2021 New Year's Resolutions

This post is coming disappointingly late. It's almost a month since the change of the new year, and I'm only now stating my goals.

Last year, I resolved to publish at least 40 blog updates. I achieved 45, and with the five updates I put to Gryphood, and the three I put on Gryphon's Gallery, I arguably achieved 53. This year, I'll resolve to update at least 50 times. It might look like I'm off to a bad start with only three updates in January, but if you include the two updates on Gryphood, I'm actually doing alright.

I also resolved to become more health-conscious, which certainly doesn't align with the SMART goal system (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound). Worked decently for the last three letters, not so much for the first two.

Obviously the pandemic was a huge change in lifestyle, and that will reflect health. At first, while I was using my 'burst energy' (my computer won't let me do double quote marks right now for some reason) and in crisis-mode, I was pretty good. I was only eating staple foods, I was specifically trying to boost my immune system and physical resilience so that f I caught the virus I'd have a better chance of fighting it off. I got back into my body weight workout routine, I was running laps and skipping rope in the backyard regularly.

But then of course, the addrenaline wore off and I fell back into a more sedantary lifestyle, in large part because I no longer needed to travel for work and because of the lack of vitamin D. Wound up gaining back the weight I'd lost and then some.

Since then however, I moved out of my old place and in with Lee-Anne, and I've lost some weight again just by regulating my eating habits, keeping more to a schedule, and planning meals ahead of time. So it's been a roller coaster of a year and I don't know if I should count it all as a success or failure. We'll just call it a failure to be safe.

This year I resolve to walk an average of at least 25 km per week. That sounds like a low number. This might sound lame, but Pokemon Go has a movement calculator to show how much you've walked in a week. Back while I was working, I would always walk over 50 km per week, didn't even have to try. It's just because I don't drive, and and getting around required a lot of foot travel. Now, I really have to go out of my way to get to 25 km. So my new resolution is a step back from 2019, but a step ahead of 2020. My idea was to use the Pokemon Go movement tracker to determine how much I'd walked in a week, record each week and at the end of the year figure out what my weekly average was. This way, I would concretely know whether or not I'd accomplished my goal. Unfortunately, I've been really bad about recording my progress, so I don't know what to do with that.

Of course, this resolution is sort of dependant the condition of the pandemic. If everyone's vaccinated by September, maybe I'll get a ton of steps in during the last quarter of the year. Maybe there will be even harsher lockdown restrictions and I won't be able to leave house at all. Who knows?

I kind of want to include at least two body weight workouts per week, but I kind of think it's a bit much to start now when I'm getting used to my other resolutions. I kind of want to resolve to start doing this by like, mid-way into 2021. So like, June.

Me and Lee-Anne have been talking a lot about having a meat-free day per week. I don't want to resolve to do that right away, and I feel bad resolving it at all when it feels like we're still in the brain-storming process, but I'll resolve to refrain from eating meat one day per week, implemented before the end of the year. I know that sounds like a low ball, and I know that's still too much meat, but c'mon. Let me learn some vegetarian recipes before I expand my goals.

I want to start using my dream journal again. I've been recording my dreams irregularly for awhile, but I want to make more of a habit of it. Hard to make a specific goal when it's really difficult to predict when you'll be able to remember them.

I want to read more. I used to read obsessively, but in recent years I guess I've decided to become the lowest common denominator and just wath Youtube videos in my spare time constantly. It's not a big number, but I resolve to read a minimum of 6 books in 2021. So, one non-work related book (important distinction) every two months. I'm off to a good start, because I just finished Terry Pratchet's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

So to reiterate, in 2021, I resolve to:

• Make 50 blog updates
• Walk an average of 25 km or more per week
• Start a body weight workout routine, minimum twice a week, starting June or earlier
• Have a weekly vegetarian day, implemented before the end of the year
• Read at least 6 books
• Update my dream journal more regularly

So there you have it. I wonder if making resolutions that you don't start right away will be an effective way of going about it. I guess we'll find out.

By the way, I've been absolutely crushing it the past three years in terms of life development. In 2018 I got my job at WALES, in 2019 I started dating Lee-Anne and adopted Kieran, and in 2020 I moved in with Lee-Anne. I wonder if I'll have any major accomplishments in 2021. Can't imagine what they might be. Maybe I'll lose momentum. Still, despite the turbulent times, I feel I've really made strides these past three years.

