A great friend and occasional contributor to Salut!, Bill Taylor lives with another great friend, his wife Lesley, in Toronto. Bill, a Sunderland-supporting lad from Bishop Auckland, Co Durham, is naturalised as a Canadian. For the past few days he has been impressing his large Facebook following with tales of his own ways of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic out there in Toronto. This is his diary to date: it stretches from March 16 to March 22 and there may well be more to come. My choice of Bill's photos has nothing to do with sequence and I may add other shots ...
Notes from the trenches:
I hiked yesterday and I plan to keep on hiking. There are only two of us and we’re both inveterate hand-washers. The pre-hike Timmys might have to go, though. Or perhaps be a drive-through and picnic in the parking lot (in my book, drinking coffee while you’re driving is almost as bad as using your phone).
I figure fresh air and exercise have to be good things and even when there are a lot of people on the trail, there aren’t really a lot of people. Noticed yesterday that whenever we passed someone, we all leapt to the side into the underbrush to keep that two metres of social distancing between us. It’s already become a reflex.
The gym? That was a hard one to face. I regard my two sessions a week with a trainer as lifesavers. Now I’m gonna be down in my basement struggling to motivate myself and no doubt doing so much so wrong. But… something.
Trying to do the right thing, though. My trainer is part of the gig-economy and he’s losing this gig. On the other hand, whether I work out or not, it’s already in my budget (as the best money I spend) so, in spite of his reluctance, I’ll continue to pay him. I’ll miss the one-on-ones but he’s gonna send me some guidelines to help me at home. And, as he says, at least we're both okay for wine.
I’m still being bombarded with ads urging me to visit resorts in foreign parts. That wouldn’t be happening, anyway; I’m not the resort type. Lesley and I were supposed to be in northern Italy the last week of April and first week of May. Our outbound flights are cancelled and refundable but the homeward ones are outside the exclusion zone – right now, anyway – and are not cancelled. This is something I need to sort out with Air Canada but I’m guessing this week is probably not the best time to call.
My prescriptions are up to date and I’ve picked up the drycleaning. And I’ve washed my hands again for the umpteenth time. I’m so tired of singing Happy Birthday to You twice, even with the rude words. We are, Lesley tells me, down to our last carrot.
Now, I guess it’s hunker down in the dugout with Netflix and online jigsaw puzzles. Keep my tin hat handy in case of bombardment with something worse than fun-in-the-sun vacation propaganda.
Meanwhile, I’ve just put my snow shovel back in the basement. That’s what I call REALLY living on the edge…
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More notes from the trenches:
Our carrot shortage has been resolved. And then some. Unwittingly, we both brought a bunch home. Who panic-buys carrots, for god’s sake? There’s enough that I may try to turn mine into hand-sanitiser.
On the other sanitised hand, we just ran out of Scotch tape. As Lesley said, how will we keep things together?
A brief foray into the supermarket. I was passing the depleted array of meats, with no real thought of acquiring any, when I noticed a lone pair of chicken breasts and a shopper, trundling an overburdened cart, eyeing them speculatively.
The hand being quicker than the eye, speculative or otherwise, they now have a (temporary) place of honour in my freezer. Chicken-snooze, chicken-lose. I didn’t even break stride.
All those torturous sessions in the gym seem finally to be paying off. Bum knee or not, you should see me negotiate public stairways and escalators, and balance on streetcars and the subway without using my hands, though I’ve been riding the TTC as little as possible.
I almost could offer lessons on how to open doors with your elbows. But with only small gatherings permitted, it’s not really worth my while. Sorry.
As for entertainment, I got a text last night: “Stuck at home? We’ve got you covered. Deposit now and get your 250 USD casino bonus at BonkersBet.” The operative word, I think, being “bonkers.” I’m not. Yet.
Lesley was doing something in the kitchen and when I asked what, she said she’d always wanted to make a sourdough starter and this seemed like a good time.
