Life battles

The last few days I've been feeling quite knocked out; I guess it's payback time for the accomplishments of the last couple of weeks, in the garden and so forth. Also, I am tapering off some sleep medication and I've reached the point where getting enough sleep is problematic. I will persevere, but it is not fun. There was a couple of weeks when I was feeling quite proud of myself for tapering off so easily, but now it is a slog.

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I am in a battle with a rat. After Hapi died I threw a very old bag of dry dog food in my compost bin. It was too old to give away to another dog owner, so I thought it would be good to add to my garden compost. The rat agreed. It started digging tunnels into my bin and I started blocking the tunnels with rocks and bricks. Then it learned how to open the hatch at the top of the bin, so I weighted it with more bricks and rocks. Then it pried off the lower hatch for removing the finished compost. I blocked that with roofing shingles. 

At that point I thought it was time to resort to more serious measures so I went to the hardware store to buy rat poison. The clerk there suggested that a rat trap was better so I got that instead. The first night the rat set off the trap without harm and dug a tunnel beside the trap. I filled in the tunnel and reset the trap on top of the tunnel site. Last night it again set off the trap without harm, but I'm guessing it scared itself because it did not dig another tunnel. I'll try it again tonight. A friend wants me to use a live trap and maybe that is the best idea, I'll try that next. In the meantime it has probably managed to make off with half the dog food so soon there will be nothing left in the compost bin that it wants. 

The other very annoying thing this rat does is dig up my seed potatoes. Apparently it does not like potatoes because it leaves the dug up potatoes on the ground beside where they used to be buried.

In the photo above the black box in the upper left is the compost bin, you can just make out a couple of the bricks I put on top.

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I am reading A Life of One's Own by Marion Milner, first published in 1934. The author went on to become a distinguished psychotherapist, but the book is based on a life experiment she conducted in her 20s. She wanted to learn first hand what her life purpose was, how she should conduct her life, what principles she should live by. Should she "follow the herd," or abide by what the experts (at that time, mostly the Church) told her, or follow her own inclinations? And if she was to follow her own inclinations, what were they exactly? She decided to study her own life and to that end she began to keep a diary. 

In the beginning, her diary appalled her. It seemed that she could only write about very superficial things, and when she tried to look at what exactly she wanted from life, it was not very inspiring. At one point red shoes were high on her list of most wanted things. I had to laugh a little bit to myself reading her early entries, it sounded so much like my own attempts at a diary. I started a diary (or a journal, as we liked to call it when we were seeking those kinds of answers in life) on several occasions and each time that I actually read what I was writing I found it so embarrassing that I immediately quit. Nobody—not even me—wants to know what goes on in my mind on a daily basis. Ms Milner had pretty much the same reaction to her own diary, but she persevered.

Each chapter of her book starts with a literary quote, most often from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. She looked on her seven-year experiment as a kind of exploration similar to Crusoe's on his desert island. After all, we are born into bodies and families and situations not of our own choosing and must somehow make a go of it. Crusoe explored his island in order to ascertain what his situation was, what resources he had at his disposal, and how best to survive and perhaps escape the limitations of his lonely exile. Milner had the same idea for learning how to conduct her life.

When I was writing my embarrassing diaries I had the naive idea that the simple act of writing down what was happening or what I felt about what was happening would somehow be enlightening. It was not. Milner had the same doomed hope, but over time she perceived patterns that were enlightening. The things she learned in the course of her seven-year experiment it took me many more years to discover, and some of it I still have not discovered. So I admire her systematic and bold experimenting with her own life. More importantly I admire that she actually wrote down the stuff she learned.

Windows, Doors and Egg Rolls

I am getting new windows installed this week, they said it would take 3 days and they've just completed 2 days. All the new windows are in place and some of the trim. Tomorrow they will complete the trim.

Before coming in they asked me some Covid-related questions and then said they would be wearing masks and expected me to do so also, which I agreed to. As it turned out, one of the two workmen never wore a mask, but he also never entered my home, working strictly outside. I chatted with him at one point and he said he didn't believe in vaccines, but he realized that he was going to have to get vaccinated in order to keep working. I said nothing but thought, "good!"

