Down Under the Weather

— पांच हजार तीन सौ सत्ताईस — Last night was a rare Happy Hour with Laney on a Monday: just because it got postponed from Friday when she was going on only two hours of sleep, first to Sunday and then to last night. She even had yet another call scheduled for 7 p.m. with a couple other family members and so we had a hard out at that time. I joined the call sometime close to about 5:15, and then we took several minutes to get that fun photo out of the way. I was pretty eager to make that happen, mostly because Laney had been disappointed I never took a photo for our November Happy Hour, I believe the first time that had ever happened. So not only did I want to make sure it happened this time, but I wanted it to be a good photo even if it was one of our virtual hangouts. Next time: in-person Happy Hour in January! Probably at her new place in Renton, which she is set to move into sometime soon this month but had not yet happened so she was once again calling from her sister's for-now-empty house in Enumclaw. The photo was a bit of a challenge, with at least one funny outtake, because I balanced my phone against a skin lotion bottle set atop a tall box housing a bottle of tequila, and then I had ten seconds to get in the tight space behind the love seat and under the tree, with my eggnog cocktail in hand. We got it done, though, and were both very satisfied with the end result. I even cropped the shot down to my face to update my user icon on all of my socials, even though the shot is not as clear as I would like for that purpose, but it's still festive. It's barely noticeable but I also wore my Santa hat. I asked Laney if she had anything festive she could include in the frame, and the best she could do was her sister's table centerpiece, a kind of small wreath, which she held to her head like a jaunty little hat. That worked. Then I took her, on my iPad, back to the bedroom, where I could sit at my desk and illuminate myself so she could see me more easily, using the ring light Ivan left me when he last moved out. He had a tendency to buy things he didn't really use much, and sometimes I would later reap the benefit. Even the comfortable white padded swivel chair I use at my desk was regifted to me by him when he moved out after the first of the three times he's lived with me; I've now been sitting on that chair for nearly eight years, since January 2015. We talked a lot about the novel I am just a few pages from finishing, Ministry for the Future, which I have really enjoyed reading, even though it's a 563-page novel I got a late start reading and has tons of holds at the library which thus prevented me from renewing it, which means it will be a full month overdue on the 19th. Good thing I'm almost done! If I don't get it back by the 19th then they will charge me for the cost of the book. I already had my account temporarily partially suspended, but it will reactivate when the book is returned, and I can still put holds on others in the meantime. I won't have time for it tonight as I'm going straight from work to a movie, but I have both that and a DVD to return, which I figure I will do tomorrow. I have already put a hold on another science fiction novel that Laney recommended and I am very compelled by. That one has no holds so I should be able to renew that one at least twice. Anyway, Ministry for the Future is written by a very prolific science fiction writer named Kim Stanley Robinson—a White guy! He's the only other White buy besides me dad who I've ever encountered with the first name of Kim. (Did I ever ask Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin where they came up with that name for their fifth and final child? I bet I did. But I don't remember the answer.) He's written many other books and several sound interesting to me. Ministry for the Future is speculative fiction, set in the near future and focused on the effects of climate change and world government responses to it. One of the points I made to Laney is that I read more than once that it's "ultimately hopeful," but I have a hard time with that assessment when the hope the novel does finally end on only occurs after hundreds of millions of climate related deaths. That's hopeful? At the very least, the rest of the novel is nowhere near as truly bleak as the opening chapter, which details a heat wave in India so severe it kills 100 million people. That was fucking grim, and made me sort of steel myself for the rest of the novel. Things get slowly and surely better from there though, as that event is treated as a kind of tipping point, a thing that finally gets governments to take real action they never took prior. Anyway I highly recommend the book. Laney even added it to her list. In a sort of exchange, I added the one she had recommended, or at