Bah-Bah-Koo Time

It is now the 100^th day into this year as I begin writing this. I realize that with lockdowns happening, my talent or craft for some cheeky, humorous writing really has been suffering, noting how I haven’t found anything to give me much joy about relating to a bigger audience as we have fully entered into year two of this pandemic. The same joie de vivre has dwindled a lot for all the other activities that I ordinarily enjoy doing and sharing, namely cooking, with me rendered with a lack of gumption and focus from being in this sort of funk like many others with varying degrees of it. I’m returning to blogging to put a depressive state back in the can more than anything. 

After many months of negotiating, better fortune has finally happened, and I have come across a bit of a not-so-instant windfall. Not enough to radically spin my life around for the better, or have me ensconced with luxuries, but enough to make practical moves to replace and improve some things I have that have become inferior and useless from being aged and worn out. To pull me out of my funk, I finally gave myself some permission to stop instantly using my money to react to everything I see as an emergency, and to treat myself to something (affordable) that could bring me back to my happy place.

I was wondering out loud as to how I’d be using my bit of newfound money as I perused the online flyers for home fixtures and appliances in the company of one of the residents whom I serve, both joking around and getting her involved with my decision-making. At work, with the people I serve being clamped down under the restrictions of the pandemic measures, and with nothing much new having a chance enter and transpire in their lives because of halted outings, I’ve been finding myself more prone to taking stories of the ordinary and adding some zany and silly linguistic twist to them: to at least keep something novel and stimulating happening there rather than them being reduced to just having to endure the boring sight of me day after day. Some days it’s a struggle to do, but we do at least keep ourselves entertained that way. Anyway, it was a moment when I was imitating things said by some weirdo Cajun guy from some TV programme I overheard, for my pleasure in seeing her laugh and making her crack up. The only semi-intelligible thing I remember him saying at that time amid his hyped up jibber-jabber, was something like, “Ah sho do wanna gits me summa dat der bah-bah-koo!”  I adopted the word bah-bah-koo* (I assumed he meant “barbeque”) into my own lingo since that moment, as I thought about the sad state of my own propane grill. The word “bah-bah-koo” is perhaps most fitting word for it because, referring to the grilling system I’ve been using, it’s as shabby, beat-up looking, unkempt, and unsophisticated as that witless bugger from the Bayou from whom I first heard saying it that way was. For the longest time, I kept meaning to replace it; now with sales going on for them, and some means to do so, I could now commit to it.

People who know me are shocked to learn that despite having some flare/bit of passion for good cooking, I don’t already have the crème de la crème of BBQs to use for grilling at home. The acquisition of my old propane grill years ago, as I was still settling into this new place, was an odd enough event. I serendipitously found it at a winding up garage sale as I was cruising around on my bike through the ritzier neighbourhood north of me. Getting it was the ultimate reflection and testament to my stinginess and frugality. It was an already very abused and shoddy-looking specimen of a grill, but the owner claimed that it was still functional.  It’s only appeal to me then was that it had a sizeable cooking surface, it was ergonomic for my standards in dimensions and propane containment, and yet compact enough to fit and be stored in the corner of my miniscule deck space. Amazingly, the ignition button still worked, since it’s usually guaranteed that that’s the thing which first goes kaput on cheap quality grills, as one would expect on this one that was that old. After some strange course of haggling, I managed to get it for nothing and the guy even offered me five dollars just to get that hideous piece of shit off his lawn, as it one of the last things he had for sale, and he was in a rush to wrap things up and move on with other affairs of his day. I rode home quickly and returned there with my car, and loaded this dilapidated thing clumsily into my trunk, weirdly satisfied that I yet schemed in an extra five bucks to buy some sausages to grill once I got propane for the damn thing.

The old, Ex-Bah-bah-koo

Well, this thing I dragged home then was jury-rig repaired with some wire and a semi-compatible nut and bolt to haphazardly refasten the lid for it. It had served me well enough while continuing to be a degrading eyesore for another eight years; I still managed to make good things with it. However, it has got to the point now where this region’s weather has gave it a harsh ass-kicking, and there’s too much rust and corrosion in the firebox, where the venturi channels around the burners are starting to flake away and crumble to pieces. Cooking with it now would risk it heating unevenly: charring parts of meat too much while at the same time leaving other parts at risk for being raw enough to foster food-poisoning (something I don’t ever want to experience ever again) or, at the worst, being a complete fire hazard all together ready to blow up in my face. Time for a new bah-bah-koo!

This time, I decided to splurge a bit since I got this old one for nothing. However, getting my replacement grill was not easy. With my luck, I should have never expected for that to happen as such. I found a compact unit at one of the national big box retailers. I wanted to avoid public exposure as much as possible, but the store was filling up too quickly to capacity for my liking. I wanted to leave quickly. It was my just luck that the fates gave me the stupidest of useless boobs working there for assistance, who was young enough to be completely estranged from writing with a simple pen. He was writing up a slip for me to take to their warehouse, and with his handwriting, that he apparently couldn’t even read, he jotted down the wrong inventory number, listing me another model that was $600.00 more expensive than the one I wanted. I tore up the warehouse requisition slip in front of him as turned around and walked out the door. I then resorted to purchasing online, and then was notified that it would be ready for pickup the next day. I felt a little better for doing that, believing then, what was later proven to be false, that I had broke some link in this establishment’s chain of human stupidity.

The next day came, I got the email notification that my order was ready for pickup, and I show up at the service desk of the warehouse . . . and then, I really entered bizarro world. I gave my order number to some woman, who then was angrily barking orders at one of her subordinates, telling him to go and get me my kayak! Somewhat bewildered, I assert myself in correcting her that I came to pick up a propane barbeque grill (remembering at the last second not to call it a bah-bah-koo to create further confusion and misunderstanding). She then shoots some bizarre look at me with a flash of anger, as if I had some totally unwarranted audacity to challenge and defy her authority there, and for a split-second it looked like she was determined that she was going to send me home with a kayak, whether I wanted it or not! She shuffled her papers on a clipboard and mumbled something about a computer failure. It was an excuse that didn’t do much for her in saving face. Then along comes some guy ushering me to drive up from the loading bay to another storage locker. “Finally . . .  I got my BAH-BAH-KOO!”, I thought. However, I got there to discover that, even though this model of BBQ is more compact than the old one for deck space, the box it came packaged in was way too big for either the back seat or the truck of my wee little car: by about only 5 centimetres of clearance on the smallest dimension, and we could not compress or squish things down any further. Yep, I should have known that it wouldn’t be that simple. I was at least lucky enough to track down my brother who did have a sizeable enough vehicle for hauling it, and thankfully, he could find time to deliver it for me. He also availed himself to help transfer a big awkward box up some stairs with me without risking me getting another coronary episode. An hour and a half of assembling later . . . Voila . . . brand new bah-bah-koo!

