Grigory Lukin.com

Saturday night – day one of the three-day weekend. Today was mostly good. We found a giant park with very few people in it – it was still open, unlike many others. Went for a nice little hour-long hike – the sun, the greenery, the clear and cloudless sky… If it hadn’t been for a gang of random jerks riding through the forest on motorcycles, it would’ve been a perfect outing. (There were signs posted to keep motor vehicles out, but I guess some folks are living out their weird little fantasies while everything is locked down.)

Xgf is still very anxious about moving – just a week away now. She’ll always have the lifeline of her parents – they live an hour away. They’ll be able to come pick her up if the loneliness becomes unbearable. The stir-craziness is getting to her: earlier today, she asked me if Amazon created the virus to wipe out their competition… (That was shortly after we saw an article about JC Penney declaring bankruptcy – the end of an era.)

The news is still a hot mess – more children falling sick, more distractions from the White House and spikes in new cases in newly reopened states. And to think, this year isn’t even halfway through… At some point not too long from now, folks will think of even this mess as the good ol’ times.

Friday night. Today was more than a little stressful… Xgf got stir-crazy (her words) and wanted to order Vietnamese takeout. (She loves pho.) While we were on the phone, placing our order, we heard someone cough on the other end – in a very loud and phlegmy manner. Xgf thought it was the hostess, I thought it was one of the cooks next to her. Either way, we hung up and baked another pizza instead.

That near-miss negated the nice walk through the abandoned touristy area near the waterfall. (Folks really hate it when it rains on a chilly day, apparently.) There was so much mist… It was lovely. But still, a near-miss – after nine weeks of hiding out, after being so careful, we could’ve been done in by a simple takeout order from a diner that cared more about profit than pandemic prevention. That was far too close.

I get that there’s a possibility that person had just a cold or the flu, but just the fact that any restaurant employee would come in to work while coughing their lungs out… Even if that wasn’t covid, that was irresponsible as hell. Canada isn’t like the US: being unemployed here doesn’t doom you to starvation.

Here is hoping all y’all are having a somewhat more enjoyable Friday night.

Thursday night. The world keeps falling apart, but for the time being, here and now, the two of us are good.

Xgf woke up feeling under the weather. It’s unclear if it’s covid or because she ate a lot (and I mean a lot) of grapes and oranges yesterday. It is possible to accidentally overdose on vitamin C. Her persistent cough is still alarming, though she keeps blaming it on dust and bad air filters… I talked to the local hospital – they assured me that testing is easy and can be done in their drivethrough. A fully hazmat-sealed nurse would come to the car, administer the nasal swap, and walk away.

Alas, xgf doesn’t want to know whether it’s covid – she claims knowing what it is wouldn’t change. (She has a lot of trust issues when it comes to doctors and hospitals.) I countered that knowing that she’s not infected would be beneficial. We compromised that I’d take her to the hospital (just 5 minutes away) if she develops breathing problems…

For what it’s worth, I still feel fine. The mild chest pain I mentioned a few weeks ago has gone away. Then again, maybe I’m one of those who don’t get any symptoms at all and ride it out unknowingly. The only vectors I can think of were my weekly grocery store trips (but I was so careful…) or xgf’s occasional walks outside, when she doesn’t wear a mask.

We’ll see.

Wednesday evening. The first day of our third month in self-isolation.

I’m engaged in my trademark escapism activity – binge-reading about something to try in the future while avoiding the present. This time, it’s applied geology: exploring old abandoned mining sites, hunting for quartz, etc. With all the vacation time I have, I’ll most likely take two weeks off in July or August. That should make for a nice (and solo…) roadtrip across Ontario. If nothing else, I’ll enjoy fresh air and starry sky…

In world news, the White House is doing everything they can to distract people that almost 100,000 Americans (or maybe more) died of covid. Trump is blaming Obama for some unknowable and unmentionable crimes, calling it “Obamagate.” The media seems to be falling for it. Meanwhile, the White House is also pressuring the CDC to change their diagnostic guidelines. Right now, anyone whose death was probably related to covid gets counted as part of the official death toll. The administration would like to change that and make the death count even lower. (We’re not counting the deaths above baseline, remember?) That’s it in a nutshell: the US is trying to fudge numbers while everything burns. And meanwhile, the strange inflammatory illness that killed a few kids in New York is spreading…

Tuesday night. She almost didn’t return. She felt strongly about staying in her friend’s empty basement apartment in Toronto two days ago, and didn’t want to come back to Niagara Falls with me, if only for two weeks. There’s another world where I didn’t weave the words together the way I did, where she stayed in that basement all by herself, where I spent the two remaining weeks in Niagara Falls by myself.