2020 Year in Review

 Well, last year was pretty weird.

Started off with the passing of my Great Uncle Steve. He had developed a tumor as a result of pancreatic cancer, and by the time that he developed symptoms, his liver and kidneys had already taken enough damage that recovery was not possible. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew how weird things were about to get.

Early on, there were some wildfires in Australia, resulting in over 46 million acres being burned, costing $103 billion to manage and restore the situation, resulting in 479 human deaths, almost 3 billion animal deaths, causing the destruction of 9,352 buildings, 3,500 of them being homes. Australia always has a wildfire season, but this one was obviously much more extreme than usual. Estimated causes for the tragedy include an exceptionally hot and dry season caused by climate change.

The US also had some issues with uncontrollable fires in California, Oregon, and Washington later this year. There fires caused over 10 million acres to be burned, $19.884 billion in damages, 46 deaths, and 13,887 buildings destroyed. 

Obviously, we had the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was building since 2019, but caused shutdowns here in Canada in March. The spread of the virus eased during the summer but picked up again in winter worse than ever, and has continued to spread violently by the year's end.

Countermeasures to the pandemic included moving work remotely where possible, shutting down non-essential services, setting capacity limits for buildings, limiting your social circle, physically distancing yourself from people by two metres, sanitizing or washing your hands when possible, not touching your face and wearing a mask while outdoors.

I managed to keep my job. We shifted most of our work to facilitating groups online. Since many of the places where our members are engaged were deemed "non-essential" such as community centres, libraries, museums, and art galleries, and because additional precautions were sometimes necessary for people considered immunocompromised, many of the people we work with found themselves in strict lockdown.

The popularity of the term "Social Distancing" is disturbing for us social workers. It literally means distancing yourselves from what we do. In addition, the COVID measures were announced right before our fiscal new year, so we were waiting to see what our funding would look like. Considering how events were unfolding, it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility that someone in charge of our funding might consider us less essential.

But we received our usual amount, and we got dubbed a "social action" organization, specializing in mental health. We've done pretty good.

 Obviously the closure of non-essential businesses and the changes in spending habits of so many people have caused economic implications. We're still kind of waiting on the long-term effects of the pandemic will have on our economy.

The pandemic exposed the reality of systemic abuses in long-term care facilities where the virus thrived. Interventions were made by medical staff and even, oddly, the military in some parts of Canada as many of these facilities were overwhelmed.

To end all this on a brighter note, we were able to develop a vaccine for the virus before the end of the year. I even know some people who have received their first dose of the vaccines (takes two, over the course of a few weeks), including my Toronto grandparents and one of my aunts. Unfortunately, production and distribution is going to take awhile, with an estimate of having it available to everyone by September.

In Nova Scotia, we had our worst mass shooting in Canada's history. Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people over the span of 13 hours in a series of shootings and acts of arson (what's up with all the fire this year? The wildfires, spree killing fires, three Walmarts in Waterloo region were set on fire, I saw a basement fire, and rates of incidental fire increased this year). Wortman dressed as a member of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to fool citizens into trusting him before he murdered them. He eluded police for as long as he did by changing his clothes and vehicle several times. Among his victims was a police officer. Although he doesn't have a stated motive, it's speculated that his initial target was his ex spouse. When he was finally cornered, he was shot to death by police.

The Asian Giant Hornet migrated from Japan to the US and Canada, between BC and Washington. These guys are far larger than the hornets we're used to, with a body length of about 45 mm, a wingspan of 75 mm, and a stinger of 6 mm. They are also brightly coloured and generally scary-looking. Western media has dramatically coined the term "murder hornets" to refer to them. However, although they may be intimidating to look at, they are really only a threat to your life if you get swarmed, which is the same for regular hornets.

It's not humans being murdered that we need to worry about, its our local bees. Asian giant hornets target bee hives, infiltrate them and murder the residents. Bees polinate many of our crops, and without them, we could eventually face food shortages. We were already facing a bee crisis, so this added challenge to our precious polinaters is most unwelcome. 

There are bees in Japan that are able to exist alongside the giant hornets, but this is because they are aware of a defense mechanism where they swarm the hornet and wiggle their bodies until the hornet is cooked. While smaller, the bee can handle a higher temperature than the hornet. However, our North American bees don't know this strategy. They'd better learn quickly though, because last I checked on the situation, despite a valiant effort to track and destroy them, it looks like the attempt at stopping their spread was a failure and they are here to stay.