I decided perfect thing to start grilling on this brand new virgin unit is going to be a well-aged steak for me and my girlfriend for our supper, despite the fact that it’s threatening to rain or snow. After that, there will be plenty of time to try to experiment with and master this thing and its nuances and features, with no fear of having my eyebrows blasted off my head, or my own self being left nice and crispy. Since there’s not yet much happening for social events in the coming warmer months, cooking more at home is still a pandemic reality. Maybe grouchy warehouse lady was indeed right, and maybe I do need to cut lose and get a kayak and go somewhere, but I haven’t got much faith that the tide of the pandemic will ebb just yet for that, and that it will be another summer of mostly solitary staycations. At least I have the happiness of being able to perform one culinary art with some greater satisfaction in the months ahead during the next 100 or so precious summer days we do have.

*- I became curious as to what Google Translate might actually come up with for this crazy word. It turns out that the phonetic (babaku) means “my father” in Sudanese.  

The Ethereal Nature of Money

With the Covid measures in place for over past an entire year plus a few weeks, the action and memory of using physical currency to pay for anything is quickly becoming estranged from me. Zero physical contact equals cards or e-transfers for purchases. I realize that one normal life thing that I miss since Covid came is the handling of actual cash. Before this whole shit show began, my last clearest memory of me consciously and physically handling real cash for some amount over $50.00 was for foreign exchange. It was when I was departing Cuba, just a few days before national lockdowns become a reality, using one of the currencies in a weird and complicated dual-currency system. Tourists, like me, were permitted to use the CUC (Cuban Convertible Peso): a special currency for foreigners to use, in which I was prohibited to remove from that country upon pain of imprisonment for suspicion of exporting it. Now, after reflecting on that trip. I learned that since January 1^st of this year, Cuba is no longer using the CUC; they will be phasing it out over a six month period. The two-currency system has since then has unified into one. Those same Cuban national banknotes, which could have gotten me arrested and put into a world of hurt by their government’s order, had I risked and been caught daring to attempt to smuggle them out of there, are now being rendered valueless and useless to everyone. With Covid arriving, we are all learning the hard way of how quickly the course of history can change, and the nature and use of money itself typically becomes a reflection of that as well.

Sometimes in my dreams, whenever there are significantly life-altering changes due to come to me (either anticipated or unbeknownst), I often get glimpse of me being involved in transactions where I’m handling strange forms of currency: handling coins or banknotes with unique characteristics on them that don’t exist in real life. These dreams are the most significant, sometimes even prophetic, once given some interpretation. Those ones usually involve manifestations of “money” with some sort of strangely engraved images on coins; or bills with some sort of weird colours, denominations, or depictions of wealth/power/influence/fortune/value. This recurring theme in my dream world has developed into a hardcore superstition in my conscious life: in which whenever I unexpectedly come upon finding some foreign currency, either as coins in my change, or finding and handling foreign banknotes, I will be soon due to have some sort of great or radical change in luck or fortune (not necessarily involving money, but not excluding it either).

The extra time being shut in during the pandemic has made me more inclined to explore my more eccentric, yet harmless, interests. Thus this conjunction of superstition and will for betterment of good fortune has morphed into the renewed interest into one of my other minor hobbies: collecting various forms of currency for the sake of ephemera. They are merely collected for the decorative and aesthetic fancies, such as with collecting stamps, matchbooks, or beer labels.

The banknotes and coins that I collect mostly have little to no value anymore except for that of their unique artistic flourishes, or some wild alternate paradigms of when they were once valued, or some representation of a caption of geopolitical history during the time at which they were once used as bona fide legal tender. A banknote is a thing that was an important element of peoples’ everyday lives, despite having no intrinsic value, and monetized for only a temporary period, where people put energy into, and take energy from through its course of the transactions of living. Because I’ve worked in museums with historical artifacts and had been immersed into studying tangible bits of history, a subject like this prompts me to do a bit of curatorial writing about it.

Most of the bills in my collection are now defunct and obsolete, mostly happening for the better in some

cases. Like in the picture here, in the top left corner I have this $1000 Confederate States of America note. It was a serendipitous find; I found it wedged in a book I had bought at a yard sale. It’s a reminder that some forms of money are based on precepts of pure evil. I look at it and I am reminded that the value of this terrible American Civil War relic was once reliant upon an economy based having plantations full of slaves, and that the denomination of this bill, perhaps this very banknote itself, may have once been used to buy and sell Africans as property for forced labour. Thank goodness that history came to be such that the only thing that this is good for now is for a book marker. Beside it is a ten rand note from South Africa; this one was once circulated during the Apartheid days. I keep it by the CSA* note as a reminder that more than one hundred years later, the stain of segregation/racism is slow to wash out, and it even sadly remains an integral part to some economies for a long time. I have an Irish Pound here: worthless in value, and beside that a 1000 bolivar note from Venezuela, a reminder that once I was in a place and time where I technically became a “millionaire” overnight, but also even that wasn’t doing much differently in terms of effecting my substance as a person. It did though bring me closer to more humility as I was immersed and operating in a society that was struggling in many ways. Ever since then, I have been ever more grateful that I have been born and raised here in Canada.

Since it is April Fool’s month, I can’t ignore the weirdest, most outrageous, token note I now have in my collection. Representing the abhorrent nature of hyperinflation happening during my lifetime and the surreal nature of economics and monetary value is my golden 100 trillion dollar banknote from the Republic of Zimbabwe. At the time when that banknote was last circulated, it’s value in Canadian dollars was approximately a whole . . . 50 cents! To break this down into some understanding of what a single Zimbabwean dollar was worth, I’m going to use a universally recognizable commodity for comparison: plain white rice. When I last bought rice, $1.00 Canadian bought me 500 grams of the stuff. Assuming (according to Wolfram Alpha) that a grain of rice is about 65 milligrams, then there are about 7728 grains of rice that can be bought with a loonie. Therefore, upon further conversion, a particle of 1/3.864 x 10¹¹ of a grain of white rice can be purchased with a single Zimbabwean dollar. I won’t go further into calculating how many actual starch molecules that actually is being bought on this scale. It’s a question too stupid for Wolfram Alpha to even compute.

This note is something I keep as a reminder of having a balanced attitude towards money: not to be too reliant on it for security, but not to be ignorant of it either. God forbid that someday our own dollar could crash and become instantly worthless overnight, or with the influx cryptocurrency, a whole new system will change based on different economical viabilities and regulate what this stuff can and cannot buy. Last month, even we here in Canada had a recent demonetization of some banknotes: the $1000 bills printed years ago are no longer usable as legal tender, and neither are any paper $2 banknotes. They are now just left to be collectors’ items in the numismatic sphere.

