pandemic plusses

I was out walking with Merlin one night this week, when he suddenly turned around as if to say, "In't this nice?"


I had to agree that yes, it was nice.  Not everything about the current state of the world is hell and damnation.


With Merlin's prompting, I thought I'd take a moment to blog some good things I'm presently grateful for.


Already mentioned walking with dogs →→
Simple pleasures.

A lot of cities have noticed less traffic since the shut downs.  I'm not happy about people who can't go to work, but a lot of people have been able to stay productive working from home, and many plan to keep at it in the future.  I'm all for less congestion, who isn't?

Here's the lovely Ariel at one of the many bicycle maintenance stations around town.  To be honest, I'm not a fan of the bicycle tree sculpture. It looks to me like the aftermath of a multi-bike pile-up.  In a tree.

There have been a lot of jokes and memes about getting fat and lazy while in isolation, but I do know of a few people who have turned their lives the other way.  Started cooking their own meals and sticking to an exercise routine with not much else to do.

One of my nephews (he's actually a second cousin or some offshoot, but we just go by aunt and nephew) in the Philippines had gotten a little pudgy in recent months.  He likes to go out and eat and travel and drink, and it was starting to show.

He set a quarantine goal to lose 10 kg - that's about 22 pounds to us non-metric Americans.

He's achieved that goal, and I guess his quarantine has been extended a couple more weeks, so now?  Up next:  visible abs, he says.


I don't think he'll mind me posting his before and after pics since he plastered them all over social media.







Remember the old days of toilet paper hoarding?  Well, when people weren't able to find any TP, bidets started flying off the shelves.

I'd heard of bidets, but didn't give them much thought.  But there they were, in the news, and I was intrigued.  After the hoarding died down and after we FINALLY made it through all that awful Scott tissue stash, I remembered the friendly bidet, and this week...

...I installed on in our powder room.  And that's all I'm going to say/show about that, butt suffice to say that I've ordered a second one.

And while I was walking with Merlin, I saw a nice kid meticulously mowing a lawn.  He looked to be about 13 or 14 years old.  When I returned later, he was finished with the lawn and speaking with the homeowner - an elderly man.  I heard them discussing the boy coming each week to mow and do general lawncare as the yard looked great.

The kid mentioned, "My goal is to, by the end of summer, make enough to buy a..."

As I was listening, I thought, "what a nice kid, working to earn some sought after item, and setting goals and doing good work.  He's probably got a gaming system or such in mind, like a lot of boys his age..."

But then he stated his sought after item.  I don't remember the name specifically, but he is aiming toward getting a better lawnmower by the end of summer.

Damn.  Hardworker AND he's got the entrepreneurial sense to invest his profits back into the biz?

And I'm over here with a coupla bidets...