Here's a bizarre one. After releasing a video in 2019 of some Unidentified Arial Phenomenon taken by the US Navy and verifying its "veracity" but otherwise remaining silent, the US Pentagon chose to readdress the issue in 2020, stating that the technology seen in the videos did not exist within the US and they believed it didn't exist anywhere else on Earth either. They said that our concerns align with theirs, and that it's very likely that we're not alone.

A former head of Israel's military space program, Haim Eshed, later in 2020 said that there is an alien bunker on mars, that there is a "Galactic Federation", and that at least Israel and the US have a long history of contact with them. He said that the aliens haven't presented themselves to us because "humanity isn't ready". He said that the reason he's coming forward with this information now is because academia has become more open to such ideas.

It's not the first time we've heard claims like this, but it's the first time hearing it from someone so high-profile. Honestly, these claims are a bit much for even me.

On a personal note, my old roommate developed kidney failure this year. He had a bunch of symptoms that he chose to ignore for a long time. Eventually he found himself in crisis, had to go to the hospital. He was told he had a 50/50 chance of recovering and if he'd come a day later, he'd be dead. He was in the hospital for a series of weeks, came back, got a surgery scheduled for an inflamed prostate. Then the pandemic shut down all "non-essential" surgeries and he got stuck with a catheter. He got lucky though and started to heal.

Some months later, he approaches me and tells me his catheter stopped working. He doesn't want me to do anything about it though. I call 911 against his consent, turns out it hadn't been working for a series of days instead of hours like he told me. He's in hospital for a few more weeks and this time his kidneys can't recover, so he's stuck on dialysis unless he can get a transplant.

My Great Uncle Steve passed from kidney failure. My family also lost a cat to kidney failure in late 2019. Like fire, kidney failure is also a theme of the times

One of my grandfathers suffered from some kind of neurological attack that put him into a delirium. He had to be hospitalized, and because of visiting restrictions due to the pandemic, we weren't able to support him in the ways that we would have preferred. Eventually, he improved enough to leave the hospital, and me and Lee-Anne were even able to visit during the summer when the pandemic was at its lowest. Cause of the attack is still a little mysterious, he didn't show any signs of having had a stroke.

Big upheaval regarding racial justice in the US. A man named George Floyd was killed by an officer named Derik Chauvin. After being apprehended for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill, Chauvin put his knee to the back of Floyd's neck for over eight minutes while Floyd stated sixteen times that he couldn't breathe.

This served as the catylist for the resurgance of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was established after the murder of Trayvon Martin some years back. There were massive protests for racial justice, including one outside of the White House at Lafayette Square, at which (now former) President Donald Trump had his forces fire rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bombs into. He had them beaten and forced back so that he could have a Satanic-looking photo taken where he held an inverted Bible in front of a church that he had forced the present religious authorities out of.

Lot more to talk about regarding racial tensions this year, but I'll leave it at that.

We end on a positive note though, because by the end of the year, Trump was voted out and on January 20th he was officially replaced by Joe Biden. Hopefully I can stop making political posts on this blog, before 2020 I very rarely ever did.

We'll finish on a positive note. This year, I finally moved out of my old place, after having lived there just shy of five years (just off by one month). Me and Lee-Anne found a place in a nice neighbourhood, which is a relief to me, because my old neighbourhood had Waterloo Region's highest rate of community spread of COVID. It was at a reasonable price too, maybe because for various reasons, (student housing took a hit because things moved online, landlords couldn't evict because of new tenant protections) COVID has caused a temporary relaxation in rent prices.

I'll leave my resolutions to a different post. This one is long enough.

Welcome 2021

I had a couple of posts I wanted to do to usher in the new year. I wanted to do a Year in Review and a New Year's Resolutions post, and I was going to do a 2020-2021 New Year's Tarot reading. However, strange news keeps rolling in and I'd better address it now because things keep getting weirder by the day.

On January 6th, Trump held a rally before the ceremonial counting of the electoral votes at the Capitol building. He said that his followers needed to march up Pennsylvania Avenue, they needed to show pride and strength to help the weak republicans, because the strong ones didn't need help. He reinforced the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from him. He said that without him, there wouldn't be a country, and that the people in the crowd needed to take back the election for him.

