Two Busy Weekends

I am really torn between recreating a series of blog posts I had planned to write over the past week (only in my head unfortunately) or jumping ahead to my most recent thoughts on Toronto life, now that we are being rolled back to Stage 2 lite (no indoor dining, no indoor bars and no gym!).  Maybe I'll see if I can pull off a bit of a hybrid.

Floating over all of the events of the past couple of weeks was the suspicion that, due to the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in the GTA, we were going to see restrictions come in.  I was (and continue to be) somewhat peeved that the Toronto medical officer wouldn't impose restrictions on her own (with Tory's backing) and kept trying to make the Province wear the coat.  I mean if she really means what she says and that everything but essential travel should be ruled out, then she really should use all the tools at her disposal.  The Premiere said that she (or rather Toronto acting on her advice) could close down restaurants and so forth.  And definitely Toronto can roll back the library openings or even close down the swimming pools.  But they haven't, which makes it hard to take her seriously.  And probably more damning is that there is still too much secrecy over where infections are being spread.  It seems 44% are in restaurant and bar settings, so it seems you can make a strong case that these have to be shut down - and unfortunately probably not reopened until a vaccine arrives. But have there really been many cases caught in gyms or indoor health classes?  I don't know, but I don't think so, so it really does seem like overkill, or operating on some weird precautionary principle (I think these places are more dangerous because of all the extra huffing and puffing of the gym rats, but I can't actually prove it).  Frankly, I feel that Ontario and Toronto politicians and officials have let us down by not being more prepared for the second wave (and not building up the necessary testing and tracing ability), as well as not being nearly as convincing this time around, which will make it that much harder to get public buy-in, when #1) people are thoroughly sick of the restrictions in their lives and #2) there is real economic hardship any time the restrictions are increased.  I could go on for pages about COVID, so let me switch back to what I have actually been up to over the past two weekends.

Two Saturdays ago, I managed to get myself up and get to the gym around 7 am.  (The day before I had gone to the mall to pick up some things from Home Depot including a new fire extinguisher for the kitchen, as I found out while taking it down to paint around it it had expired long ago!  There was a short line to get into the gym, so I just bailed.)  I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and get back into shape, though I don't think it is so much about the exercise as just eating better (less snacking and much smaller lunches -- in this I am not at all helped by the fact that Tim Hortons and McCafe have discontinued their yogurt parfaits, which was my go to lunch most days when dieting more strictly).  Then I came home and did the big weekend grocery shopping.  Then around 12:30, I was able to join my son at the mall (and even managed to get my daughter to come along), so that we could run over to Staples and get photos taken for the immigration process.  Even though I'm fairly sure that Biden will win and things will sort of return to normal in the States (aside from the Supreme Court being yanked to the right to the degree it will be impossible to overcome without packing the Court), I am so thoroughly disenchanted with the hard core 40% of Americans who still support Trump (frankly scumbags to the core) that I have no interest in being part of their society any longer (or even visiting that often).  The photo session wrapped up around 1:30 or so, and having gotten so much done in the morning, the fact I had any time left over was just gravy (in the words of Raymond Carver).

At that point, I cycled over to the Ryerson Image Centre and then down to work for a while.  I believe I made it home in time to replace one more board in the deck, but I am not entirely certain of the timing of that.  I do know that I probably should have gotten at least some of the taping done in the kitchen, but I was (understandably) kind of wiped out by this point.

So it fell to Sunday to do all the really hard work.  I think it probably took 2-3 hours to get all the taping done and then somewhat longer to prime the kitchen walls.  It essentially did take up all of Sunday, though I did run back to the mall to get a small paint sampler and my daughter needed something, but I can't recall what that was.  I wanted to paint a couple of small patches to make sure that people were ok with the new colour before I thoroughly committed.  (I don't love the new colour, but I hated the old colour and this is much better.)

This meant I had to go back to Home Depot on Monday evening to get the rest of the paint and put up the first coat. 

I did get lucky that the paint was mixed with some primer and coated pretty evenly, so I only had to paint it once (plus the primer on Sunday).  I was pretty sure it was going to take two coats, but it actually looks pretty good with just the one.  It took about 4 hours, and I was pretty weary at work on Tuesday...

I didn't have that much to do in the middle of the week, but I did notice that the local raccoon had torn up yet one more board while searching for insects.  I was thoroughly P.O.'ed.  After work on Friday, I managed to go off and get the groceries for the week (assuming that the stores would be pretty backed up on the weekend).  I was in a pretty bad mood as the restrictions had come down finally, and all the gyms in Toronto were closing at midnight.  I debated going in for one last workout at 9:30 or 10 pm, but decided that, with everyone else having the same idea, it was likely going to be more crowded than was really comfortable.

So it will just be the biking as my main exercise from now on.  Sat. I biked in to work and managed to make some headway on the immigration application and wrapped up final edits on a slightly overdue book review.  I also managed to get home in time to replace that one board, having one remaining spare board from when we brought all the lumber over the bridge.  I also painted the whole upper, upper deck with stain to make this less appealing to raccoons looking for snacks.  I'm sure I'll need to replace a few more boards next year, and probably have to sand and restain the upper and middle deck, but this should at least get me through the winter.

I took a close look at the restrictions, and they are pretty broad -- all performing arts venues are closed down (so those folks that had won the "lottery" to see Angela Hewitt are out of luck after all and Mirvish's new experiment to do a sound installation of Saramago's Blindness is also going to put out of commission).  However, it says that museums with interactive components will be shut down (so the Ontario Science Centre and large parts of the ROM).  It was silent on other museums, and most of the them planned on being open (until explicitly forced to shut down), so I decided to follow the letter (if not the spirit) of the shutdown.  I figured that there won't be many more days before they were told to shut down as well, at least if the cases keep increasing, and the weather was going to turn fairly soon as well.  So my son and I biked off to the AGO Sunday morning and saw the Diane Arbus exhibit* and also the new contemporary exhibit showcasing Haegue Yang's work.  Perhaps ironically, my favourite image from the Arbus exhibit was one devoid of people.

Diane Arbus, Empty Snack Bar N.Y.C., 1957

We grabbed a slice of pizza, eating it in the park as the in-store dining was out obviously.  Then we biked back home.  I had just enough time to take my daughter to the mall to do some clothes shopping, and I tried to decompress the rest of the evening.

I haven't done all that much today, but there are some small chores, like trying to fix up the bedframe, that I am taking on.  Mostly, I'd like to try to finally wrap up this report for work and get back into the immigration system, so I can get this citizenship application mailed off next week.  It appears that the deadline for SFYS has been moved back another week, and I didn't miss it after all, so I'll definitely try to do some creative writing after being sidelined for a while.

As I indicated, I've been pretty busy, but at least I don't have these major chores hanging over my head any longer.  And with that I think I'll close this post.

 

* I'm glad I actually read most of the text from the Harper's article The Full Circle.  I was going to say that Seth cribbed directly from the William Mack piece where he was quoted: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken but you are bound to weaken one day.”  But then it turns out Mack himself was apparently riffing off of a Gene Byrnes's cartoon called It's a Great Life If You Don't Weaken, which was popular among American soldiers during the first World War.