Of all the international monies that have existed, one of my favourite terms for money is the one that was used by the Germans for their former national currency: the mark. It’s like a true cognate with the English word “mark” which fittingly means an indication, a label, or a representation, not necessarily something that is fixed or substantial. The German word is a truer reflection of the way money really is. Marks for you is a reward; marks against you is a debt. By and large, at the end of it all, marks are insubstantial and don’t mean much of anything if they can’t keep you fed and secure. History-conscious Germans should know better than anybody. In more modern history, the German Republics in their various forms are perhaps the prime examples of how even a modern, progressive society can experience extremes in political upheavals and war, the reflection of them in regards to volatility of currency values since the 1900’s

The truth about money in its essence is an incredibly elusive thing. Two things would probably happen if you just walked down the street like a curious three year old, and asked random strangers if they knew what money really was. First of all, they would probably look at you like you were some sort of alien with two heads; bewildered and wondering as to how it could be that you don’t know or understand what such a ubiquitous thing like money is all about. Secondly, if they weren’t deluded, and truly honest with themselves, they will eventually realize that they don’t really have a sufficient idea, or an adequately simple, concise, succinct answer for that question either. Most of us operate only on an elemental level of knowing that we rely on it to survive and progress. The average person on the street can’t adequately explain how or why a currency attains a certain value, or how it relates to a central banking system and the many rules that regulate its circulation, or how its value fluctuates in comparison to others, or plays through the dynamics of things like inflation. It is further changing into something that gets even more complicated and abstract through this phasing into an era of digitization.  You need a computer scientist to explain and interpret the very esoteric features and details about how the 1s and 0s that represent my credit card debt are secured and different from the 1s and 0s compiled to form this typed paragraph. Good luck even finding 1 in 5000 people born in the last century who can correctly explain how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work. I freely admit that I’m no better than the average person at deciphering and making better sense of all this stuff either. I try at times to actively thwart this ignorance with some more intense focus on the subject. However, the only good thing that happens when I begin reading books/tuning into podcasts about banking, finance, commerce, and economics is that I find that they serve to be wonderful sleep aids whenever I have insomnia.

On a basic philosophical level, the only truth I believe to be evident about money, and the influence of its value, is what happens when one gets a large windfall of it. It accords to what I think billionaire Warren Buffet once said about the power of money on a person. What it really then becomes is an energy intensifier of what is already in your true character and personality. It will show others the real level of your altruism and kindness, or alternatively, your level of avarice, egotism, and overall malevolence, It will give an accurate depiction of how (im)practical one is as a person. If you are already a genuinely kind, beneficent, industrious, and generous person, when you have more money, it will enable you to be even more so, with an honourable use of such wealth. If you are malignantly greedy, slothful, egotistical, rotten, squandering, power-hungry, narcissistic, exploitative, impractical, superficial, with unfounded pride/sanctimony, or a false sense of privilege, and generally uncaring towards the rest of humanity: the way you use money when you get more of it will in all likelihood just unveil how much more of an asshole you already really are at the core of yourself. You only need look and see the example of type of personality of someone who would purchase a gold-plated toilet to figure that out for yourself.

*- Just because Confederate States of America and its currency are a past evil doesn’t make the current US dollar any more of a wholesome thing. For example, think about how most of the international narcoterrorism cartels are funded, and the how the US dollar is used primarily as the preferred backbone vehicle currency of that whole operational organism of smuggling, bribery, corruption, cartel violence, and actively creating another economy of enslavement (in Latin America and other production locales, and by fostering addictions) and the social strife that entails all that.   

Reconciling 2020; Advancing to 2021

I usually have a blurb or two to jot down at year’s end for my own sense of posterity. I’m later than usual about getting around to posting something about it. However, this past year of 2020 has, of course, been significantly different. I really had nothing good to say about it except that I managed to survive it, quite literally. And that’s not even taking to account the happenings related to the pandemic. I’m just so glad that it is finally over. I came out of it somewhat scathed, and more perplexed at how people adhere to stupidity and ignorance and other ideas that are the antithesis of science as a coping mechanism, but at least I came out of it. I’m thankful for at least that. It’s about the only thing that I can find to reconcile with how wicked the year was to everyone. I permit the first five days of the new year to slack off and dream about what challenges there are to overcome, and then use the remaining 360 days to manifest some sort of order for dealing with it all.

So then, what is it that I’m looking forward to in 2021? It depends on if people smarten up or not. I know that since last September, I’ve already been relegated to take on improving my health seriously and radically in some instances. Resolutions in that area are already becoming a reality and a work in progress. I suppose the beginning of 2021 is the time when I am going to get more feedback about if my efforts are working out for the better. I’m clearing my way to get vaccinated as soon as possible, whenever I get notice from Health Canada or the provincial authority for my turn. My other ambitions I’m keeping private. The markers I use as my qualifiers for meaningful year-to-year transitions are as follows

Last Purchase of the Year: I recently upgraded to a new iPhone. I (used to) think that I am pretty savvy at figuring out new technologies. However, skipping up to something that is an advancement of five generations from my last model of iPhone is a bit daunting. It makes me feel like a monkey playing with a shotgun. There are some things I can appreciate about it; others are a little too tricky for me, or clash radically with my modality of doing things.

Book of the Year: The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion. I actually received it in Yule Bookfest celebration on the last Sunday before Christmas in 2019. It’s a quirky, and touching book, but I honestly just finished it recently. The storyline of a maladjusted kid struggling through school and life pulled at scabs of memories of my own educational upbringing (which I hated). I loved learning things: I hated school. It was a valid of story of maladjustment that helped me endure a thoroughly despisable year awash with an environment with new stressors we never normally had to think of before.

Scotch of 2021: A single malt 12 year old Macallan. A non-smoky, light of caramel, honey-bodied elixir, with notes of apple, cinnamon, and a bit of vanilla.

I’m hoping that the year 2021 will be a year of progressive, yet cautious, re-emergence. I certainly got a good shocking glimpse at what I really have undervalued. With continued discipline, I hope this will be the year I will pull myself through the worst of what has happened in the year that passed. 

5Q5A: The Coronary Adventure Entry

I have returned to work now after a long absence, which included a bit of a setback which delayed me from doing so for an extra week. So now, hopefully, this means things have settled down to a point such where it’s safe to note what all has transpired for me through most of September and October. I’m still struggling for the correct and accurate words for this whole period of trying to process all of the changes for what is becoming my new normal, and facing the new realities of now living with a coronary condition. People have been wondering what happened to me, and I felt compelled to set things straight, as I hate being some subject of rumour and speculation. Me being me, I also don't like repeating the same sordid story verbally a thousand times, over and over again. It’s why am writing this out. Besides, as with having had clotted-up lungs from embolisms a few years ago, talking excessively seems again to be very energy-sapping for me. So here it is, finally: my detailed account of what actually happened for others to read on their own time. 

