Friday night. Every trip is a potential trap. There were more masks at Walmart today – around 70%, I’d say. Most people aren’t following the 6′ rule anymore, but everyone tries to be very fast and apologetic. …a young woman standing a few meters away from me had a bad coughing fit. One of the loss prevention people near the exit coughed a little before I approached. Nerves or covid? And who knows how many more were asymptomatic… It’s not like I had a lot of trust in humanity even before the plague; now my “what if” thinking is partially justified, and that makes it worse.

In the world news, the Minnesota riots escalated to the point of burning down an entire police department. (I must admit, that’s kind of impressive and unprecedented). A 70-year-old man in India beheaded a 52-year-old man to offer human sacrifice to the goddess that had revealed herself to him (she promised to stop the pandemic). Also in India, a lab assistant screwed up in the worst imaginable way, and several monkeys with samples of covid have escaped into the city. (Do you want to get “28 days later”? Because that’s how you get “28 days later.”) Oh, and a black CNN reporter got arrested while broadcasting live and complying with all the police instructions – and that happened before the murderous cop got placed under arrest.

In other words, it’s business as usual here in the weirdest timeline. I’ve said this many times before, but I will never tire of saying it: I’m so glad I moved from the US to Canada…

I think I already mentioned that as the designated old fart at work (>10 years and all), I get more vacation time than I know what to do with. (That’s what I refer to as a “Grigory problem.”) Before things get too hectic, I’ve booked two more weeks of vacation for the second half of July. Since international travel is a really bad idea right now, I’ll head in the opposite direction and explore northern Ontario. Thunder Bay sounds like a fascinating city, and I hear they’ve got sapphires… Here is hoping this vacation will be marginally less stressful than the one in April.