Life around the ol’ homestead is changin’ a mite, I reckon. Kinda makes me wish we had a few hens in the backyard and a bushel or two of winter wheat and maybe a cow in the garage. Living off the land and self-sufficiency and all that. Self-sufficiency also being an anagram of “iffy flu sciences.” Hmmm.
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Still more notes from the trenches:
I found, thank God, another roll of Scotch tape. No packages to wrap or torn loo paper to mend but boy, am I ready!
Life hasn’t yet found its revised routine. I organise books to read and movies to watch and then spend my time meandering through old footage on YouTube. Like water, it will find its level. But not quite yet.
Whenever I go outside, I find myself holding my breath at first, which is asinine. Then I try to compensate, in an almost apologetic way, by taking in great lungfuls of air. I haven’t started hyperventilating so far but it can only be a matter of time.
As I say, it will find its level. And then, if ever we get back to normal, heavens knows how I’ll cope with that. (Yes, yes, I know – we WILL get back to normal. We just haven’t settled on a date yet.)
Having ventured out, Lesley and I run into friends. And, almost without conscious thought, take up stance two metres apart – maybe even a little more – and raise our voices slightly to converse. One subject we cover is what appears to be the panic-buying of bidets. Apparently, suppliers can’t keep up with demand. The economy is quite literally going down the toilet.
I’ve never been in such frequent contact with my sister in England. Rarely more than a line or two but every day. Just checking in.
She, who for the longest time resisted on-line communication (“I like to have a letter to open…”) is now, at 77, hooked on it. She’s even mastered the vocabulary-sapping art of emojis.
She keeps me up to date with people I barely remember and their sundry ailments. Her friends’ and neighbours’ misfortunes have always been a sort of a hobby of hers. She seldom dwells upon her own.
Whether or not I’ve been anywhere or touched anything dubious, hand-washing has become a reflex, or perhaps a compulsion, like groaning when I stand up. I stand up, I groan, I wash my hands. And then I usually sit down again. It fills in a bit of time.
Note to self: Do NOT reread Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. It will only depress you.
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Yet more notes from the trenches:
A pre-dawn communication from eBay: “We are here to inspire you.”
Go on then…
“1050W Electric Steam Cleaner 30% OFF, $29.99…”
Nah, you’ll have to do better than that.
(Later that same day: An eBay invoice “for the period from February 16 to March 15, 2020.” Seriously? “Total invoice amount due: $0:00.” Yeah, well, just try and make me pay.)
More news from the bidet front… back… wherever. There’s a product on the market that sits on your loo seat, hooks up to a bathroom faucet and then… I can only imagine hilarity ensues. And heaven knows what else. I commend the company’s enterprise but I have no intention of finding out.
Odd – and sad, perhaps, but also understandable – that we can say things to friends in emails and texts that we’d never say to their face… “I’m not sure that you know how lucky I am to have you as a friend but I’m telling you now,” was one. “I think of you as an extended family.”
We reach out, because it’s important now to reach out, tentatively and perhaps unsure of the reaction, and then the dam doesn’t exactly burst but at least begins to trickle. We throw “love” into the mix.
How will we face each other when we’re back to personal contact? More openly, perhaps? There’s good could come of this “very strange time,” as more and more people are calling it. It’s a sudden learning curve. For all of us, like it or not.
Yesterday it was sourdough starter. Today, homemade quinoa flour. Tomorrow? I draw the line at making soap from hog fat and wood-ash lye. I may be many things but a Beverly Hillbilly I’m not. Besides, you can’t get a hog for love nor money these days.
A package just arrived. I took it between finger and thumb and hosed it down with a bleach solution before I opened it. And then I washed my hands. Of course I did.
I need to get back on track with some sort of fitness regime. I must touch base with my trainer and perhaps suggest that he can torment me via a video link. I’m sure he’d love that.