As much as I really don’t want to chronicle any of the dreadful things going on during this ridiculous year of 2020, this subject has been too significant for me to simply ignore. It was too life-threatening not to ignore, and it necessitates some form of course corrections here on after. I hope it serves as a cautionary account for people who may have experienced similar initial symptoms, especially to my family members, since, by the looks of it, what happened to me appears to be primarily derived from genetic factors.

Q1. So, what happened?

A1. In mid-August, I had an incident where I had some bewildering chest pains, which just happened to coincide at the instant of drinking a hot beverage. I thought I just somehow scalded my esophageal tissues, with the pain and discomfort being concentrated right in between my throat and stomach, where one would naturally expect to be afflicted after such an ordeal. The worst thought I had was that perhaps I had some sort of diverticulitis occurring, where the hot fluid had collected and was searing me in a central spot along the tract at that particular moment. I added no more drama or concern to it and sloughed it off, with no more than a self-warning of smartening up and drinking tea more sensibly. Days went on, and I then began noticing more upwellings of uncomfortable pressure in my chest.

“Oh great, now after that tea thing, maybe I did damage to some nerve controlling the upper valve of my stomach.”, I speculated. I thought I was then just experiencing some prolonged bouts of acid-reflux as a consequence. I did try to arrange an appointment for a clinical visit; but given that the pandemic was taxing resources and services at my (and every other) clinic, I was just told to visit the hospital. I was stubborn, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk exposing myself to a possible Covid-19 hot zone just to be treated for what I assumed to be acid-reflux – honestly, would you? I opted instead just to self-medicate with antacids, even though I honestly didn’t really know what heartburn really ever felt like. I honestly can’t remember ever having it at all. The other thing that made me discount the seriousness of the situation was my own personal history to (wrongly) reference from, that is, of the time when I had pulmonary embolisms in both my lungs. Yes, I had similar pressure feelings in the chest, but I wasn’t having any of the laboured breathing or dizziness, thus making me think that nothing really bad was happening to anything more vital. My denial of it being something worse was pretty much fixed in me mentally, given that I wanted to avoid a hospital visit by any measure. 

I began noticing that the frequency of the pains came whenever I was more active, and then subsided when I just took 5-10 minutes to settle down. By this time, a long stretch of some long-awaited holiday time was approaching, and I resigned myself to focusing on relaxing and enjoying that time, again sloughing this issue off.

“Maybe this discomfort will just disappear during and after my holiday time. Ample time for this reflux issue to fix itself.”, I thought. Since there really is no where to go during a pandemic, relaxing was about the only thing I could do. The pain still lingered a bit, but I was also gradually starting to notice how depleted my overall energy was becoming; it totally dissuaded me from trying to make manifest any projects I had been dreaming about, and other activities. The symptoms subsided a lot with less activity; with that happening, Hence, I further disregarded the chest pains as being part of a bigger issue given their lessened occurrence. I went back to work as expected once my holiday time passed. Once the more rigorous usual scheduled activity was going on, the pains returned, with more intensity. I went home that evening, swearing to myself that I would go to the emergency ward if things didn’t improve. On the morning of Tuesday, September 15^th, 2020 ,  I did just that. . . 

Q2. What was the result at the hospital?

A2. A long goddamned wait is what happened at the hospital – I was side-lined in the ER unit for a day and half! The chaos with accommodating for the Covid precautions was part of the issue, I’m sure. I was given an ECG, but it showed my heart rhythms being somewhat normal, so negative ECG readings for anything traumatic to my heart was probably also why I was put in triage for far longer than I should have been. My lab results, however, told a very different story. They showed that my body was churning out the hormone tryponin, which was a major indicator of some real distress going on with my heart. After all the blood tests, and finally getting to the catheter lab, and then echocardiogram imaging, it was determined that the anterior descending coronary artery in my heart was over 90% blocked. It was disappointing news to say the least. What ultimately was determined was that what I was actually experiencing was angina, resulting from what is known as an n-STEMI coronary event: a fancy technical way of saying that I had an atypical form of having a heart attack. Thankfully, anything that could have resulted in infarction or any permanent necrosis of myocardial tissue was very minimal, if it ever even occurred at all. Luckily, I managed to get to the hospital just in time before the blockage was complete; avoiding something even more devastating, or even lethal.

Q3. How was this treated?

A2. I was expecting to get a stent inserted in my artery during my first trip to the catheter lab. However, the procedure was halted because another anomaly was found. Apparently, I had an older, more chronic accumulation of a blockage formation farther down the length of the same artery that they were going to fix. This one happened gradually enough such that my own heart was triggered into performing its own natural angioplasty to deal with it; and had created a subset of what are known as collateral arteries on its own to bypass this older blockage. This new discovery necessitated a consultation with a group of cardiologists to figure out to deal with this. A renewed plan of action for an adequate alternate stent procedure was settled on. Catheters were needed in both my arm (brachial) and my leg (femoral) for trip number two to the catheter lab. Initially, two stents were going to be applied, a procedure that was estimated to take about three hours. Luckily, during the application of the first stent, the older blockage managed to dislodge and clear itself away with the renewed flow of blood and pressure in that section of the artery, resulting in only a procedure that lasted for only 45 minutes.

Q4. How is the recovery going?

A4. The same answer as for whenever I have to take time to recover from anything medical: too bloody slow! I had to harshly remind myself, to look at my bruised, swollen, purple arm, the site of the catheter insertion: that this was a reflection of the hemorrhaged clotted state that my heart was actually in after being probed at and poked around, and trying to adjust and accommodate for lots of blood thinners for a bit of new steel meshing. Each day is at least a small step forward towards some progression for the better. The weird sensations of post-operative twitches and aches are lessening. The energy I lost is returning, and at a more predictable pace: more so than the time I was recovering from the pulmonary emboli. It has been a sobering look at how really run down I was actually getting through the whole situation before I had the sense to get to the hospital. I’ve sticking to my rehab plan as best as I’m able to so far. Even though I am back to work, trying to resume a more normal rhythm of life, I still have a few weeks to go yet before I get to a place where my stamina is fully restored. The most bothersome thing that I’m trying to reconcile with is that despite the fact that I personally have been trying to opt for a healthier diet and lifestyle, and doing whatever I could to avoid being a either a vector or victim of the novel Corona virus, this slow ticking bomb latched itself to me anyway. Such is the way luck seems to be going during the year of 2020.

