Elder Advice – Thinking Inside the Box - Week 5
Elder advice time again.
Week 5 will be remembered as one of mixed messages. With just over 900 Ontarians hospitalized for COVID-19, we have “peaked” … some say …so maybe it’s time to get back to what used to normal … a bit… but maybe not … because it’s too soon for opening up anything but our feelings …even though the Swedish “experiment” seems to be working with largely common sense self-regulation, and some more traffic on the Gardiner would provide much needed control of the 150k and higher idiots. But maybe we should just be THINKING about reopening …. like the porn shops in Oklahoma … although under 14s in Spain are now free range and Boris Johnson is “back to work”, albeit dismantling the UK, and I could get a tattoo in Georgia today, so isn’t it at least time we had the same access to parks that we have to liquor?... Or maybe not.
I am now officially unsure how to spend my time.
Should I be looking for pointers from that YouTube video of the retired prison warden about how he organized activities to keep the inmates from stabbing the guards?
Or the video that provides instruction on how to make deodorant from urinal cakes. Get them while supplies stubbornly persist.
Or maybe, because yesterday was DNA Day, I should do the 23 and Me to see if I have enough Viking genes to get a Swedish passport.
Or maybe I need to protest, like some of our American friends, although they likely won't appreciate my very Canadian: "Peace, Order and Good Government" placard.
Or maybe I should work on my Scrabble skills because, after a stunning two game reversal, Sinclair has got back to thrashing me mercilessly.
Or maybe I should tune it all out and just focus on improving my German and the wonderful, COVID-free fact that Captain Tom will have his 100th birthday on Thursday.
The only thing I know for sure is that the daily press conferences need to stop. No “ifs”, “buts” or “maybes” about that. Everyone understands that all incumbent politicians are basking in the limitless time in the limelight that the COVID-19 pandemic provides. But enough is enough, as even the Marquis de Sade once observed. The endless repetition, the guarded optimism, the positive pessimism, the ridiculous bromides. Yesterday’s cringeworthy contribution by Justin actually included: “To all the kids watching out there, you’re doing great”. Although, to be fair, as there is reasonable certainty that only his children were watching, the message reached its target audience.
Elder Advice? As always, think positive – but not COVID positive. Ignore the mixed messages. Remember, whatever is happening elsewhere in the world, in Canada, we have long and proud history of being two solitudes and we need to all work together, on being separate…. or words to that effect.