While they install the windows I am weeding my garden, a task I don't relish but since I had to stay home but not in my house it does seem like a good time to get that out of the way. I think I am doing a couple of years worth of weeding.

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I dreamed about Hapi last night. We were on a trail we have often walked, she had her old energy back and was trotting along briskly with her tail up. Her coat was almost completely grown out except for a white patch on one shoulder. It was nice to see her back to her old self.

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So, a few days ago I was cleaning up the muddy patch on the back door left from Hapi scratching there to notify me that she wanted inside. I couldn't get it all off, I think she managed to scratch through the paint and it was going to need repainting. I was thinking about what colour I wanted, and that reminded me of the Green Door and the Orange Door, two Chinese restaurants in Vancouver. They are no longer there but they used to be on a back alley in that city's Chinatown. There was no signage and no advertising, you heard about them by word of mouth and you basically had to walk down that alley looking for a green door or an orange door. I don't remember which one I ate at (it was in the late 60s), but there were no windows. Once inside you felt like you were in someone's basement, with an open kitchen along one side and big dining tables along the other side.

My boyfriend and I asked for two egg rolls each plus a couple of main dishes. The waiter gave my boyfriend a funny look, but we didn't know what that was about. He went away and shortly came back to say that they had run out of egg rolls and we could only have one each. Okay, that's weird, but okay. He went away again and after a while he returned with the egg rolls. They were huge. Each one was a full meal. We immediately cancelled the rest of our order and the waiter did not seem surprised or perturbed by that, I think he was expecting that reaction. We were greenhorns and had no idea what was meant by an "egg roll". It was almost literally a rolled up egg omelet filled with ground meat and vegetables. I'm guessing three or four eggs in each omelet.

So remembering that experience, as a result of cleaning the door, I then wondered how you would make such an egg roll, and whether it was something I could reproduce myself. I tried it out with what I had and it was pretty good. I just used what I had in the fridge, some celery, an old carrot, a very old frozen soyburger, an onion, some sweet Thai garlic sauce, and of course eggs. My omelet wasn't big enough so there was too much filling and I had to just spread the filling on top of the omelet and eat it with a knife and fork. A work in progress.

Conspiracy theory and other news

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I was scheduled to pick up the truck in the afternoon and I had to go to the bank in the morning to get the cash. My bank is not in my town, I had to go down the road, and since I was there anyway I did a bit of 'essential' shopping on the way.

Picking up the truck involved getting a ride with J to the truck owner's house and then hanging out for an hour or so just yakking. It was a nice sunny day so hanging out was not so bad except that I really had to go to the bathroom and was thirsty as all get out. J is diabetic and was overdue for his pills so we both had 'personal problems' being there, but I guess it was part of the deal. The truck owner loves the truck and is very reluctant to see it leave, but he needs the money. J told me that the only reason he sold it to me was because J assured him I would take care of it the same way he did. That could be just a line but I believe J, I felt the same way about my old S10.

When I got home J came by after taking care of his own issues and installed the radio in the truck. It never did get an oil change so I scheduled one for next week. I called around about insurance, I was thinking of going with CAA because they offer a cheaper price than my current insurance company, but I spent so much time on hold just trying to get a quote that I thought better of it. The extra cost is worth it to have a local broker who answers the phone without resorting to a complicated menu of options, not to mention lengthy on hold times.

So now I have two vehicles in the driveway and am thinking of keeping both, one for summer and one for winter. The underside of the truck is in pristine condition, it would be a shame to expose it to Nova Scotia road salt.

It stays light so late now that after supper there were still hours of daylight left in the day and I hadn't gotten much exercise so I went for a walk. I visited my Bubble buddies about a 20 minute walk away and sat in their backyard watching their new puppy at play. The puppy is much bolder now and her teeth are needle sharp. She definitely needs puppy training but nothing is open at the moment. The vet also recommends waiting until all her vaccinations are in effect before she socializes with other dogs. Same as people.