Q5. What does moving forward look like?

A5. The following things are going to be my new normal:

• No more being dismissive of any sort of chest pain/uncomfortable pressures ever again 
• Shifting my diet away from excessive triglycerides (less red/fatty meat), less sodium (though I never really strongly craved salt); and instead consuming more fibre (fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds)
• Less alcohol
• A better effort to reduce my BMI
• Being even more diligent about preventative measures with the pandemic virus, as those with heart problems are speculated to be statistically more susceptible to suffering the more severe life-threatening symptoms in the spectrum of Covid-19 acquisition.
• Learning to relax more; not being always so fidgety with some need to be engaged with some senseless form of busy-work
•  Ditching negative people, especially those who have nothing better to do than regurgitate toxic ignorance, outlandishly dramatic political viewpoints, and conspiracy theories.
• Trying not to think too far ahead into the future; shutting off the news is important for that
• Overall, a better pursuit for peace in my life. It’s a hard and challenging thing to do during these times, but it must be done.

This has all been a reminder of how short and fragile life really is.  It sure has also shown me the best in the people I love, and who and what matters most during these strange and challenging times. 

Berry Foraging, My Pemmican Project, and Ugly Fish

I have no shame in saying that the constant daily influx of being mindful of the presence of lockdowns, the masking up, the event postponements, the extra measures for social distancing, the death tolls on the news, concern for family and friends, the ineptitude of some leaders and governments, and some of the willful ignorance of the public in general, to deal with this matter responsibly and seriously, are all making it harder for me to avoid a depressed state. Today is Day 2 of a 4-Day weekend for me. There’s offerings and opportunities for overtime abound coming to me, but I am not tempted at all to take any right now. I poked into work to take OT during my last 4-day weekend, and it did me no good at all in retrospect. A four day weekend happening every six weeks is the only positive trade-off I have after my schedule had been jumbled around as it has since the Covid-19 measures took effect. It’s (allegedly) summer, and I should be using these days off wisely.

However, yesterday was a day that I felt I didn’t play out so well in being wise, at least in the beginning of it. I had absolutely no energy or motivation to do anything constructive for much of it, but I did force myself to move. I thought of going fishing, but the prospect of facing a stampede of ticks charging at me through the rushes and grass along the river shore near my favoured spots wasn’t anything I wanted to contend with right then. Mid-July is the beginning of canning season for me typically. I did brew up some Watermelon Rind Pickles, but there was no heart in that task: it felt more like a job of being stringent to stop household wastage rather than an act of pride of creating a homemade culinary pleasure. Something reduced to a menial cleaning duty, like mopping a floor, or scouring a toilet.

Mid-July here is also Saskatoon berry season, and, even though again my energies and instincts didn’t feel right, I forced myself to try a bit foraging around some spots where I correctly guessed that there would be an abundance of bushes - to at least feel a little more useful and productive. However, it wasn’t very fruitful - literally. I also correctly guessed that they would have also had been picked over already by other foragers, since shutdowns have made it more likely that some of those without work were more resourceful in using the extra time to snoop around for free seasonal food. Surprisingly, I managed not to invoke furious swarms of mosquitoes as I rustled through the bushes, being so close to the river, but an hour or so in the oppressive humidity was enough, and I tapped out. The few odd good berries that were left were sparse, some were already becoming desiccated, and amidst puny immature ones that only birds would take interest in. I combed the area, working along for at least a kilometre southward, to only get a yield of about 400 grams of berries of mediocre quality.

I tried not to allow all this effort to become another senseless waste of time. These saskatoons were not of any size or quality to be usable for dessert fare like pies; too miniscule of quantity to use for jam. I found the thought of working an hour to make what would amount to a couple of fruit smoothies ridiculous.

The thought of another possible use for them struck me as ridiculous: making pemmican. The ridiculous part being that I lived all my life here in this province, and I have never once sampled any sort of pemmican. It’s now considered to be an archaic foodstuff, heading down the road of dietary obsolescence, like many other food traditions that have become obscured and extinguished since the advent of modern refrigeration, and food preservation science. I can forgive myself, and I won’t be too self-critical about that kind of ignorance on my part. Very few people here, in fact, even amongst those who are of native ancestry or Métis, from which it originated, have ever sampled pemmican in this modern age. When I shared this idea with my girlfriend, she looked at me with the expression like she saw the needle on my weird-o-meter flip over into the red zone, that mirrored a conclusion that the Covid situation is turning her poor boyfriend into some sort of crazy, paranoid, doomsday prepper*. That seems to be the only isolated subculture remaining that is taking a serious interest in making pemmican; if not eating it, then storing it in some bunker somewhere, where it awaits them for Armageddon. That is really kind of a shame, because it’s something that would be an honestly true local Canadian/Saskatchewan food: a meat preservation technique that has been used to sustain the indigenous people here for centuries, if not millennia, but not readily adopted for our modern culture here in Western Canada. I’d like to see it be given some more due respect as a food with some historical significance and cultural identity for this province. I’m not saying that it has to be made popular again, but the technique for making it should be at least given some honour, and be preserved for posterity, like the rest of those so-called pioneer recipes that were collected for the sake of the history of the communities of our province. 

So, out of my own scientific and anthropological curiosity, I decided to commit to this project. It comes as a disappointment to my girlfriend, who I’m sure would have rather preferred that I try make her some scones with those few saskatoons I found.

Making pemmican merges techniques of preservation that intersect the making of sausage and jerky. It’s simply made of lean, dried meat; mixed with mashed, dried berries, maybe with salt if it was available; blended and coated with melted tallow. After that, it is then pressed, formed, wrapped, and when packed in an air-tight container, it’s one of these foods that can last nearly forever (if kept dry) without further need of resources to preserve it (hence why preppers really dig this stuff). It is a food that’s energy-dense (without any carbs/added sugar) and protein-rich, and also readily portable and easy to cache without refrigeration, or other sophisticated method of storage. That was the appeal of it to the indigenous peoples, and later to the traders, trappers, and frontiersmen in the early days of settling in this territory. It’s as perfect a food that can be made for the practical purpose of enduring the rigours of outdoor living and/or a hunter-gatherer nomadic lifestyle: be it grunting along portaging canoes, chasing down your next meal in the bush or on the plain, or just for plainly and simply surviving in an uninsulated, flimsy walled, collapsible, portable shelter during the worst of weather inclemency. As a diet food, you can’t get more Paleo than something that was actually crafted since the Stone Age.