I also have the offer of a remote session of chair-yoga (though I’m not even sure what that is) for “stiff, mature males… it doesn’t have to be insulting.” Nor would I take it as such. But I do need to get my head around the idea first. And figure out how to set up my laptop. And, presumably, a chair.
Anyway, in the interest of keeping myself moving, I’ve been outside again. Living on the edge. Streetcars passing by with passengers almost mathematically spaced.
Weetabix, I’m happy to report, remains freely available. As does ketchup, though don’t be gulled, as I almost was, into picking up a bottle of appalling “low-sodium ketchup-style sauce.” Not. The. Same.
I passed a guy with a buggy loaded down with Gatorade, in a variety of fluorescent colours. Have things really sunk so low? I almost felt like hiding under the bed. If only that “stiff, mature male” bugaboo didn’t make it a physical improbability.
Never say never.
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Continuing notes from the trenches:
And if these notes seem like whistling past the graveyard, well… yeah.
Keeping a stiff upper lip above this loose flabby chin (line stolen from an old Tony Hancock show) is all very well. I know – I hope – this isn’t the end of the world. But all the same I’m tense, nervous, afraid and maybe it isn’t a bad idea to come out and say it.
This whole thing freaks me out.
I think I’d deal with it way better if there was an end date. And no, to any rogue fundamentalists out there, I don’t mean End Times. Just to know when it’ll be done with.
From ghost-hunting in a haunted derelict hotel to getting back spasms over anticipated birthday surprises, I’ve never dealt well with the unknown.
Give me a target date and I’ll aim for it. An estimated time of arrival? Not so much. Say “beats all hell outta me” and there goes my equilibrium. Call me shaken but not stirred.
Okay, that does it for soul-baring. Back into your sack, soul.
Having mentioned bidets twice here, I’m now, inevitably, getting ads for “the perfect permanent replacement for toilet-papers. Limited stock! Free delivery…” And, “Are You STILL ‘Cleaning’ With Toilet Paper?”
Shoo! Leave me and my bum alone!
A trial workout, sussing out the basement as a makeshift gym. Trying to keep it honest, hearing my trainer’s voice: “Make sure your core’s engaged, chest open… four more, three, two, one more good one… that wasn’t a good one.”
Cats coming and peering at me curiously, but not close enough that I could bench-press one of them. My grandparents’ faces smiling at me from a shelf. I can hear my grandfather’s voice almost as clearly as my trainer’s: “What the deuce do you think you’re doin’, lad?”
Trying to get to be as old you were, Grandda. Yes, I can make this work.
The news isn’t entirely bad. Soccer in the UK remains on hold so once again my somewhat hapless favourite team will avoid defeat this weekend.
Nice, too, that we can have our usual Friday evening La Palette dinner. We’ll just have to eat it at home is all. That’s fine; I have a decent wine list.
Dolphins in Venice and Chinese skies becoming more blue than brown… it’s almost as if the world was breathing a sigh of relief and realigning itself. We’re learning, too, which jobs are REALLY important – strange how so many of them are at the bottom of the pay-scale. Not a senior executive in sight.
We could be getting a second chance here to do all kinds of things over differently. Whether this will lead to anything lasting is anyone’s guess. I’d be lying if I said I was optimistic. Everyone said, “This changes everything” after 9/11 and all it changed was the way we get through airports.
But could it at least spell the end of the group-hug as we know it? As always, it’s an ill wind…
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Further notes from the trenches:
I don’t suppose I’ll revert to my old habit of washing it twice a day in baby shampoo but I’m quite looking forward to having shoulder-length hair again. The beard and moustache stay, though. I’m not THAT much into time-travel.
Now it’s home-made muesli under construction in the pressure cooker. It might be time to start looking online for instructions to build a moonshine still. And learn the banjo. (Just keep the “squeal like a pig” references to yourself, okay?)