Rudy Giulianni also made a speech, accomponied by the song Macho Man by The Village People. I assume that this song choice was inspired by Trump's decision to dance to the song YMCA at one of his rallies after recovering from COVID-19. He did this to prove his vitality while he was still pumped full of steroids. Rudy wanted to mimic his boss, and while Trump had the nuance to encourage a violent energy while not explicitly demanding it, Giuliani missed this subtlety and outright told the crowd, "Let's have trial by combat!"

Now, for some, that sounds like an oddly placed Game of Thrones reference, and for others, it is literally a cry from the medieval era. Regardless to how nerdy this satement was, it is hard to interpret it as anything less than a call to violence from the crowd.

A crowd arrived at the capitol building and were able to push through the security there, disrupting and delaying the US democratic process. Members of congress had to be evacuated.

Pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and zip tie handcuffs were found among the crowd that arrived at the capitol. A noose and gallows were erected.  Five deaths occured that day, including a woman who was shot to death, and a police officer who was beaten to death. So much for the law and order president and the blue lives matter movement. In fact, it was very strange that there were as few people guarding the building as there were.

During the attack, Joe Biden challenged the sitting president to condemn the attacks on the capitol.  Trump eventually did respond, saying that the crowd should "go in peace", but also saying that he understood the aggressors, that he loved them and thought they were very special. 

Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook, as well as less related social media outlets like Pinterest and Discord. 

Three more days.

There has recently been a new strain of COVID-19 introduced to the public. It was first discovered in the UK but it has since been found all over the globe. While it doesn't appear to be more lethal, it seems to be more contagious.

It's being called the UK Variant. I'm not sure this is entirely fair.  My understanding is that the UK were doing a world class job of tracking mutations of the virus, and so if anyone found a new variant first, it would be them. After the discovered the new variant, it has been found all over the world, including here in Ontario. Scientists don't believe this new version of the virus will be resistant to the new vaccines coming out.

Speaking of the vaccines, my grandparents in Toronto have received their first dose. So has their assistant, and even my aunt. My aunt got it because she's considered emergency relief due to her being their only relative in the city. I've seen two other people on my Facebook feed say they got their first dose, too. You need two doses over the course of several weeks to be fully vaccinated. Health professionals and the medically vulnerable are being prioritised.

In Quebec, as a COVID measure they've initiated a curfew and decided to shut all businesses at 8:00. After that, you're only allowed outside for "exercise purposes" from 1 km from your household. You're also only allowed to have a social group of up to five while ourdoors, even if you're all from the same household.

In Ontario, we've dropped the colour guide. We've gone from Code Grey, to Emergency Order. The new measures don't impact my life style much. We're still allowed to leave the house for exercise and essential services. I don't really have a social circle right now, and the definition of essential service is still pretty generous.

Even though 2021 is starting out pretty scary, I still have a lot of hope. 2020 started out fairly benign and got uglier as things went one. Even though we're still dealing with the ugliness of last year, it didn't make sense for the new year to magically be rid of all the things that went wrong in the year before.

However, despite the issues that we're dealing with from last year, we now have the solutions for them.  Trump's leaving and the vaccines are being distributed. Hopefully things get better.

Notebook Purge

This post is coming out quickly after my last one, Grey Christmas. As per tradition, I'm packing in some posts right near the end of the year to buff my anual post count.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I keep a notepad on my phone with suggestions for blog updates. Sometimes time moves forward, I get busy, other things happen, and the suggestions get outdated. I don't delete them from my phone though, so I've got suggestions dating from back to around last December. As a way of cleansing my phone notepad for the new year, I'm just going to blast through them on here, and explain why I wrote them down in the first place.

Luna Grieving Post

Starting off kind of depressing. Last December, a beloved family cat named Luna passed away. I did post about her passing, but I think I spoke on it closely after her death. I wanted to make another post that was more reflective, after the initial sting had worn off a bit. As of now, I think it would be a little inappropriate to do an in-depth grieving post, since so much time has passed.

If you don't remember, she was one of the cats that lived in Guelph with my mother and brother. She was eleven years old, while their other two cats were sixteen (now seventeen). We usually have two cats of different age groups, so that the younger cat can motivate the older one to have a bit more energy. The plan was to adopt another cat after Thor and Blackavar passed away to keep Luna company in old age. We had never lost a cat unexpectedly before, so when she developed rapid kidney failure, it was a real shock.

