Yuval Noah Harari, writing for the Financial Times in The world after coronavirus:

It is crucial to remember that anger, joy, boredom and love are biological phenomena just like fever and a cough. The same technology that identifies coughs could also identify laughs. If corporations and governments start harvesting our biometric data en masse, they can get to know us far better than we know ourselves, and they can then not just predict our feelings but also manipulate our feelings and sell us anything they want — be it a product or a politician.

Linked from Frank.

Suzanne Vega at NPR’s Tiny Desk, in 2014, with Gerry Leonard on guitar.

Mary Chapin Carpenter has an adorable dog named Angus. She’s playing beautiful songs from her kitchen, every day.

Our long provincial nightmare is over: today we were able to see our Premier in luscious landscape after weeks of awkward portrait.

From Stephanie Booth, Le dimanche perpétuel:

Je viens de faire un petit tour dans le quartier avec mes jambes et mes bâtons. Peu de monde, beaucoup de calme. J’ai toujours aimé les dimanches et les jours fériés, ici, où tout est fermé et rien ne bouge.

Cette période c’est comme un dimanche, mais tous les jours.

C’est trompeur, pourtant. En fait, cette crise n’est pas également distribuée. Elle nous touche tous, nous bouleverse tous, mais alors que certains se trouvent ralentis voire arrêtés, d’autres ne savent plus où donner de la tête. Je pense aux soignants évidemment, mais aussi aux parents télétravailleurs, aux employés des supermarchés, aux profs qui doivent du jour au lendemain apprendre à enseigner à distance (si possible autrement que “je donne des exercices, ils font, je corriger”), à tous ceux dont le revenu est en train de s’évaporer et qui doivent dare-dare trouver des solutions pour payer les employés et les charges, ou simplement remplir le frigo.

On commence à le lire, femmes et hommes ne sont pas non plus frappés équitablement. Les femmes assument la plus grande part des soins et de l’aide à autrui. (Oui je sais qu’il y a des hommes aidants, mais regardons les choses à l’échelle de la population.)

It does feel like perpetual Sunday, these pandemic days, and the particular kind of Sunday is different for every person, every family.

The response of musicians to all of us suddenly becoming shut-ins is something to behold; here’s the great Henry Jamison playing in his bedroom:

• The Rains
• Ether Garden
• Florence Nightingale

It is my great hope that Jamison will someday play Charlottetown, once we’re all allowed to leave our bedrooms; I have Vermont operatives on the case.

Our family was helped greatly by the Strongest Families program in 2017, and emerged as believers in their tele-mental-health approach that allowed us to receive coaching, as a family together, at home.

If you’re an adult experiencing anxiety and nervousness, you may want to look into the Conquer Anxiety and Nervousness program that Strongest Families now offers:

This program educates adults about anxiety and guides them as they learn skills to overcome their anxiety, excessive worry and how to cope with major life stressors. This program provides adults with a manual or access to a secure website, videos, relaxation audio clips, daily anxiety tracker, a supporter guide, and weekly telephone support from a coach. Adults can receive weekly telephone coaching support through either one on one coaching, or through our group-based program with other adults who share similar challenges. This program is effective at decreasing anxiety and stress; and increasing confidence and independence.

You can self-refer, and the program seems tailor made for these times of both increased anxiety and social distancing.

My friend Cynthia has started The Belong Podcast. Her first guest is Parkdale Doris, fresh out of cryogenic storage. And Cynthia learns about her ancestors via 23andMe.

Order bread, coffee beans and meals for curbside pickup or $5 delivery in Charlottetown. Order by 9:00 a.m. Wednesday for Friday delivery.

It’s a win-win-win: Receiver gets business, you get food, and everybody stays safe.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

On Saturday Oliver announced his expectation that our regular smoked salmon bagel routine be hewed to. I was able to scrounge almost everything I needed from items on hand, except for pickled onions.

What to do?

Make pickled onions!

I’d been under the impression that this would take weeks. It does not. Here is my easy recipe:

• Put the kettle on.
• Slice up some onions. I didn’t have any onions, so I sliced up some shallots.
• Put the sliced onions in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let sit for a minute or two.
• Prepare a mixture of apple cider vinegar, sugar and salt. I had no sugar, so I used molasses.
• Put the onions in the vinegar mix and put in the fridge until cool.

Now you have pickled onions. Or, in my case, molasses-pickled shallots. And a happy child.

Bonus song to sing while making pickled onions:

Oh Oliver, you’re a funny one, with a face like a pickled onion and a nose like a fat tomato, but we still love you…

Repeat for every person in the room.

Thanks to my fellow YMCA summer day camp councillors for the memory.