catherine who was our liaison to the mouse kingdom: she grew up on a farm, and was well familiar with their ways.

A few years ago, as moving around became more difficult for her, and as I started to be last one to bed and first one up in the morning, I had no choice but to take over the diplomacy. I did not come by it honestly, and I still don’t. But I’ve figured it out.

It’s unusual to see a mouse around this time of year: their interest in our kitchen is generally restricted to a few weeks in spring and a few weeks in fall. But here was a mouse—a cute mouse, but still—in the middle of the winter. So I set the traps, with a barely-there amount of peanut butter, as instructed by my physicist friend, and in the morning, if things go according to plan, it will fall to me—who else is there—to empty them.

You may be asking “how can he go to sleep at night knowing that mice will probably be setting up camp in his bedcovers while he sleeps?” That is a good question.

The answer lies in the nature of my bedroom door, which, fortunately, is magic.

My bedroom door, like most of the doors in this 194 year old house, doesn’t close smoothly. But it does close, if given a little shove, and that is the source of its magic.

When Catherine’s illness got to the point where she needed a bed of her own, and moved across the hall, for the first time in many years I was sleeping by myself every night. It was cold and lonely, yes, but in a way also a sanctuary: a place all my own. The shove and gentle thud when I closed the door at the end of every day at bedtime, long after Catherine and Oliver were fast sleep, became a kind of airlock for for me, an avatar for keeping whatever exigencies might have filled yesterday, and might again fill tomorrow, at bay.

During the years Catherine was sick, that door allowed me some small measure of personal geography; I credit it, and its thud, for helping me keep my head above water.

It also proves useful in any number of other ways: it’s very helpful for meditation, for example, to have the rest of the world not exist for a time. And it keeps the mice, and, indeed worry about the mice, on the other side.

Good night.

I love William Denton’s imagination:

In this STAPLR composition, one one-minute iteration of Vexations is played for each minute of help given at any desk at York University Libraries that day. It keeps a running counter of how many more minutes it should play. Let’s say that at 0900 someone checks their email and answers a quick research question that takes them five minutes. They enter that into our reference statistics system, where STAPLR sees it and counts 5. It starts to play five iterations. One minute later, the counter is at 4. One minute later, the counter goes down to 3, but there’s another question in the system, this time a virtual chat that took 10 minutes to answer, so the counter goes up to 13. After one iteration it goes down to 12, then 11, then up again if there’s another question. If the counter reaches 0 it will wait and start back up when there’s another question answered.

STAPLR is Sounds in Time Actively Performing Library Reference.

See also CBC Spark Interview: SoundCloud + Pachube + Energy from 2011.

My friend Cynthia is producing The Belong Podcast. Among other things, it’s Canada’s preeminent source of interviews with people named Peter (Rukavina, Bevan-Baker, Mansbridge). But, more importantly and more interestingly, it’s a podcast where people, often people who’ve experienced not belonging, can discuss their lives. 

When we talk about the new opportunities the digital realm offers for new people to make new things, Cynthia’s effort is what we’re talking about.

And now she has a Patreon, where you can support her in her efforts. 

At this hour, I am her only patron, meaning that when she released an video update yesterday, BTS Video about barking dog, I was the audience. If that’s not worth $5/month, I don’t know what is.

Will you consider joining me in patronage, for $3 or $5 a month?

Buried at the bottom of a cupboard in our library, I found the stained glass fish that used to grace our piano window. I restored it to its former home.

As the rest of our world unravels, here on the Island a seal gets a ride in the back of a police cruiser.

Every reporter deserves the occasional exploding bus-fire eater-magic cat story: today was Shane Ross’ turn.

A view from the back hallway window at 100 Prince Street. The tracks on the right are human tracks, mine, made during my regular trudge back far enough to get a good look at the snow and ice on the back roof. The tracks on the left are from animal unknown, and I just love them.