Luna and Thor were both adopted before I started Canada World Youth. During the time between my return and the start of college, me and Luna really hit it off and she became sort of "my cat" between the three. After getting into college and living more often away from home, she developed a special relationship with my mother.

Since then her passing, Mom and Duncan adopted a new cat, a little female grey tabby named Cassidy, to keep the older ones company. Although you can never replace a relationship, Mom and Cassidy have found a similar closeness.

Like I said, I won't do a full grieving post, but I'll leave you with this thought: There are books and movies made about the stories of dogs that have passed, Marley and Me, Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller but not only are there pretty well no stories written about the passing of cats, when I was sad about Luna's passing, people seemed to think the magnitude of my grief was inappropriate and unhealthy. When a dog passes, it's often seen as a tragedy, while a grieving cat owner is labeled a crazy cat person. I still don't regret my response to the news of Luna's unexpected passing.

Fixed Table/Dresser Drawer/Walk-In Closet Door Knob

This one is really not important anymore. The title basically describes the content. I guess I still have the table and dresser drawer, which moved with us, but I left the walk-in closet door knob at the old townhouse. We can add a storm door handle to this list, although I screwed up the installation of that, and Lee-Anne's parents helped put in a new one. My bedroom door handle was also a replacement out of my own pocket. I was tempted to take all my door handles when I moved, since they're my property and it would just be one more final indication to my former landlord about how I viewed our professional relationship, but with the stress of moving, that just became a really low priority and I wound up leaving them behind.

Drawer vs Shelf

I've made a post about how Lee-Anne thinks I pronounce a lot of words wrong like: palm, calm, sriracha, and finicky. Well, it turns out I never really bothered to draw a distinction between the words drawer and shelf. So she's found it kind of difficult to offer directions around the kitchen when I treat the two words as synonymous. To her credit, I think she's right about this. A shelf is a flat surface that you stack stuff on, commonly seen inside a cupboard, while a drawer is a container that you roll out and put stuff in. I'm sure none of you needed that clarification.

Meal Post

Don't really know what to put here. For awhile, back in the first wave of the pandemic, I was making regular meal updates. People were cooking from home way more, and their eating habits were changing. I was personally focusing more on foods that were frugal, had a strong shelf life, and were nutritious. People also had time to make food that took longer to prepare, an example being the COVID baking trend. People have chilled out a bit in the second wave, even though our numbers are worse.

Nowadays when I want to post something food related, I just post to my Gryphood blog: https://gryphood.blogspot.com/

Netflix

I couldn't log into my Netflix account, but they kept charging me. Eventually I called them, and when I gave them my email to confirm, they said it wasn't what they had in their system, and asked me if I had a nickname. I said I hadn't. I asked them what email was attached to my account and they wouldn't tell me. I only use one email account for everything outside of work, so it's not like I accidentally used a different one. They mentioned that I hadn't used my account in a long time. So even if somebody somehow stole my account and attached a different email to it, they never used the account or changed it to a better service. Weird.

Mission: Rescue Succulent

On my first birthday after getting my job at WALES, one of the main office staff members dropped by our buiding and offered all of us a succulent. Since then, mine is the only one to have survived to this point. After looking it up, the plant I received is a jade plant, and it represents good fortune in terms of wealth. You're not supposed to water them more than once every two weeks, so I chose to water it every payday, because it's a wealth plant, and it makes sense to nourish it when money is coming in.

When the pandemic started,I realized that my succulent would be left to starve. It felt very dangerous to go to the office, but I steeled myself and made the journey to WALES. Once there, I realized that one of my coworkers had a coffee plant that was left behind. I had wanted the mission to be totally covert, but I couldn't leave the coffee plant to die. If I took the coffee plant with me, I would have to admit to my coworker that I had taken her plant, and entered the office to do so. In the end, my compassionate side made me rescue both my succulent and her coffee plant, and I wound up admitting to her that I had taken it. She was grateful, and once the first wave had ended and she was able to return to in-person work, I returned the plant to her desk.

...Actually, now that I think about it, we just entered the Grey Zone and nobody is doing in-person work again... I might have to go on Mission: Rescue Coffee Plant soon.

Tiger King, Animal Crossing, Takeshi 6ix 9ine

These are some "COVID Culture" topics that occured during the first wave.