I have actually tried to make pemmican once before in my lifetime. It was back when I was in the sixth grade in school. Making “pemmican” was part of our social studies class project when we were learning a bit of the aboriginal culture and history of our province. We used hamburger and saskatoon berries mashed together the “traditional way”, by using rocks, but the drying process failed completely. I remember afterward, as a result, we had containers full of horrible, maggot-festered, slimy, rotting mush; with a gag reflex-triggering stench. It was definitely a moment where that could have dissuaded me forever from ever being curious about it again.

Traditional forms of pemmican aren’t just restricted to bison and other wild meat - but can also made of something that required more of an acquired taste. I was made aware more recently of a sort of fish pemmican made by the northern Dene people of this province. The substance in question, if I remember right, is something called “losh”. When first told about this, I was uncertain if it referred to the fish used, or the recipe for its preparation. The Dene method of making this stuff involves taking the big, fatty liver from fish we call a mariah (pronounced the same as the first name of the singer Mariah Carrey). It’s also known by the other names, varying regionally, of burbot, or ling)**. I’ve always known it being called by the first name I mentioned. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a freshwater relative to cod, with a fat, flat, frog-like looking head with a lower barbel on it, and an eel-like tail. As far as native species of fish in this province go, this one isn’t likely ever going win any beauty contests. It’s an icky dull brownish colour, and it’s about as ugly looking as a pail full of smashed assholes. Anyway, this creature’s liver is mixed and mashed together with dried cranberries, and perhaps some parts of its pulverized flesh. The rest of the process and details of preparing it is of no interest or consequence to me because I’m quite sure that I would never fucking ever eat such a thing anyway. I won’t knock its possible nutritional benefits though. It’s probably a very potent and practical nutritional powerhouse, loaded with all the same vitamins that cod-liver oil supplements have. Sensible to eat in a Northern area where plant-based vitamins are lacking most of the year. The point is that its preparation/composition has the common elements as that of pemmican: basically some sort of mix of flesh, dried berries, and animal fat. Apart from that, I imagine and assume that the traditional way of adding some seasoning and flavouring to food in the pre-colonial times for the aboriginal people was pretty much limited to just using salt or wood smoke.

Getting back on track. I decided to start this project today. There was no set method amid any of the recipes and techniques I reviewed online, so I’m jury-rigging my own from the bits and pieces found that accord to the materials I have in my kitchen.

Meat, salt, and saskatoons

I originally thought I was going to make my first pemmican trial as authentic as possible and use bison meat. However, even a modest quantity of bison meat costs a mint, and it would be a shame to have a possible failure result with such a great expense. So, I opted for the leanest beef I could find: some trimmed eye of round, using about two kilograms worth, accounting for the fact that the weight will shrink to about half or more once I dry it. The melted tallow component is actually beef suet. If you are already feeling repulsed, and going “Ewww!”, and are of British ancestry, I remind you that there is such a thing as suet pudding in the English gastronomical circle. The butcher I visited told me that there is little difference between the two, and process of rendering it would probably be easier. I got myself a kilogram of that to render down (using my slow-cooker). That, plus my 400 grams of berries, mashed and muddled with about 2 tablespoons of salt were my total ingredients. I sliced the beef pieces to about a 5 millimetre thickness. I coated them with the mashed and salted saskatoon berries. I placed some on an even single layer on a mesh drying rack in the oven at 225 degrees F (107 degrees C) for several hours. The rest of the slices that would not fit on that rack were put in my food dehydrator. 

I dried the pieces until they were about half their original volume, and quite rigid and no longer sticking to the rack surface. Using my hand meat grinder, I then ground down that stuff and got a yield of about 750 grams of berry/meat component. I rendered off enough suet for about an equal weight of it to make a 1:1 mixture. I blended it together while the liquified suet was still warm. I got a consistency in the mixture that looked like a thick lumpy pudding. I lined rectangular containers with wax paper, poured it in these molds, and allowed the mix to set and cool. I used a paper towel to blot off some excess grease from the surface of my cooling pemmican bricks.

Suet added to the mix.
The bowl on the right is the
remaining cracklings from the
rendered suet. They won't be
wasted. I'll add them as filler for
my next sausage-making project.

Rectangular containers lined with
wax paper to form my "bricks".
It makes this operation look
somewhat illicit!

The finished product all set and wrapped up.
One innovation I used for forming (not exactly
traditional) was a homemade wooden press used
for making sushi.

If you are as crazy or adventurous to copy what I’ve been doing, know this. Beef fat hardens quickly and is more waxy than it is oily/greasy. Never dispose of hot beef fat down your sink! Unless you want a visit from your plumber. I haven’t done this myself, but I felt compelled to warn people who might be silly enough to try to do that. Wipe and scrape off as much of the splatters and excess residues from your surfaces, bowls, and utensils and dispose in the garbage before you wash them.

My Verdict: The process was a lot more labour intensive than just making straight up jerky or even making sausage. I found it to be a bit messier than those processes. The texture after it finished setting was kind of waxy, as could be expected. I have not actually tasted it yet; I’m waiting for a bit of biochemical magic to happen first. I stored most of the bars in my freezer except for one. That one is the smallest of them which I kept out in room temperature that will be used as sort of a sacrificial scientific assay, to see and monitor if, or when, any decomposition does occur. If so, how long will it take place? I’m also curious, given that there are sugars in the berries trapped in an anaerobic environment, if any sort of secondary fermentation process will happen, as like when dextrose is added to salamis that are hung to air dry and be preserved that way by sort of being pickled in the residual alcohol internally, which also gives them a signature flavour.

If I dare myself to make this stuff again, I think my next berry ingredient will be some further reduction of a blueberry jam that I made that did not set and was thence rebranded “blueberry syrup” to recover from my failure. I also have dried juniper berries which could be interesting. I saw a version with honey added, another forever food, which may help with its conservation.

I’m now curious as to how to use it culinarily, apart from just whittling away at a bar of it and eating it off the knife while camping in the bush somewhere, or while ice fishing, or keeping a bar of it packed in a winter roadside emergency kit in your car’s trunk. I imagine it could be used the same way as being set on a charcuterie platter, or the same way Ukrainians (from the old country) traditionally eat salo (smoked/salted raw pork lard), i.e. with bread, pickles, and vodka. Who knows? Avenues of further innovations could start from here.

*- Not so, I just need to pull myself out of my blue funk with something novel to do.

**-Taxonomical Name: Lota lota. That seems fitting for a fish that’s a whole lota ugly. Whatever you chose to call it, it is one of the more disgusting living things you could ever pull out of a lake in Saskatchewan aside from leeches. My problem with this fish isn’t really with some prejudice against its appearance, but rather after having caught a few these from several winters of ice fishing, I’ve too often seen many come up through the ice riddled with little gray-white parasitic worms that are clinging to their bodies. A consequence of its habit of occasionally burrowing in the silt and muck of a lake or river bottom. It certainly thus doesn’t make the thought of willingly eating one of these things any more appealing, although some who are bold enough to eat these things swear and claim that there is a bit of a lobster-like flavour to them.

