Wednesday night. More packed schedules and deadlines at work, more walks and talks and making memories once I’m done with work for the day. The waterfall is lovely. Standing so close to it, watching the water change colors and plunge with such great force… I’m sure it’s possible to get use to that spectacle at some point, and that’s a point I never want to reach.

Yesterday, we went for a late-night stroll. There was a Tim Hortons that was open, but only with a drivethrough. A small crowd of people gathered outside their parked cars, eating and drinking soda and chitchatting. It was a bit sad to see such a desperate attempt to socialize, to find others. Needless to say, they weren’t following social distancing rules.

Despite what I wrote earlier, we decided to make one last trip to Walmart. (What good is life without tangerines and grapes?) I drove out, xgf stayed home. Social distancing has gone to hell. They still make people line up outside and let them in at ~15-second intervals, but the place was crowded. (As was the parking lot.) It was almost at pre-plague levels. This time around, hardly anyone wore masks. …I wonder how long I’ll be able to get away with wearing a mask + goggles + the face shield I plan on buying. Cyberpunk 2020, eh?

Bought myself a new pair of shoes – a steal at $25 CAD. Of course, if my previous pair of shoes (also purchased at Walmart) hadn’t literally fallen apart, I wouldn’t have had to get a replacement from the same store chain. It’s the circle of life! It’s funny, how many things fall apart so quickly if you have a very limited supply. Xgf’s compression tights (the only pair) are developing small holes; I’d brought only two pairs of jeans with me, and both are starting to develop holes; my big supply of pens is buried somewhere deep in our luggage (this condo isn’t big enough to unpack), so we’re down to the last two precious writing utensils.

World news: Brazil’s official death toll exceeds 1,000 per day now. Unofficially, who the hell knows. Global warming is hitting my native Siberia hard, with 105 degrees, and it’s only mid-May. (Putin once said that global warming would benefit Russia – cold weather and all. Be careful what you wish for.) In Michigan, two separate dams failed, and 10,000 locals had to be evacuated. Their little town will be 9′ underwater. It doesn’t help that one of the dams failed its most recent inspection and didn’t get any repairs afterwards. The cherry on top? There’s a chemical plant that’ll likely be flooded. There’ll be more news like this, I’m sure, and it’s interwoven so tightly with the pandemic’s developments. We’ve caused (or at the very least greatly accelerated) so many different disasters, and now they’re starting to overlap. This century will be so strange…