Tiger King was a documentary on Netflix about the strange world of big cat owners that trended during the first wave of the pandemic. The lead character was Joe Exotic, a man who convinced two heterosexual men to marry him by coercing them with drugs and other privileges. He had a vicious rivalry with a woman named Carol Baskins, who is widely thought to have killed her ex husband to enherit his wealth and tiger sanctuary.

Between this and two tigers being found to have developed COVID-19, I went though a bit where I worried that people would link the tiger symbolism with China, and since the virus was first found in Wuhan Province, use this as a reason to be racist. I even worried that this would turn into feline hate in general, and so I made sure to stock up on cat food. In fact, I bought enough cat food that Kieran still had some in stock when I moved to my new place. He had more food than I did.

Animal Crossing is a video game where you exist in a world of animal people. You have a house, pay off a mortgage, build and decorate a better home. You get to know the villagers, make friends with them, influence who stays and who moves out. You fish, collect bugs, dig for fossils. It's all pretty calm, pretty chill. It came out at just the right time, because it's the game where you go outside and hang out with your friends, which was exactly what people were missing in real life when it came out.

Takeshi 6ix Nine is a rapper. He made a deal to get out of jail far in advance to his initial status by snitching out some of his fellow gang members. Once COVID hit, he was put into house arrest because they were trying to cut down on crowding in jails. On he was "out", he started putting out singles. They had to move him several times because his guady lifestyle would put him at risk of being tracked down.

I guess I mostly took notice because I reall don't understand what makes him popular. He is a young man whose rapper name is Japanese while he is Hispanic, hus symbol is a gay icon while he's heterosexual, and he has tattooed the symbol of a sex position all over himself.

Well, that's all I got. I have a few more notes, but they are far closer to current events and I will address them in the very new future. I hope you all have a good 2021!

Grey Christmas

Check it out, I figured out how to make a large linebreak, like I did in the Lair of the Gryphon Days.

I had to settle for a smaller linebreak combined with an indent when Blogger first started forcing changes. Now that they've gone all the way, I can go to all of my previous posts and copy whatever code they translated my former formatting into.

Before we get into Christmas, we had a pretty cool event happen on December 21st, our shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. On that night, Jupiter and Saturn passed each other, an event that occurs about once every 20 years. That's not too frequent, but what makes this even more special is that this was the first time they've been so close in almost 400 years. This event has been named the Great Conjunction, and the fact that it occured on the Winter Solstice makes it even more magical. The planets were both supposedly visible from Earth, but I didn't see them.

Anyway, I’ve got to apologize for the fact that I left one of my posts incomplete a little while ago. On my post titled “COVID 19 Update: Colour System” I only covered the measures put in place for our “Red Zone”, up until they inconvenienced me, which was around the point they were talking about cinemas. I intended to add the rest of the measures, but recently, the Ontario Government has chosen to put the entire province into Code Grey, which is a mandatory lockdown, and looking back at the resources I was using before, they have since been modified to simplify things.

At first, they were considering putting all regions in Red in lockdown, but they wound up deciding to do it to all of Ontario. Southern Ontario is up for reassessment in four weeks, and Northern Ontario in two.

Last Christmas, Uncle Steve had recently passed away, as well as a beloved family pet, Luna. Because of the timing, we didn’t really celebrate that year. In fact, I titled last year’s blog post, “Blue Christmas”. This year, we’ve got a “Grey Christmas” because of the government mandated closures. I wonder what colour Christmas will be next year. If we’re at war, maybe we’ll get a “Red Christmas”. I’m complaining, but we did get a fresh coating of snow, which offered the traditional “White Christmas” that we were hoping for.

Originally, our Grey Zone was supposed to start on Christmas Eve. This seemed like an attempt to capitalize on the Christmas economic boost so that businesses that had to close down would be more likely to survive, while at the same time shutting people down from social gatherings and prevent a boost in infection rate. This was kind of a slap in the face though, because the government was basically expecting us to do all our Christmas shopping, but then not give it away or use it for its intended purpose. They backed down though, and moved the lockdown date to boxing day. I’m guessing they realized that we’re already dealing with a lot of noncompliance, and by canceling Christmas like this, noncompliance would increase even further. So I went to Guelph for Christmas, because while in Red, we’re allowed to have a social group of five, and between me, my mom and my brother, we’re a social group of three. Since we were still technically in the Red during the time I was up there, we didn't violate any of the rules.