Things are… okay, but far from flawless. Xgf is still in the bargaining mode, trying to find workarounds and compromises to our key incompatibilities. None of them can bridge the divide, and part of her is aware of that, and that makes everything that much more tragic. Eleven more days till we officially move apart. This is a strange arrangement, sometimes cozy, occasionally painful, but it’s better than being alone, if only for a little while.

…I’m future-leaping hard. Diving headfirst into work, setting up ambitious projects that won’t fully pay off till months or years later. Brainstorming hobbies that would keep me from going stir-crazy, vacations that don’t involve international travel or being around other people. Gold panning, perhaps? Easier than gem hunting, in any case. Fresh air, sun… Heh. (Because of my unique seniority position, I get more vacation time than I know what to do with. Since I didn’t take any last year, this year I should try to take nine weeks off. Three down, six to go.)

The world is still a crazy mess. Russia appears to have a big surge in coronavirus deaths: they might end up being second only to the US. A few more cases appeared in Wuhan, and now China plans to test all 11 million inhabitants. Impressive, if nothing else. South Korea was almost virus-free until someone went to three nightclubs and exposed as many as 1,500 people. Vietnam and New Zealand appear to have beaten the virus, having played their cards right. As for the rest of us… Only time will tell.

Monday night. Great news on the personal front, or at least one side of it. The University of Toronto has completed my ECA (Education Credential Assessment) and sent me the PDF certificate stating that I do, in fact, have a valid university degree from the US. Normally, the process takes 2-3 months, not 3.5, but given the hand they were dealt, this turnaround time is nothing short of phenomenal. (They switched to online-only processing, with virtual transcripts instead of physical documents.)

I hadn’t expected them to process everything so quickly. Kudos, U of T. Now the last piece of the paperwork mountain is the FBI clearance: I mailed it in three days ago, so hopefully it’ll arrive in their West Virginia office sometime this week. Once they process it (about a week?) and send it back (another week, maybe?), my company’s lawyers will be able to submit my permanent residency at long last.

Given the horrific shitshow happening in the US, I really don’t feel like going back…

I took the third trip to the local Niagara Falls Walmart today to get some more fruit, veggies, cheese, and frozen pizzas – the essential supplies needed to spend the last two weeks here. Maybe it was the cold and gloomy weather (we’ve been hit with the polar vortex), or maybe it was something else, but for once there was no line to get inside the store at 6pm. Another big change is that this time, most shoppers wore masks. One thing that’s still the same is the disappearance of grapefruit juice. Something has gone very, very wrong with that supply chain. Maybe someday I’ll figure out what it was.

Back to the US, though: most states reopened on Sunday, Mother’s Day. Pictures and video footage online all show a disaster in the making: crowded restaurants, overcrowded parks, crowds everywhere. All the voluntary isolation, the disruption of every single activity, all the countless sacrifices of varying degrees – all for nothing. The second wave won’t come in the fall – it’ll start showing up a week from now. Journo twitter is hinting (but unofficially) that someone very high up in the White House tested positive. The White House staff will have to wear face masks, which is a classic example of “do as we say, not as we do.” My quick count of Trump’s yesterday’s tweets was off: he posted or shared over 100 of them. This is the genius who wore goggles (without a mask) during the 3M factory tour…

Like I said, I’m just glad I’m out of there, and it’s even less likely than ever that I’d return. (Even though I miss my Search&Rescue crew from Seattle…) I’d anticipated a colossal screw-up from Trump’s government for years – and I’d started trying to transfer abroad even before he was elected. Back in February 2016 (when he was a pretty clear Republican frontrunner), I applied for a work transfer to the UK. When that fell through, I tried Poland. Then Canada. Then Australia. Then Canada again. Fifth time is the charm, eh?.. I can’t imagine what kind of stressed-out mess I would’ve been by now if I’d stayed there.