least told me she recently read a second time, called The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. It's basically about a man on a missionary mission to convert alien beings on another planet, which environmental collapse occurs where his wife is left home on Earth. Very much my jam! We talked about plenty of other things too. A surprise parade of some kind passed outside her house in Enumclaw, with a brass band and people on horseback. Neither of us could find anything online announcing an event there on this date, so that was weird but also kind of fun. It didn't even necessarily look Christmas themed. I even took a screenshot when she walked outside with what I assume was her phone; the resulting shot was very dark, thus reminiscent of a typical nighttime scene in 1970s films. You can still see a procession of sorts at the bottom of the frame, though. — पांच हजार तीन सौ सत्ताईस — — पांच हजार तीन सौ सत्ताईस — Now I am going to pack a lot of content in here, far more for my own benefit than for anyone else, just because, even though these will stay in my Gmail archives, I still want to preserve the information for posterity in my blog. It's not major news or cataclysmic or anything, just relevant to our hopes for the coming months. Emails between Uncle David and Mary Ann are usually composed and sent by Mary Ann. This latest was a rather long one from Uncle David, which I hadn't even realized both Shobhit and I had received overnight (technically it arrived our time at 12:47 am, which I believe was 7:47 pm their time) until Shobhit mentioned it as he read while on the toilet this morning. The short headlines: they are on a cruise; Uncle David hurt himself slipping on a wet wheelchair ramp; Mary Ann tested positive for covid in the immediate aftermath of that event. But I found Uncle David's full email both concerning and entertaining so I am going to paste it here. Just skip the rest of this post if you're not interested! My future self will be. Hello ... What a TRIP (stumble and fall) so far! -- Thursday night at the theatre was honestly great! The show "Come From Away" was musically and choreographically (?) outstanding. We got tickets as soon as they came online in Sydney. so had great seats. Don't know if Mary Ann has told you about the show ... It takes place in Gander, Newfoundland (Philippe Clement's cod-fishing place) on 9-11 (2001) when all US airspace was closed and scores of US-bound flights with some 7000+ passengers were diverted to Gander (population ~ 7000)! The whole cast of about 20 had multiple roles alternating between flight crew, Gander citizens and "guests from away". It was almost entirely musical, a few solos but mostly ensemble with genuinely clap-stomp-along music and movement. Live musicians on fiddles. guitars, (banjo?), Irish whistle, squeezebox, keyboard and percussion. There were interesting sub-plots between characters, but the main story was how the small-town people pulled together to help the guests (for about a week!) and how the guests responded. Great show, coming to Adelaide next year -- most highly recommended! Friday before leaving the hotel we did our mandatory COVID RATs -- both negative. Apart from hefting carry-ons (Mary Ann might tell you about hers), checking in and boarding the ship was dead easy and we were in our room in less than 30 minutes. Wandered around getting oriented, participated in free spa treatment raffle (unsuccessfully). Had tea with a couple from Bendigo, then off to bed -- tired! Saturday late breakfast, then Mary Ann into the adults only Solarium hot tub and me into the heated pool. MA yakked away with some woman and wandered back to our lounge chairs. I'd stayed in the pool longer, then decided to get out and go to the hot tub. I forgot how old I am. There's a ramp for wheelchair-bound guests to access the dunking chair for the pool. People with wet bodies (including me) were also using the ramp which made it really really slippery. David didn't need the handrail -- just slide down the ramp like a ski-jump! Bad idea! Lost balance, leaned back, feet fast-forward, head speeding backward and down, left hand thrown back to break the fall (as if ...) butt-bounce and back-of-the-skull-crack on the ramp. Meanwhile, Mary Ann had got up to get a dry towel and saw this small crowd of people at the end of the wheelchair ramp. She saw a pair of skinny hairy legs that disappeared into ... ME. I needed help getting up but really felt OK (so I convinced myself) when I saw Mary Ann was there. Long story continuing: after a while I realised my left wrist was 10/10 painful if moved in a certain way. Down to deck 2 Medical Centre for mounds of paperwork and 2 X-rays. Nothing broken but tendon damage (all medical attention free because it happened aboard ship). They fitted a wrist brace