We had a Christmas ham this year instead of a turkey. First time we’ve done that. Duncan made his potatoes au gratin, and we had Brussels sprouts, stovetop stuffing and a little storebought pecan pie. It did the trick.

I got my mother a breadmaker. She likes homemade bread but she doesn’t like to knead. I kept us supplied with homemade bread after I learned how to make it in Katimavik, but after I moved out, they got cut off from their bread supply. I like to make my own by hand, but the breadmaker solves the kneading issue for her. I got Duncan a video game. He always knows what he wants. I got Lee-Anne a book on cat language, and a book on tarot that was written by the person that designed her deck. It doesn’t cover individual cards, it’s more about how to get in the right headspace to do a reading, what the different spreads are etc. I got a tarot learning kit for my friend, who is moving away in the New Year (I’ll have to talk about this in a future post). We got Kieran three cat wands to replace his old ones, as well as two new cat toys, and Mom got him a new scratching post.

My mother got me a rice cooker, which I requested, and I apparently have a wok coming to go with it. My brother is having a set of headphones mailed to me. They also got me a coffee bean canister and coffee beans to go with it. Lee-Anne and her family got me a bread knife and a fancy chess board.

Pretty decent gift exchange. Glad to be able to celebrate a little. Despite the circumstances, I hope all of you made the most of the Christmas season.

Fires, Foxes, Vaccines, 1st Aid

Alright, I learned how to make a line break

I don't like this new system, though. You have to use code to make linebreaks and can't see images without previewing. This means that, even though you guys get to see a post punctuated with linebreaks and images, I have to look at a giant wall of text interrupted by code until I make a post. Very unsatisfying

Part of me wants to try a new site, but I have a lot of history with this one. I've been here for about 12 years. It's seen me through so many flavours of life, from my main passion being Karate (my old dojo is gone and my former sensei is a car fanatic now... lame), to being a blue collar factory worker, to being in college, to being an early graduate, to starting a home. Most of what I've written hasn't been phenomenal, but I've definitely had stand-out moments. I wrote over 200 pages reflecting on my experience in Mali, and there have been surprisingly memorable posts here and there. Like when I went for a walk in the woods with some classmates after graduating college, and we got surrounded by snakes, and then a guy drove down a hiking path in a car, and I chased and stalked him down, thinking he was going to hurt himself when he was just (probably illegally) collecting wood. There was also the time that I got to try and recreate the Russian painter Malevich's initiative to convince people that painting a black square was the cutting edge of art.

Even if I learn to navigate Blogger's new formatting system, I worry that it's just not strong enough to survive and I will eventually have to abandon it. From doing a few quick searches in an attempt to learn how to use the new system, I have only seen negative feedback and a number of people claiming that they will leave the site over this. It's a shame, because I believe this is post 852, and I kind of wanted to reach 1000

Anyway, I'll coninue using the site for now.

For this upate, I wanted to review a few semi-recent events. I keep a notes file on my phone of everything I want to blog about. Sometimes, the moment just passes, and I never get the opportunity to blog about it. In this update, I'll talk about some events that still feel relevant, and in the next, I'll go over everything I never got around to talking about before that.

My first note is "Fires". There have been a few interesting fires lately. A little while back, three Walmarts were lit on fire. Each happened within an hour of the other, and each time, it was lit from the toilet paper section. I guess people weren't panic buying like they did in the first wave, so someone had to create an artificial toilet paper shortage. Probably some agents from Amazon wanting to muscle out the last heavyweights of in-person shopping. I kid.

"Walmart is under attack" is such a wild statement, but it appeared to be true. Security picked up on the images of the culprits, but it was difficult to identify them because... they were wearing masks. I'm still very much for masks and all recommended safety precautions, but this was an unfortunate detail. Masks cover up some identifying features. This wasn't enough of a deterrant though, because the arsinists were eventually caught. Reasons for their actions were never released.

The Walmart fires resulted in millions of dollars worth of damages. I also learned that Waterloo region has six Walmarts. Remember when everyone hated Walmart? They seemed like the sole reason that small businesses were dying. But somewhere along the way, Amazon took over that position. I guess people only have enough hate in their heart for one organization at a time

My next note is "Foxes". So, since moving to the new place, I've seen two foxes. The first time, I was walking up the street, not far from where we now live, and I was suddenly aware of the fact that a fox was immediately next to me. Hip-to-hip, casually strolling next to me, as if appearing out of nowhere. It continued walking nonchalently down the street, without any indication that I had disturbed it. Some time later, me and Lee-Anne were going grocery shopping, and we saw a fox streak across the street, and we later saw it skirt around a church.