The Samosa Synchronicity

It has been a crazy ride through this year since early March: the last time I posted an entry in this blog. We are now, from this entry, four days away from reaching the halfway point of 2020. I could not muster up any energy or wits to make any effort to write since then. It has been a year that I really don’t wish to put into any chronicle or commit to written memory for posterity. It’s bizarre that I’ve taken time to try writing now because, for one thing, I’m completely exhausted. I’m at the mercy of having to routinely readjust the circadian rhythms again to doing rotations. I really shouldn’t find it so bad, as I’ve had six weeks already to acclimate to it. However, this week overlaps and phases into a period of an unrelentingly loud construction project happening along my street, moving progressively closer to my building since it started four days ago. Enough said about that. On the one hand, I am scared of the realm of alternate thinking and surreal cognitions I get after prolonged sleeplessness and exhaustion, and at the same time, I yet can’t help but to be intrigued and curious about them as well.

Throughout this malaise, I’ve found one strange pattern of coincidental connections that I felt compelled to write out. Last night, while I was in tranced-out stupor, flipping through channels on the television, I came across the movie Pi, a black and white, late-90’s cult film. It was a movie that I had mentioned and explained to one of the people I serve just a few days ago.  I stopped flipping channels, and started re-watching this movie, which is centred on an eccentric, introverted, mathematical genius loner, who is burning out rapidly from doing his research, and suffering from migraines and various other mental afflictions, mostly anxiety disorders, later on including hallucinations and paranoia. Apart from having the genius level for maths, and the hallucinations and paranoia, I found everything else about him quite relatable at this time. It was the mission of the character to find mathematical connections, correlations, and causalities with pi and the stock market. He incidentally finds a mysterious number in his results which sets him on his adventure involving him and his various antagonists. In one scene in the movie, the character (Max) is greeted, (he reacted like he was cornered and accosted), by a lovely South Asian neighbour in his apartment building who was kind enough to offer him some samosas. I then yielded to my own exhaustion and soon managed to fall asleep in front of the TV right after that scene. I recalled as I watched that show that the last entry I wrote here was related to the subject of Pi. I reviewed it because I had nothing else to do. Shortly after doing that this afternoon, out of the blue, one of my neighbours, who is originally from India, approached me and kindly offered me, of all the possible foods she could have offered me, samosas. I think I reacted being quite weirded out by this wild moment of synchronicity, perhaps shocking her a bit by such an expression I’m sure my face had, freaking out in the inside of me at the realization of this coincidence, falling short of reacting the way Max Cohen did when his neighbour approached him.. The samosas were delicious by the way. The strange and fateful way at which they seemed to have miraculously manifested themselves to me made me appreciate them even more.  

It’s perhaps not as enthralling and fortunate as a story akin to dreaming of winning a lottery, and then finding oneself holding the prize ticket the next day, but delightfully strange and surprising, nonetheless. I debate to myself if this is an actual genuine instance of the so-called Law of Attraction, or if it is something else viewed through a more cynical lens. Through this huge onslaught of life being put on hold due to isolation, people being over-saturated in solitude, and with everything else of interest beyond our homes being postponed or cancelled, the modality of some people is to desperately find some means of creating some sort of connections through more unconventional instances and applying meaning to them, no matter how non sequitur they are. Maybe I’ve just become desperate to find some better examples of humanity apart from the constant barrage of social ignorance and political idiocy from the news each day; trying hard to find such a thing . . . looking to find it even if it comes as a currency of  little golden treasures of triangular crispy tidbits of yumminess. Four months is a long time to be forced to be isolating oneself, and then when you do engage with people, you’re most likely forced to be confronted and contending with the obvious dissatisfaction, boredom, negativity, anxiety/depression they are burdened with, on top of trying to manage your own. A simple kind gesture like this throws a brick through the mirrors and windows of negativity, especially to someone who is an essential worker who is risking themselves and who is giving all the time, and getting very little back during times like these.
  
Better days are coming I’m sure; I’m not completely pessimistic. My spirits lifted a bit seeing a project successfully completed and meeting up with my family last weekend, even though there was some pain to endure. Whatever comes as betterment during these times, I’m open to it arriving as some semblance of it feeling like the realm normalcy, and not just uncanny, but welcome, spontaneous manifestations of deep-fried savory pastries.

Pi Day Ponderings in Self-Isolation

I write this with a strange mixture of feelings and reckonings. Since my last post, and watching the ever more graver state of the news broadcasts, I am thankful that we squeaked under the wire for leaving and returning from our flyaway holiday just in time before the travel advisories and restrictions are starting to come effect for international travel. I’m also feeling utterly hapless with the fact that just because I did international travel, and then soon after started showing symptoms of sinus congestion and sore throat, that I’m relegated to self-isolate for a long while as a precaution. I have indeed been sick, most likely with some form the common cold. I dutifully reported my symptoms, after several attempts to contact the government health line, and I am still waiting for a response about any future action I may need to take. I’m certain that it is just the same old gross, phlegmy/snotty mess of a cold bug that I get almost every year during late February and early March, when the temperatures begin to wildly fluctuate as spring thaw approaches. I’m quite certain that it’s not Covid-19 (no shortness of breath or fever); just other stuff that coincides with all the remaining other Corona virus symptoms. However, given that I’m in a slightly weakened state, and my immune system is now compromised trying to manage this current bunch of junk, I don’t need to go wandering around and being pounced on by the Corona virus as well. If I do put myself in a place of sharing this wretched cold to a person in my circle of friends and work, who may be already even more immune-suppressed than I am, I further increase their chances for the actual acquisition of the Covid-19 thing while they are battling the same cold.