that honestly restored my confidence that I wouldn't move it the wrong way and some ibuprofen tablets. Then until now, neck, shoulder & stomach muscles are sorely buggered. NOW TO MARY ANN! ... She started sniffling away with a snuffly runny nose down in the Medical Centre. Soon after, Cough, gasp. sneeze, cough-sneeze ... snot into tissue! Then repeat and again and again into a sound-track loop... Back in the room we persisted, had tea at a different table and retired early. Poor MA was cold during the night. Sunday morning, we persisted with MA's audio loop, and I was getting anxious. We had a RAT left and would you believe it … She Tested POSITIVE for COVID! Phone call to Medical Centre. They’ll send an escort to take us down. We arrive to another mountain of paperwork, blood pressure and pulse reading and examination of the dreaded RAT. So dear Mary Ann has tested positive and has to be quarantined in our room for some days. And the audio loop continues and there’snot (!) much we can do about it! I don’t have it (yet) but am having RATs every morning. Theoretically, I can wander around the ship at will, but I certainly won’t. I’m staying with Mary Ann and I won’t risk infecting anyone else. EVERYONE aged 2 and over was supposed to have had a negative RAT result on the day of boarding. Some arsehole didn’t and we’re quarantined. Mary Ann was more shat-off than I was at first, but I’m catching up. On the positive side, we have a very comfortable room with great air-con and a lovely veranda. We have anything we want from the food menus delivered and taken away when we’re finished AND we’ve been upgraded to premium wi-fi and drinks packages. Everything good with you two? See Ya! David & Mary Ann. Now, I am going to share my thought process in response to all of this by sharing the reply I sent to them both this morning: Holy crap! That is A LOT. How is Mary Ann feeling now? It's endlessly fascinating to me the wide range of severity different people have of sickness when they test positive for covid. Some people are bedridden for a week. (I was mostly incapacitated for about three days when I had it.) Some people just have what feel like regular cold symptoms. Plenty of people have no symptoms at all—the very reason it's so scary-easy to spread, and why I continue to wear masks in all public indoor spaces, particularly retail or grocery stores and especially public transit. I am slightly anxious about our flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane in February, and the last time I flew I wore a straight-up N95 mask just to be extra safe, but that was just a couple-hour flight to Denver. I don't think I'll be able to sleep in one of those masks, so it becomes somewhat of a roulette game. We did just get our Omicron booster shots in September. Efficacy wanes in the months after a shot, but, I still take some comfort in now having had four total covid vaccine shots since spring of last year, plus I've already had covid once already. People do get re-infected, but very few people are as up to date as we are, which I figure will help. It would help a lot more if every American actually got every booster shot available and a stunningly small percentage has, but that's a separate conversation. Anyway, one thing to consider regarding the mandatory covid tests for all passengers before your trip: unless you have confirmed information that someone made it on the ship without testing, it's actually very, very plausible that a person who tested negative but still was infected made it onto the ship, or even that Mary Ann caught it somewhere else first before getting on the ship. False-negatives on these tests, especially home tests or antigen tests, are relatively common. When we had our Family Vacation in Leavenworth in September, my sister-in-law fell sick hard, very quickly, as we were all gathering to take our group family photo out in the backyard . . . they had covid tests with them (as did Shobhit and I, as did my parents—smart move all around) and were waiting for the results before Beth joined us for the photo. The test came back negative and they were like, "We're in the clear! It's not covid, it's something else!" Then she tested again two days after we all went home and she turned out to have covid after all. I've heard many stories now, actually, of people developing symptoms before they finally test positive, after first testing negative. (The general rule of thumb, I've been told, is that if an antigen test is positive, it's almost impossible for that to be a mistake. But, mistakes occasionally happen with negative results. My point is, that may very well have been the case with the passenger who infected Mary Ann, if indeed it was a fellow passenger. Although in all probability it was.) Oh and by the way, this was another curious