I guess it must make the posters feel better somehow, but I’m seriously tired of the endless shared memes pointing out how evil and stupid Trump, his minions, Fox News and right-wingers in general are. It’s not something we’re ever likely to forget and I’m at the point where I’d even take a cute kitten video over yet another unsubtle snark from “The Other 98%.”
I’ve had it up to here, too, with newspaper columnists constantly looking for someone, anyone, to upbraid, or speculating on the form our demise might take. I know it’s what they do – I’ve done it myself in my time – but all the same it becomes wearying. And there’s enough to be weary about. If I wanted knee-jerk opinions rather than facts, I could formulate some doozies of my own.
Bittersweet to be phoning in a dinner order to La Palette and then going to collect it, with a carefully distanced couple of minutes kibitzing while it’s bagged and paid for.
This is a place we’ve been going to almost every Friday night since the week after it opened 19 years ago. The owners and staff aren’t just friends; they’re like family – it’s that close a relationship, very much on hugging terms. It’s comforting to have the food still but I wish we could’ve been eating it at our customary table and not at home. I wish the credit-card machine didn’t have to be wiped down before and after I use it.
Incongruous en route to see a tattoo studio still open for business and with a coupla people inside being inked. I know they’re probably disinfecting all day every day but still…
The days pass surprisingly quickly, given that sometimes I’ve done little more than sit in front of a computer screen. So far at least, I haven’t lain awake all night wondering if perhaps I’m only dreaming that I’m lying awake all night. That’s happened before. It gets complicated. Best not to lose sleep over it.
Hiking tomorrow, maybe. If we go, it’ll be a two-car trip, no ride-sharing. But they’re almost giving gasoline away, so what the heck. No problem with social distancing, either. I have trouble keeping up these days so I’m always at least two metres behind. At least. I have to raise my voice to say, “I need to pee again…”
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This time it really is the author. Apologies for the earlier error (see Commemts)
Weekend notes from the trenches:
Almost as an act of faith, solidarity, whatever, we took a bunch of winter things to the drycleaners. A call from them just now... they’re shutting down for the duration and do we want to pick up our as-yet-uncleaned stuff?
No. No, we do not. It seems very important to leave it with them for as long as it takes. Bringing it home again would be saying... I’m not sure what but it wouldn’t be good. The stuff is staying there.
Could this mess (okay, you think of a better word) finally usher in a cashless society? No one wants to touch real money any more. This doesn’t augur well for street people, few of whom are set up for Apple Pay.
A better word? Maybe we should call Covid the Spanish Inquisition. Because nobody expected it.
Fresh air shouldn’t feel like a luxury. But it kinda does.
I hope this never comes in handy but it could – an assessment centre has opened a five-minute walk away in an old bank building beside Toronto Western Hospital. There’s a short line, inadequately spaced, outside. Funny how you find yourself walking just a little faster to get by. Even when you’re on the other side of the street.
Happiness (of a sort) is finding a store that has hand-sanitiser. Limit yourself to two, Bill, limit yourself to two. And use some as soon as you get outside. Whoops. The first glob goes on the sidewalk.
Instructions have arrived from my trainer as to what I should be doing in my makeshift basement gym. Good grief, seriously? Well, I can but try. Meanwhile, chair yoga inches closer to reality. I guess couch yoga’s out of the question.
That sourdough starter from the other day must be pretty damned good. We have bread rising to the point where it’s threatening to engulf the kitchen. We were afraid for a while that it had taken one of the cats. There hasn’t been a rising like this since the Jacobites in Scotland in 1745.
I’ve stopped reading the US media. I may be slightly less well-informed but the improvement to my mental equilibrium is exponential.
YouTube is a veritable treasure trove once you start digging into it; full of abstruse and wonderful things.
All things considered, though, I’d rather be out in congenial company. And that’s from someone who’s never been a social butterfly.
Time, I think, to open a decent bottle of wine.
Here’s looking at you, world.
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