Raven about forked apples
Or: My Life Under Virus Watch – Part 1
The downside of being a (self-proclaimed) pseudo-intellectual and semi-polymath, is that you hear a new term and the brain’s relational database immediately makes the word association (football) and you just ‘know’ what it means.
Like Covid-19.
I immediately thought it was a bird flu, as in it had jumped from birds to we Homo Sapiens too. Why? Because “Crows and ravens are part of the Corvidae family of Australian native birds” [source]. Note: there is no smiley, I really assumed that.
It’s actually a portmanteau; a linguistic blending of parts of multiple words into one. Coronavirus disease 2019.
Whilst Covid-19 has obviously upturned almost everything, I’ve quickly gotten into a good routine which enables me to perform something like another 180 degree rotational transformation. And so to somewhat reverse the impact on me.
Some quick snapshots of the daily routine…
Read, Learn, Write, Walk and only then Watch
I’m going to bed later. Say 10:30pm or 11 instead of 10. Reading my latest book Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year by Steve Turner. Actually it’s an eBook and on my new Kobo Libra H20 eBook reader. Or a non-news-site browse on the Ipad or PDF magazines.
[As an aside I have pretty much abandoned most – but not all – news sites and shows. My main focus is what the State and Federal Governments are saying to do and how that impacts me and my direct family. That’s my circle of concern; things I can directly control. A pragmatic, narrow, but laser-like focus. Of course I still keep in contact with non-family homo sapiens!]
Ok. Again in the morning I read the book then check the news (The Age etc) on the iPad. Up by about 7:40, in time the hear the major ABC news bulletin on 774 Melbourne radio at 7:45, then AM at 8am.
I’ve abandoned ABC RN weeks ago, due to the way Fran Kelly was interrogating and interrupting the doctors; demanding Yes/No answers and dates and not listening to their answers. That might work for a dodgy politician, but these were doctors, dealing with an unfolding situation that we’ve never been in before. There was no certainty. It was modelling and reasoned speculation, at best. No binary answers nor dates possible. FFS.
Ancora imparo
Anyway, the morning seems to fly by as I check emails, websites and may Blog. I’ll always try and create something during the day. It may be a Python program; a recent one was to scrape a web site and automatically grab a list of interesting movie titles. It’s a variation of an earlier one, but different enough to mean that I learnt something new. Plus I had some more films to add to my Must Watch One Day list.
In turn, this might lead to a Blog article on How to Scrape a Website in Python. I actually started that, but there was too much background needed; to explain the how and why. That morphed into the idea of a What is Programming? series. Which is on the way.
Up the street for coffee about 10:30 and then home – via a bit of an extended walk route – for lunch. Only then do I usually put the TV on and watch a show, with lunch.
One Hand and then The Apple
I regularly wash my hands, in QV liquid (over-use of soap gives me little red blotches, so my GP suggested QV about 2 years ago. He was spot on and it’s now spots off)
I prepare lunch with one hand behind my back.
I’m right handed, so I touch knives, containers, bench tops, fridge door – but not food – with my right hand. My left hand is behind my back. If I have to touch food, particularly things I’m NOT going to heat up, I use my left hand. Bread and rolls being the main things. I can also eat them with my left hand.
I then usually have an apple. Which is firmly impaled on to a fork, then washed in warm water. It’s eaten from the fork, so I never have to touch it. I came up with this and am quite happy with it.
Okay, that’s the first half of the day covered. And enough for now. Part 2 later.
