Day 25

Don't be fooled by the sweet exterior.

There's another side.

These cats are sick of us being in their snooze time. We've had a few afternoon kitty glares, like the one above. It makes it clear to us we need to keep the food supply coming or the predator within will work on the two large sources of lunch.

They like the evening TV time, though. They settle in and cuddle. Celina never pays much attention to the TV, but Curtis often does. He seemed fascinated by Elementary, and knew when the last show on the disc ended, even before the closing music, and would trot off to get fed. He wasn't so fascinated by Big Bang Theory, but seems to be coming around. (Middle of season 7 and going strong.)

In other news it's snowing this morning. Again. Sheesh! Enough already! I think it's snowed at least a bit almost every day since our return. The only consolation is that I usually don't have to shovel. Today is looking iffy at the moment. So you get a flower. Try to overlook that it's mostly white.

 I've been thinking of a new COVID graph, a complicated one. The major problem, of course, is that we don't have reliable data. We know that the number of cases and deaths is (adverb) understated. One could discuss if the correct adverb is grossly, dramatically, enormously, feloniously, politically, or something else.

Whatever the numbers, I'd like them reduced to a per capita figure for each country in the world, with breakdowns for Canadian provinces and American states, mainly because I live in one, and close to the other. (That I'm pretty sure we'd look good in comparison has nothing to do with it.)

And then, I like to correlate that to the leaders of those countries, considering gender, age, and political party. (Note as well that I'm not fond of the traditional left-wing/right-wing descriptors for political parties. I like  plotting political parties on a chart like this.)

As you can imagine, this works out to being a complicated graph. I'd love to see someone like Hans Rosling have a go at it. I suspect that there would be some clear conclusions coming out of that in terms of public health policies and who we should trust. I think those conclusions would carry over into other parts of public policy, like determining where public money should go and where it should come from. All of which should drive our voting patterns, but if people can believe bullshit when it comes to life and death policy, they'll swallow political bullshit without any sweetener.

There was a news article about the difficulties of rescheduling the Olympics. Bah! Cancel them. All of them. Forever. They are a relic. Set up annual world level competitions that take place in the same venues from year to year. If your country wants to participate, you pay part of the upkeep costs. Clearly define what amateur means. Test everyone 7 ways from Sunday from the moment they enter the competition stream. Random, on the spot testing, any time of the night or day. Audit the labs and the staff.

We are still doing fine. Only going out for essential groceries. Just now that's not so bad, but as spring gets closer I'm going to get itchy about getting out there with my camera. We got our tax paperwork all lined up ready to go to the accountant, that was yesterday's major task. This transition between some places sending paper, and some electronic is a pain in the butt. It's really easy to overlook a tax form, then we get the dreaded question, last year you had an slip for xyz but I don't see one for this year. Can you send it please? Which strikes horror into my heart because while I might have overlooked it, we've been simplifying our affairs and it simply may not exist. Or, they may be sending it out later this week.

Serendipity photo from last autumn.

Driftwood of the Day
All the same chunk of wood, and indeed, even the same curve. But I was totally in love with the textures and lines and the late afternoon light. I was trying several subtly different shots to make sure I got at least one good one. The problem there is that when they work out, you have a tough choice. So I chose.