Now, this was likely just a coincidence, but it might be noted that the spirit name I was given in Chisasibi was "Fox-Man", so if you wanted to try and make this into something more, the material is there.

Next note is "Vaccines". I neglected to note in my previous COVID update that we now have two COVID vaccines on there way. One in from Pfizer/Biontech and appears to have a 90% efficacy rate, and the other is from Moderna, and it has a 95% efficacy rate. I believe we were originally aiming for 70%, so both of these excell beyond expectations. It will still be an uphill struggle though, because it will take time to produce in large enough quantities to distribute to everyone. Still, they are now being distributed to first aid responders and vulnerable populations. Even if you don't have the vaccine, every time someone in your community gets it, it reduces your chance of getting sick, so things are looking a little brighter.

Next and last point is "First Aid". I recently had to do my First Aid training. It's a good thing I did it when I did, too, because who knows when we'll have another lockdown. We all had to wear masks. In fact, we weren't allowed to use reusable masks and had to use disposable ones. We also couldn't practice on each other. I won't go into detail, but there were about eight people attending, and I knew half of them.

That does it for this update. In the next one, I think I'll go over all my older notes throughout the year that I never got around to including and explain them. Hopefully I'll know more coding by then

New Furniture, Bad Formatting

Alright, this post may be painful to read, because Blogger has just updated its formatting system and based on my experience with the Gryphood blog, I haven't found my stride with it. Linebreaks and indenting don't seem to work now, so everything is kind of just merged into a giant wall of text. Hopefully I can get things figured out, but for now, it's pretty ugly. Recently, me and Lee-Anne bought some furniture. This is the first time in my life that I've bought something that I couldn't carry home with me. Back in college and even after I moved into the townhouse, I bragged that I didn't own anything I couldn't carry on my back. Eventually I did own furniture, but only because of a combination of roommates buying it, or me taking it from people moving or being evicted. Even the mattress that I posted about some time ago, I got from Walmart because the box came on wheels and I could wheel it home by foot. The heaviest thing I ever bought and walked home was a desser. The new items we bought were a couch and two desks. Generally speaking, I'm pretty chill with my cat Kieran scratching whatever he feels like. But now that I've spent real money on some stuff I'm like "Hey... you have a scratching post". I'm using some of the money I recently inherited, which I've mentioned in a recent blog post, on furniture. It's my first investment since inheriting it. I'm relieved to say that I still don't like spending money. Long ago, I learned of something called the "financial comfort zone" which I've been kind of obsessed with and terrified by ever since. This idea is that, despite the fact that everyone strives for greater wealth, on a subconscious level, we desire to maintain what we perceive as "financially normal". This is the phenomenon of the homeless man winning the lottery and being homeless again the next year. We might convince ourselves that we're indulging, and that we are treating ourselves, but on some level we are uncomfortable with being put into a different financial state, and we're attempting to return to what we're used to. We got the new couch from a fancy rich person store called IKEA. I am especially proud because I've seen many memes saying that the true test of a relationship is assembing IKEA furniture. Our main struggle was that the couch we bought came in four separate pieces, and the instructions provided detailed how to put each piece together individually, but not how to connect them. We managed to get through the hardship, and look at our reward:

And check out my desk:

As you can see, I'm still using a dining room chair. One day I will have an office chair. We've been trying to prepare for Christmas, but it appears that the 2020 trend of panic buyng is just a way of life now. We have an artificial Christmas tree because it was donated to an old roommate who left it behind when he moved out, but getting decorations for it has proven to be a bit tougher. In previous years, I've been satisfied with a red star-shaped tree topper and some blue tinsel from Dollarama, but Lee-Anne has preferred a slightly more detailed tree. At any rate, it doesn't amount to much more than a giant cat toy:

We went to Home Depot, and we went to Walmart, and all the Christmas decorations were sold out. Also, they haven't been able to stock up on workout equipment either. A little random, but this will make it a little more difficult to work off the extra pounds you take on this holiday season. Our housemates are still missing. It's been a little over half a month since we noticed they haven't been here. A little spooky, but here's hoping they turn up soon