April 12th, 2020

Pandemic III: March 29 to April 4

A few updates from day 17 of social sadness: apocalypse swing set, I still long to live in the ravine, the cats saw a squirrel and were furious, Evan sleeps in his cat bed wrong. #ravinelife #catsofinstagram#squirrelsofinstagram @ Toronto, Ontario

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Park report: after responses to my sad post last week indicated that perhaps not every park is closed, I did a circuit of all of the ones I frequent today and here’s what I came up with:

–the parkette near me has its play structure embargoed (I posted a photo earlier) but you can still stroll through it. It’s tiny and not very nice, so there’s little point without the play structure for anything but walking your dog, but there is that.
–the parkette slightly farther away does NOT have the play structure or basketball court embargoed. Since today is the first time I looked at it, I couldn’t tell if it had tape on it and someone ripped it down very thoroughly, or it just never did. That parkette doesn’t even have grass, just the two above-mentioned attractions. The basketball court is extremely popular and people play all day and most of the night, from basically now until snow. While I do not enjoy the constant bouncing and yelling sounds (and someone got shot on the court a few years back [they didn’t die] [I don’t know if was a basketball related dispute]) I know the kids here have basically nothing else to like it and it would be a huge loss. I did see some chainlink fencing sections propped up against a pole, possibly unrelated…or a plan for future embargoing.
–Those are my only regular parks in St James Town, so I hopped over to Rosedale and went to Craigleigh Gardens, which is a gated park that I expected to be locked up tight but it wasn’t! It was muddy but semi-busy! One of the gates in under construction, and it’s very hard to get in from that side–basically impossible if you have any mobility issues, are pushing a stroller or wearing nice shoes–but from the other end it’s business as usual. Lovely surprise.
–Then behind Craigleigh, I doubled back down (now that I know the name ht Peter Saunders I will show it off) Milkman’s Lane and it was open too! There is a gate there but it was wide open. However, by this point it was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon after a morning of rain and it was simply impossible to social distance appropriately on the narrow trail–it was crowded and people weren’t really being rude, but they also weren’t trying very hard. Sunshine is exciting, I get it. But also I turned around after about 200 m because eek!!

And that is the report on some parks I know–encouraging! And it’s really spring! Also people need to give each other way more space out there!

Day 18, disease event: weekend update: did not walk to lake due to rain and fear of no bathrooms–took several shorter walks, very pleasant, as mentioned previously. Documentary Dear Mr. Watterson very light on information on actual creator of Calvin and Hobbes Bill Watterson. Turns out he is a recluse, does not want to be subject of film, so instead film is about how people like C&H a lot, which, while commendable, is an emotion I feel myself so do not need explained to me. THEN it turned out that Mark Sampson, the original suggester of the film, actually knows a lot about Watterson, so he just told me stuff, and I did wind up learning a lot, though not from expected source. One fun fact is that Watterson stopped writing C&H when he was 38. Stopped. So wow.

If you are anticipating a tough day (or even if you aren’t) maybe you would like to share your favourite Calvin and Hobbes strip with me and we could make a thread of the best ones to cheer people up? Here is mine, which I clipped when it originally ran in the Hamilton Spectator back in my childhood and I have loved ever since. “A lot of great artists were insane.” https://calvin-and-hobbes-comic-strips.blogspot.com/2011/11/calvin-asks-dad-about-old-black-and.html?fbclid=IwAR3SS2E8NJJgcDm2izNf_Xer-rxxH3OLDdX7Wjs7GAgr5P_jq8LqBaqhEcw

(2) Notes from a lunchtime walk to go yell Happy birthday! at my mom on her balcony:
–I had a brief flash of fear that I was not social-distancing appropriately with a parked car until I remembered we are not being asked to do that yet
–I stepped into the road to give someone more space and he appreciatively tipped his ballcap at me
–I saw some pigeons and remembered the following incident from the weekend: Mark and I were cutting through the previously mentioned tiny parkette and there was a woman there more than 6′ away, so I paid her no mind…and then I saw pigeons were gathering at her feet, more and more of them. “Do the pigeons…know that woman?” I started to say to Mark, but somehow my voice startled them and maybe 80-90 pigeons took wing at once and it made a pulse in the air you could feel and I actually screamed (not proud, but I’ve been indoors in silence so much) and the woman just watched me wryly as the pigeons wheeled around in a flock and eventually came back to her once we’d walked away. Later Mark taught me the word “murmuration” so at least I learned something but !! Also the woman eventually took out a big sack of birdseed and yes, the pigeons definitely did know her.
–my mom is dealing with spending her birthday alone in captivity with great equanimity but honestly I am not. She was born during WWII! She deserves a birthday hug!