thing about my sister-in-law having covid, which clearly had been the case with her in close contact with a family of over 20 people gathered. Not one single other person tested positive after that, or got sick, not even my sister, her wife who lives with her! Behaving under the assumption that you are likely to get it too is still the smart thing to do, obviously, but I'm getting the sense that with most people now having some level of immunity protection (whether from vaccination, previous infection, or both), the degree to which an infected person infects others is far more random now than it was in the early days. So if I were in your position, although I have no hard data to support specific numbers, I would assume there is just as much chance you actually won't catch it as there is a chance that you will. That said, if you are already developing symptoms by the time you are reading this, then we already know the answer to that question! I'm glad to hear you have received such quality medical attention, at least. In the U.S., people literally suffer terrible financial consequences just for getting injured or sick and it's disgusting. I have to admit, I cracked up and your description of an attempt to slide down the wheelchair ramp like a water skier. I can't tell whether you were joking to any degree about that: were you really trying to just slide down on your feet? or was that just a facetious description of how you wound up slipping? I know this is after the fact but I feel compelled once again to tell you to be more careful. You also slipped and fell on the Ocean Safari boat we took out on Kangaroo Island, do you remember? You didn't get too hurt then, but you really could have, it was a close call. All I'm saying is: I really look forward to doing a lot together when we come visit, but don't try too hard, and take it easy! By far the most important thing is getting to spend some time with you, and we don't need you breaking yourself into pieces in any effort to make it more exciting. 🙂 I don't know how interested Shobhit would be in it but I am very compelled by the premise of that play you saw, Come From Away. It sounds like a great show. In doing some online research, it appears there was a production of it here in Seattle back in the fall of 2015. It looks like it doesn't come to Adelaide until March 28 though, so that's way after we'll have been there. Looks like it will be in Newcastle the dates we are in Australia, actually. It'll be in both Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, B.C. (but not Seattle, sheesh!) in May; I may make a note and look into that. We don't intend to make any definitive, further plans for 2023 until we return from Australia and can reassess what we can afford to do. We're seriously tightening our budgets right now in service of making sure we have a comfortable time covering everything we'll both need and want on that trip to Australia—so much so that, I've already seen a couple of shows come to town that I was kind of dying to see but skipped buying tickets to save the money. I am curious about this: how many days total was your cruise scheduled to be; how many days into it did the positive covid test happen; and thus how many days are you (or at least Mary Ann) required to quarantine in the room? Is that it for the rest of the cruise? When do you get back? Whatever the circumstances, I hope you both can get through this with a minimum of further fuss; I hope neither of you get any more seriously ill; and most of all I hope for a speedy recovery! . . . I suppose it's selfish of me to bring some of this around to our scheduled trip there in February and March, but whatever, I gotta be me. I did make it clear, at least, that we need to be prioritizing their health and safety no matter what. — पांच हजार तीन सौ सत्ताईस — The photos in today's DLU, by the way, are a nice mix of visual references to both Laney and Australia—and thus, by extension, Uncle David and Mary Ann. The photo just below, at the bottom, are the koala and kangaroo Christmas Tree ornaments I bought at a shop on Kangaroo Island when we were there with Uncle David and Mary Ann in March 2020. The photo, which I think is quite lovely, was taken of them hanging off the tree in December last year. Those same two ornaments are what happen to be hanging in front of my face from the Christmas Tree in the Happy Hour shot I took with Laney on Facebook Video, which is the shot at the top of this post. Not nearly as clear due to the distance of the camera from the subjects and the use of zoom in low light, but still a fun photo. The middle photo references Laney only, and indirectly: it's a daytime shot from when she and I visited the Christmas display at the Volunteer Park Conservatory in 2019. — पांच हजार तीन सौ सत्ताईस — [posted 12:27 pm]