Then my friend said something surprising. He mentioned reading an article about how the SARS-Cov2 virus (aka Covid-19 virus) is more than likely to be lab-generated. Among all us anti-Trump types that is a positively heretical thing to say, and I asked him what the evidence was. He said he was not science-oriented so he couldn't really say but he thought if I looked it up I might be able to understand the argument since I have a science background. He couldn't remember off hand what the article was and I didn't want to go in his house to see his computer since I have spent the last few days hanging out with non-Bubble friends. So I went home to look it up.

Well, the jury is still out, but when Trump said the virus might have originated in a Chinese lab, he definitely had access to suggestive information. He just kind of shot his mouth off about that without naming sources or verifiable facts. Because, if true, then American military and scientific organizations are also implicated, not just Chinese. Also, the PCR test used to identify Covid infections came so fast after the pandemic started (like, about a month) and is so specific and was so quickly peer-reviewed and published, that the origins of the test are also in question.

Anyway, I found a couple of articles in two different places that have describe such a scenario. The sources are not rock-solid virtuous tellers of the truth, but they are interesting and suggestive. I provide links below, look them up, look up the authors and the websites and make your own decisions. These days that's about all you can do.

We are all mostly aware that 'the military-scientific complexes' of several (if not many) countries engage in biological terrorism research. With the ability to not only sequence genomes of many different organisms including viruses and the technology to modify such genomes, scientists now can and do create genetically modified organisms (GMO). All over the world there are labs for doing so, some benign and some not so benign. Depending on how dangerous the research is considered to be, biological labs have different levels of lab safety protocols in place, ranging from BSL1 to BSL4. BSL4 is the most restrictive and therefore the most protective; the chances of an accident happening in a lab certified at BSL4 are very small.

However.

Scientists are human, every last one of them. One of the things we humans do is cut corners. BSL4 is uncomfortable and slows your work down by a lot. It involves wearing spacesuit type coverings and going through elaborate cleaning rituals and being tethered by air tubes and wearing gloves that make handling things difficult and headgear that make seeing things difficult. Not to mention hot and sweaty and awkward. There have been accidental releases of pathogenic viruses from BSL4 labs ever since that kind of research started, including a smallpox release that resulted in a number of illnesses and deaths. For the most part these accidental releases have been covered up and the resulting damage contained.

There is a type of research called Gain of Function, which involves adding a pathogenic function to an otherwise relatively benign organism. This means that, say, a coronavirus that is incapable of infecting humans, or causes only mild illness, is genetically modified to be lethally infectious and contagious in humans. The virus is weaponized. Once the deadly virus has been created the scientists then work on a vaccine for it. President Obama banned such research in the US, however there is an escape clause in the ban that allows some research to continue to be funded, particularly by the Pentagon.

So, what if such Gain of Function research was being done in a lab far far away but partially funded by an American organization interested in such things, but due to the BSL4 protocols being so onerous, there were lapses. What if that lab was, as many of these labs are, located in a densely populated city at the centre of a highly active air transportation network?

On the other hand, what would it take to get a virus from a bat cave hundreds of kilometers away to the city where the illness first occurred in humans? Especially since so far no one has yet to isolate SARS-Cov2 in the wild? Yes, SARS-Cov2 is very similar to coronaviruses that infect those bats but are not infectious or contagious in humans. But the necessary evolution from a bat virus to a human virus is complicated, at least as complicated as creating a pathogenic virus in a lab and allowing it to escape into the local human population.

SARS-Cov2 contains a small structure called a furin cleavage site in the spike on its outer coat that is the means of breaking through human cell membranes. Without the furin cleavage site the virus would be harmless to humans. The furin cleavage site on the SARS-Cov2 virus is fairly unique in its genomic structure, it is not seen in any coronaviruses related to SARS-Cov2. However other forms of furin cleavage sites are seen in viruses that are contagious and infectious in humans. Scientists have the ability with CRISPR technology to create and insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus. It could have evolved naturally, but so far there is no evidence of that.

China has sealed the lab records of the scientist at the head of such research in the BSL4 lab located in Wuhan, so we will never know for sure. Chinese scientists and officials have been cooperative to a certain extent, but vigourously deny culpability. Many other scientists and public figures have denied categorically that this happened, or could have happened. Because, if it were known to have happened, then public outrage would be pretty darn, well, outrageous.