(3) Something I’ve been doing lately after a long hiatus is sending out fiction submissions! I can’t explain exactly why I stopped–partly because it’s hard and I wasn’t happy with the work, actually that’s a pretty good explanation–but going back to doing it again after a couple years lends such a sense of promise to the every day. Even if nothing ever gets picked up, every time I check my email I wonder what. might. happen??? and that is exciting. And we need all the excitement we can get around here. Earlier Alice went in a box that I had thought previously too small for her and wow!!

Day 18 of the first global challenge we’ve faced together with the rest of the world: I’m sad about how harsh landlords–mine and others I’ve heard about–are being in the face of the “no evictions during pandemic” thing. There’s a lot of letters being sent to tenants that are basically, “We will find a way to evict you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we’ll do it.” The banks aren’t doing this about the mortgage relief, are they? I think that might be because banks are regulated a lot more closely than landlords and/or because even if you are definitely going to be paying a mortgage for another 20 years, it’s relatively easy to move it to a competing bank, whereas it’s very hard to find another apartment. 

To be clear, I can pay my rent, now and as far as I know in the future (there’s a lot I don’t know about the future though!) This is just something I’m upset about as a general wrong.

On a lighter note, I dreamed last night that Mark and I had a couple Hallowe’en costume as carrot and celery, which was nice.

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Hey, remember *places*? Like, you’d start out at home, and you’d think of somewhere else and then you’d just go there and be there, and other people would be there too? And then later you’d have a bunch of fun and conversations and maybe food and/or entertainment and decide it was time to go home, so you would–not because you were worried about anything, just having achieved the ends you set out.

Here are some places I used to like to go to, back I when I…went:
–the Berkeley Street Theatre
–Pizza Libretto (Danforth)
–my office (sorry, office, I didn’t know how great you were until my cats were my only coworkers)
–Skydome
–Danforth Music Hall
–my mom’s place (the actual inside of it, not just the sidewalk below)
–Regent Park pool
–my gym, which is actually in my building but is currently locked for the duration
–New Ho King (Chinese restaurant on Spadina)
–Ben McNally Books
–all my friends’ places. Remember when inviting someone to sit on your couch was just a normal nice thing and not maybe a death wish?
–cities that aren’t Toronto

I’m worried both that I never appreciated places enough and that even when Covid-19 goes away I will retain all this anxiety around leaving the house because my brain tends to be irrational that way–and leaving the house is the BEST!

(3) Something nice that happened today is that Saint James Town had the 7:30 cheer for front-line healthcare workers. I’ve been sad that we hadn’t had it before but perhaps I just missed it? It was great and loud and long–SJT is excellent at being rowdy–and scared my cats. Well done, neighbours. Well-done, healthcare workers, and thank you.

This is actually day 20 of my personal sequesterment–I realized my count got a little boggled this week, but my first home day was Friday March 13 so that’s where I’m counting from. Woke up feeling gross for no reason, but the sky is blue. Also Indu Arora shared the link to the virtual Wonderland roller coaster The Bat last night and it’s really fun–I don’t even like roller coasters but this is delightful! All the coasters at Wonderland have virtual versions if you dig that sort of thing… Thanks, Indu! https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Further to the park report from a couple days ago, Mark let me know this morning that you can now actually be fined for using a recreational space when you aren’t supposed to. Which is…grrr, I’m not sure it helps, people will just walk on the sidewalk and be sadder, but the law is the law. FYI.

(2) So it seems I have managed to mildly food poison myself or actually contract a stomach bug in these days of massive care and attention to non-communicability. This is not very bad (though not very good) in actual fact, but somewhat terrifying when you think about what it indicates. Also, I feel like garbage and all I can eat is toast. I I did go for a walk though, which was amazing.

