For the moment, cases in Ontario seem to have levelled off very slightly, but they are still on the rise in Toronto. This is incredibly depressing and stressful. Nonetheless, the incidence of new cases is still very uneven throughout the city, and new cases in Riverdale/Leslieville are still quite rare fortunately. Though I did see there was one case in Leslieville Jr Public School, which will have to be monitored.
There has been a bit of a run on paper towels again, though for the moment toilet paper supplies are holding up. I'm really hoping not to return to the days when the lines to get into the grocery store stretched out across the entire parking lot.
The biggest question of course is how many schools are going to be shut down, and if this experiment is given up. It looks like my daughter finally has a permanent French teacher and is doing those lessons. However, it turns out that my son's accounting teacher is not going to be the "permanent" teacher and may not be able to provide any marks. What a mess! I realize it is even worse for children in French immersion, many of whom were kicked out of their programs with no recourse. I guess the question is how they account for this at the end of the year. Given that learning in this environment is going to be impaired, how will they give out marks (and will colleges and universities even trust them)? Again, this speaks to the need to probably repeat this year after a vaccine is available, and just treat this as an experiment in maintaining children's mental health.
I'm assuming there will be more restrictions coming, particularly in Toronto.* I wouldn't be at all surprised if gyms and movie theatres and concert halls have to cut back even further to 25 people. This will probably force RCM to scrap their Angela Hewitt concert, but I'll call tomorrow and see what the story is (and whether my tickets will be honoured or not). I suspect that people are expecting the gyms to scale back as well. I finally made it over to the mall on Wed. to take care of a few other things and go to the gym (I didn't feel I really had to go on the days I was pounding out the boards in the deck), and there was a line-up. This is the first I've seen in a while, and while I probably would have been able to get in within 30 minutes, I just was so discouraged and generally fed up, I just went home. I was making slow progress on losing the extra weight I've picked up during the crisis, but at this point my low-level depression is getting a bit deeper, and I just can't face up to this, on top of everything else (the dark evenings and the possibility that this virus will never end). I am still biking to work about 4 days a week, and I'll try to do that as long as I can, though the dark evenings are starting to spook me a bit (last night it was sprinkling a bit, which I was not expecting and did not appreciate).
I've already mentioned how I am pretty sick of on-line music and decided not to sign up for Tafelmusik's opening on-line concert. I'm just slightly more open to on-line theatre (though I have completely stopped following The Show Must Go On-Line and the Plays in the House guys). It looks like next Tuesday there is a potentially interesting play on Zoom, and then probably the second Monday of Oct. will be another SFYS. I have a couple of ideas I really need to get down on paper (one about a budding romance in a deserted food court and then one about speed-dating that is not COVID-related), so this is a good reminder. Maybe I can carve out some time over the weekend.
And in a very strange way of history repeating itself, Trump has caught the coronavirus, just like Boris Johnson (his acolyte). I am a terrible person, as I hope he suffers very badly and frankly I do hope he doesn't pull through. I don't think he will emerge from this as a chastened or wiser person (certainly within a couple of weeks Boris was back to his old ways), learning anything from this experience (he is simply incapable of positive personal growth), so the best outcome would be a lengthy hospitalization that would force the debates to be cancelled (I'm sure Pence would relish this way out from debating Kamala Harris). In a sense, it would be a way for him to step away (and have Pence pardon him for "everything" that could land in a federal court) and save face (and he's all about the saving face). So we'll see how this plays out, but all I can say is finally! I only wish it had happened last week, causing so much turmoil that he wasn't able to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. But who knows, maybe a couple of Republican Senators will also have the virus** and they have to shut down the hearings. Here's hoping.
* There is only a small notice on the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' website that they are effectively closed down by the province from Oct 1-28, and apparently they are still booking tickets through Nov. for their post-Impressionism exhibit. Wishful thinking at this point. I guess if I had know exactly how this all was going to play out, I would have just rented a car in July and gone out there, but hindsight...
** There are reports that Trump met (maskless naturally) quite recently with Pence and McConnell and Barrett herself, so it will be a very interesting time, especially if Trump really does end up in the hospital and perhaps Pence himself is out of commission for a few days. Then Pelosi steps in. Poetic justice for sure.
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