Trump may not have understood the scientific or political details, let alone the need for secrecy, but he would have had access to this kind of information. He was inclined to say publicly whatever he thought played to his electoral base, and conspiracy theories definitely play to his base.

My sources are linked below. The author of the first link has a checkered past but is not altogether unreliable. I have not found any critical reviews of this particular article, but since it is relatively recent that may come. It is long and technical and far more specific and detailed than I have been, so read at your own risk:

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038

The following link gets a middling review as reliable. Again, read at your own risk:

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/peter-daszaks-ecohealth-alliance-has-hidden-almost-40-million-in-pentagon-funding/

I bought a truck

My old truck, November 2011

I bought a truck yesterday. Or at least, agreed to buy a truck, I will take delivery of it on Monday.

It is not what I intended to do, kind of a spur of the moment thing. I looked this truck up on the internet and it gets so-so reviews and the price we agreed on is a little high, but I don't care. When my friend J (B's son) dropped by to tell me about this truck I told him I'd think about it, but I was so excited that it was not possible to be rational about it. I realized that in spite of best laid plans, that truck was what I really wanted. So I went to see it, drove it, chatted for an hour with J and the owner, and struck the deal. He wants cash so I'll get that on Monday.

It's a Chevy S10, same make and model as my old truck, but a few differences. More powerful engine and smaller cab, somewhat more recent vintage. I had a relationship with my old S10 and was sorry to see it go, but I don't have a relationship with my current vehicle, it's just a means to an end. I am already very excited about this new(er) S10. Although it is not so new as my current vehicle; the term "new" doesn't really apply.

In a month of disappointment and sadness, it's good to have something to look forward to.

Into the heart of darkness

Yesterday I took a trip into the city for a medical appointment. It was a cancellation, so I only got the appointment the afternoon before and had to revise all my plans for the remainder of the day. I had planned to spend an hour or so working in the back yard—mowing and prepping one or two garden beds— but ended up spending more like four hours. Exhausting.

Anyway, we're not supposed to leave our communities except for essential reasons and a medical appointment qualifies as essential. Google mapped out a route for me that avoided The Rotary (every Nova Scotian's nightmare) so I was grateful for that. All along the highway were large handpainted signs thanking truckers and essential workers and flashing LED signs admonishing drivers to stay safe and not travel. Our numbers are going the wrong way, Strang and Rankin had expressed the hope we would see lower numbers at this end of the week, but not so. Third Wave Variants here we come.

My appointment was with a neurologist, a young woman. After applying nasty electric shocks to my arms and legs she told me my nerves are completely normal. But I still have nerve pain. She recommended Gabapentin. I said I had some leftover pills for my dog, could I use those?

She said, "I am supposed to say no, but my Mum was a vet and she supplied our antibiotics when we were little…"

She wrote a prescription for the drug. I tried one of Hapi's pills last night, and it was weird. Not sure whether I'll take any more. 

She mentioned that my GP had sent her a copy of a sleep study report that said I had severe sleep apnea.

I said, "What? She never told me that."

She said, "I can print out the report if you like."

I said, "Sure."

I read the report and what it said was that I had severe apnea in the supine position. Oh, that. I knew that. Right from childhood I had these awful nightmares about being paralyzed and unable to breathe. In the nightmare I would be struggling to move, I thought that if I could just move one toe or one finger then I would be able to breathe. Which was true. After many years, decades even, I put two and two together and realized that sleeping on my back caused the nightmares and they weren't really nightmares, they were actually happening. So I learned to never sleep on my back, and to avoid even sleeping on my side for fear of rolling over onto my back while asleep. The sleep study report just verified it. Apparently I spent one hour on my back and had enough apneas to qualify as severe. But once I got on my stomach, I was fine.

I had packed a lunch since I did not want to stop anywhere in the city if I didn't have to. I felt like I was at the heart of the plague and just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. I even hesitated to open car windows for (the unfounded) fear of the virus blowing in. But I wasn't all that hungry and thought that if I booted it I'd be home before I got really hungry. Stopped once for gas and that was it, home in time for a late lunch.