Day 21. Wearing a proper blouse and cardigan but also jeans with holes in them, let’s not get too fancy. Very excited about the sunshine and tonight the final season of How to Get Away with Murder premieres so stay tuned for bonkers updates on both my attempts to watch network TV, which I don’t know how to do, and what actually happens on the show. 

Wondering if anyone knows the difference between the freelance food delivery services–Skip the Dishes versus Uber Eats versus Door Dash? I have always maintained I’m willing to go get my own food if the restaurant doesn’t have their own employees deliver, but I’m less willing now and places with employee delivery limits me to chains and I want to support local indies so…let’s try this. Is one service better than another? 

Of course, you will note that I’m still not fully un-food-poisoned and one does not need a delivery service to receive toast, but i have big plans for tomorrow, my friends. BIG PLANS!

(2) There’s just something about 3 weeks of forced isolation that makes me think I can definitely fix that weird story I wrote in 2005.

Day 22. I am not a meme person but sometimes, something really just embodies where you are at {Meme, which I can’t seem to copy was “One-man, all-nude production of Agamemnon fails to impress cats, appliances source Francesco Marciuliano Author]. Even though the all-Sampsonblum production of Waiting for Godot is currently shut down, this speaks to me. 

Was unable to stream How to Get Away with Murder last night and went to bed in despair, but then this morning it was available to me–of course, now I have to work (except for this update) but really looking forward to it tonight! 

Also I have noticed a trend on social media I can only call “sadness shaming.” I completely understand that I and other people like me have quite a bit of privilege and are lucky, but that doesn’t mean that a day can’t be hard and it isn’t good to get support and encouragement from your friends. I have certainly really appreciated that from you, dear Facebook Friends! So certainly, let’s give any $$ we can spare to organizations that are helping, and let’s personally support those who are vulnerable in our communities…but also, if you are just having a rough time or are lonely or feeling weird or your streaming service won’t work, I am HERE FOR IT. Tell me your woes, dear FB friends! I can’t fix anything, but I definitely care!

Eventful day 23 of what is I guess my new life now: our neighbour down the hall dropped by to play with the cats! This was our first sustained in the flesh interaction with a non-Sampsonblum person in…23 days! She stayed in the hall and we stayed in the apartment, so more than 6 feet, and the cats wandered between. I would have been quite hesitant to do this at all if I didn’t know her slightly from previous pet interactions when I used to let them in the hallway pre-pandemic (I’ve been keeping them in because I know that cats can’t transmit Covid, but others might not be and be scared). I wanted to be generous and let her play with them since the cats have been a real help in this weird time and she’s a sweet person, but it ended up being a real joy for me to chat with her through the open door. A mitzvah all around! 

We also went to get pet food because I believed the store would close down in the new wave non-essential closures–this turned out to be incorrect, but we now have SO MUCH cat food, ready to wait out whatever comes. I really felt my privilege in having the means to buy cat food in bulk and carry it home over a kilometre (the means to do the latter being Mark Sampson, as he carried 75% of everything and was loth to give me anything to carry as I’m already such a slow walker with nothing).

Other day 23 highlights include cleaning the bathroom with both bleach and vinegar and feeling an inkling it wasn’t quite right, so I texted my friends wondering if the bathroom might explode (what would you do?) and Frédérique Delaprée kindly informed me that I was in danger of making chlorine gas and should ventilate the room. Which I of course did and then had to inform my husband that I had maybe created a WWI chemical agent in our bathroom so he shouldn’t go in there for a bit. It was another one of those “is this how you pictured marriage?” conversations.

Also last night we finally ordered food for delivery for the first time in the pandemic (Sher E Punjab Restaurant via Skip the Dishes) and it was great–so nice to have a big, nice meal neither of us cooked. The delivery came really fast, which was nice but made me nervous–I hope lots of people are ordering food out there. It was a bit expensive compared to our usual Friday night, but there was the opportunity to tip the restaurant as well as the delivery person, which seemed important to do since they are taking the risk of staying open, plus we got two amazing meals out of it.

These Facebook messages just get longer and longer about less and less, don’t they?