Sure, this virus can be potential fatal, for a select, vulnerable, cross-section of the population; just like the flu always was, is, and most likely continue to be. Last season, influenza killed more people worldwide than Covid-19 currently has now, a disease which is now on the decline according to some reports. However, for the flu, no one went crazy then and cleared out all the shelves in grocery shops. The thing that bothers me most about it is the absurd amount of hype, the fearmongering, and irrational panicking, because it is so novel as a disease; not as well-established historically as the flu is. The same way that terrorist attacks are over-reported when there are a relatively small number of casualties compared to the other types of tragic mortalities happening in the world that are set in a less dramatic framework. I'm grateful that this nation isn't yet so inundated with active cases compared to some others. We may not be much better as a population here in Canada in avoiding a full-blown epidemic, but we at least have a government that is more willing to put aside partisan issues to face this thing, who are more willing to listen to medical science, and are willing to work on the problem more rationally. We at least had a bill passed to secure the first stages of getting universal Pharmacare in place before this before parliament recessed in response to this outbreak. As far as this government's response, I'm at least thankful that we can perhaps respond better to all this because we don't have an Antichrist to science, like the Americans have who is leading their political shit show. I'm proud to say that Canadian researchers have been amongst the first to get successful steps for vaccine development for this thing. I’m not getting fearful or panicky, but I’m not going to be so stupid as to slough off prudence either. Given what I got to deal with, prudence demands that I have to self-isolate for a while as a precaution. I’m over the hump of it now, and I have been getting increasingly better. As much as I feel that that I’m getting touched in the head with some boredom, and feel that this is ultimately may be a squandering of my accumulated sick time, I’ll play the game right, and at least have a clearer conscience for doing so. Decongestants, drinking hot fluids, and some extra sleep have helped the most.

With all the extra time off, the mind tends to wander to far away strange places, in lieu of not allowing my physical self to veer far from home. My self-isolation phases into Pi (π) Day. I slapped down some random thoughts and observations to entertain myself mathematically whilst I’m here alone, doing my part to flatten the curve. In honour of this day, and since I’m stuck inside and have SFA else to do, I decided to apply pi (π) in a practical manner with respect to this latest pandemic.

·      They say now that generally the minimal safe zone for oneself out in public, to avoid contracting this new pestilence, is about a two-metre radius. With π in the equation, that means that there is a personal space circle around you that is about 12.6 m² of circular area around you that is your buffer zone. I have an easier, less abstract, and more convenient and discreet method of measuring to use for keeping people at their distance away from me. It is called a dog on a leash. The full extension of my dog’s leash is two metres long. I’m safer from everyone, as they are them from me, if they are beyond the range of the dog’s nose while I’m walking her.

·        The hoarding behaviour people are resorting to is ridiculous and getting out of hand. Over-supplying for yourself means under-supplying for everyone else of critical needs. You don’t have to be a Game Theory mathematician to figure this out. The real notable idiocy happening now being the hoarding of toilet paper. If you are guilty of doing this, here’s an equation (simplified)¹ with a practical use of π that might help you smarten up a bit:  N (1 – (πR₁^{2 /}πR₀²))/ [Δt] = S. With N being the number of squares in fresh new roll of toilet paper (usually listed on the package, you shouldn’t have to count), R₀ being the initial measured radius before usage, R₁ being the final radius measurement of your TP roll and Δt being the increment of time (let’s just call it a day) between initial and final radius measurement of the roll. That’s it! You’ve just computed your actual toilet paper consumption in squares of toilet paper per day in your household (S). Calculating S/N(14) equals the number of rolls of toilet paper you’ll likely be using for a 14 day quarantine period (Q). Subtract Q from all the surplus rolls of toilet you have bought and have in extra stock: E for excess. Divide that difference by Q: (E-Q)/Q =A. Assuming that you are within the realm of average as everyone else in terms of bathroom usage, that final quotient (A) then is roughly the number of people you’ve basically deprived of toilet paper, screwing them over and pissing them off with your irrational panic-driven stupidity for the 14 day quarantine period. The higher the number, the higher the likelihood that you are indeed a stupid prick with absolutely no sense of practical rationing, nor any concern for your fellow citizens. If you’ve hoarded toilet paper during this time, congratulations! Through π, you now have been assigned an ascending ranking numerical value of how much of an asshole (A) you are by creating more chaos and crisis by doing so. It somehow comforts me to know that there are quantifiable numbers with which to calibrate and apply to people on specific degrees of stupidity they exhibit instead of just using a fuzzy vague judgement or a glib opinion. Please note that if you are using more than one roll of toilet paper per day for yourself, you probably got a more serious problem going on than risking contracting Covid-19. If your number is negative, you do indeed have a shortage problem, and I’d then suggest that you definitely lay off the spicy food for the next while!

·       I can’t help but to notice that the shape and form of the Corona virus itself is a testament to the geometrical intricacies of π. If there were vertices attached to the outer protruding crown ends of the viral body, it would very much take the shape of a geodesic sphere, a structure intensively governed by the ratios of π.  If it weren’t so potentially deadly I’d find it rather beautiful in its unique sort of symmetry.

·      The number π is also used for studying population dynamics in various ways, used in weird and wild esoteric equations which I don’t have all day to study or explain here. It’s a constant in the bell shaped curve in statistics. No doubt it is now being used intensively to track the spread, and to factor in environmental conditions that prevent it from spreading. I would be interested in knowing if it could be useful in predicting any correlation between the likelihood of increased disease presence in a sample population where there are overt instances of hoarding behaviour in a particular sector. I would like to think that there would be a divine justice in store for those who are overly competitive and less cooperative.

I have a few more days to go before I can head back to work, and I’m sure I’ll be having to review and follow newer procedures for hygiene and prevention once I return. Pi might be less relevant in adjusting to the long lapse. I’m having less stress about this stuff with just living day to day, one moment at a time. It helps to avoid the news too; if it ever becomes worse, I’m sure it will find me somehow. As for now, I extend a wish for everyone else to stay well as we go through this course of enduring both of what is the dreamt up hype and what the actual consequential havoc is of this matter together, with hopes that this all transpires as smoothly and peaceful as possible; hoping it passes us all by sooner than later, with minimal troubles, grief, and suffering to my friends and family at risk of being directly and indirectly afflicted and affected. I’m confident that we’ll get through this ok. If I wasn’t my last entry wouldn’t have so much mentioned about toilet paper rolls.

If being penned up inside alone with nothing to do but clean my place, ration my foodstuffs to avoid shopping, binge watch TV, read, play music, catch up on TED talks, tile together jigsaw puzzles, and play with equations involving transcendental numbers for entertainment's sake and writing about it all is the worst it gets for me through this phase of clearing myself of pathogens, I'll consider myself lucky and be thankful for it, and use the time to work on myself for a change.

1 When determining the usable circular area cross-section area of a roll of toilet paper, you have to account for the interior hollow circle of the subtracted from the area of the usable part of the roll, radius dimension for that designated “r”. Thus, πR₀² – πr² is the true cross-section of material area of the initial whole roll, and πR₁² - πr² for the final measurement of the day. Conveniently, in the division, - πr² cancels out for simplicity. The equation is then converted to represent for proportional relation of a unit roll of toilet paper. I recommend measuring in centimetres, decimalized metric is easier to calculate and more precise. A square of toilet paper is roughly 10 cm x 10 cm if you want to test yourself with volume formulas. You’re on your own if you want to figure out your consumption per use by cm². I can’t say that I’m that bloody curious as to know that myself.