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Called my Bubble friend to tell her about some puppy supplies on sale in the hardware store flyer and we chatted about the puppy, and about the recent death of a mutual friend. I read in the little newspaper that comes with the sale flyers a tribute to this friend, I had not known about her death. The tribute took up the full front page and included a nice picture of her and her husband and children and grandchildren. Everyone I know who is on Facebook knew about it but I did not. I 'lurk' on Facebook but have not acquired any 'Friends'. I've often thought since the pandemic started that I should get back on since these days that's the only way to keep up with folks, but the price I pay for being on there regularly still seems steep.

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My son is working on an online film festival, he said he could stream some films for us to watch if I wanted to pick out anything I would like to see. I went over the list online and one stood out for me. It's called Stray, about three stray dogs in Istanbul. In Istanbul you are not allowed to kill, capture or move stray animals: where they live is their home. Vets tag stray dogs to keep track of them when they get veterinary treatment and to find owners for them, but that's it. 

Another film I liked the sound of was about everyday life in the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The blurb said it was not about the atrocities of war but simply what the people are like and how they get along. It is an area of the world that I would have loved to visit were it not for the various wars there. Istanbul too. I was talking to a friend on the phone about these films and she mentioned that her husband had visited Afghanistan a couple of times and hated it. He is/was a cameraman for a major TV network, he's been to a lot of places for his job. In particular he hated the smell and the bleakness of the landscape. My friend said they had to wash everything he brought back from there because of the smell. But he was only in one small part of the country, a military base to be exact, so I think that his experience was unique to that time and place.

Waiting at a crossroad

I went for my Covid test Thursday afternoon, the place was full of young soldiers. My town now has two testing sites, I went to the new one. At the door I was greeted by a young soldier who handed me a mask, but I was already wearing two masks.

He hesitated, saying, "Oh, I don't know what to do."

I whipped off one of my masks and took the one he was offering. The next soldier I met was positioned to monitor the line-up and send individuals on to the next station. I asked him where he was from, he said he was from the city.

"Thanks for helping out," I said.

I got my Covid test in the nick of time, they are no longer testing asymptomatic people until the lab has processed all the symptomatic tests. I guess one could lie about symptoms if one were desperate for the test, but then one would have to self-isolate until one got a negative result. So far I've had three tests and each tester has had a different technique. The first test is so far the winner for low discomfort quick efficiency, who knows whether it was as effective. The second test was the most uncomfortable, the third test took the longest time, the tester inserted the swab and then just let go of it and left it while she counted the seconds to herself. Then she twisted it a few times and withdrew it.

On Friday I felt a lot better so I think it really is just a cold. I am not expecting to get the results back nearly as quickly as before, maybe by Monday. They didn't tell me I had to self-isolate but it's probably the prudent thing. Who wants to catch a cold in these times? I certainly didn't.

It rained all day. The weather radar for the entire province was down and out so it was impossible to predict when it would stop, certainly the weather reports are completely unreliable now (Covid related). The garage owner said he'd drop off my car at the end of the day and took my payment over the phone. Ouch. Oh well, the car hasn't been in for repairs in a long time so I guess it averages out.

If it weren't for the fatigue and dizziness I would feel a lot better about the future. On the one hand I feel like I am at a crossroads with a lot of opportunities opening up for me to do new things, make new choices. On the other I am too damn tired to even clean up the mess of my past/current life. I am chipping away at the edges. Gave away some of Hapi's stuff, broke down a bunch of cardboard boxes for recycling, mowed the lawn for the first time this year. I've swept the floor a couple of times but it needs a lot more than a bit of sweeping.

I have a preliminary appointment with a chronic conditions clinic coming up and I almost had an appointment with a neurologist. Unfortunately, with the car in for brake repair and me with a (presumptive) cold, I had to pass it up.

"Don't worry, you're at the top of the list now, you'll get the next one," said the woman calling me.

I didn't really want to drive into the city in the midst of lockdown anyway.