More and more journos (and some officials) are pointing out that official death tolls for the pandemic are quite a bit off. There are far more other, apparently related deaths, compared to the baseline period of 2019. Some are undoubtedly because people can’t get their treatment or are too afraid to go to the hospital. Most of the extra deaths, though, are most likely covid-related. We won’t know the true death toll until later on, when everything is accounted for. Knowing what I know about politics and petty tyrants, the US government will most likely start calling the death counts fake, and claiming that even the official death toll (not including the above-baseline deaths) is inflated. They’ve already declared war on science, so why the hell not?

…that was a very long way of saying that I’ll probably stop posting death totals here, unless the official number crosses some particular threshold.

Stay safe out there, y’all.

Sunday afternoon. In a couple of hours, I’ll start the first leg of the three-hour roundtrip to Toronto to pick up xgf from her friend’s empty basement apartment. The three-day trial isn’t nearly the same as living there for good, but maybe there’ll be some useful conclusions to make the long stay easier for her.

Two more weeks till we officially part ways… It’ll be strange to be solo. I suppose that’ll give me unique insight into quarantining alone or as part of a couple, so I’ve got the anthropological angle covered, if nothing else.

World news: Trump spent the entire day retweeting conspiracy theories – more so than usual, that is. By my guesstimate, there were over 30 tweets, likely many more. If any other person did that during their alleged work hours, they would’ve been fired. With his popularity ratings dropping, the unemployment numbers going higher than at any point since the Great Depression, and being unable to golf or hold rallies, he must be feeling mighty frustrated right about now. Here is hoping he doesn’t start bombing random countries just for the hell of it. (Wouldn’t be his first time.) In Israel, Netanyahu proposed microchipping the entire country, starting with kids, to get sound alerts when people get too close to each other. He seemed to be surprised when a lot of people pointed out that might not be he best idea he’s ever had. Heh.

…another cup of coffee, then sorting out the dry laundry, then off to Toronto.

Friday night. Today I made sure to thank my manager for helping me move from the US to Canada: I’m fairly certain I’d thanked him before, but I really can’t thank him enough. It’s a hot mess back in the US. I can’t imagine how much more stressful my life would’ve been had I stayed there.

The White House suppressed the CDC’s report on the coronavirus, and then released parts of it after a massive outcry. Two white men (father and son) in Georgia who chased a black jogger in their truck and shot him in the middle of the street in broad daylight finally got arrested – it took two months, a video, and a massive online outcry just to get them arrested… More White House staffers are getting diagnosed: the top one thus far is Katie Miller, VP Mike Pence’s press secretary. Given the utter lack of even the most basic precautions in the White House, I’m surprised it had taken that long for the first cases to show up. If either Trump or Pence get incapacitated – or worse – things will get even more chaotic.

Today was spent fighting the bureaucratic remnants of the 19th and 20th centuries. In order to wire money from my bank account, I had to try to borrow a relative’s US phone number because the bank’s system didn’t recognize my Canadian number. To finalize the FBI background check application, I had to print out an email at a UPS store (potential risk of exposure and all) for 35 cents, and then stand in line at a fairly crowded post office. They charged a bit more than 35 cents to send my precious letter to the FBI through the closed border and all the way to West Virginia. In theory, there’s no reason all of this couldn’t be done online and digitally. My best bad guess is that the process is deliberately cumbersome to discourage folks from spamming the FBI with their background check requests. Then again, maybe the system is still using the 19th century technology (magic signatures and all) simply because that’s how it’s always been done.

My first full day away from xgf in almost two months… She’s doing well by herself in her friend’s basement apartment (a trial run before she moves there for 3 months), so that’s good news. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’ll be as easygoing once she’s there by herself for an extended period of time… Here is hoping it’ll work out. On my end, my introvert battery is trying too hard to recharge itself, to the point where I do a lot of little things and don’t accomplish any of the big ones. I did set up an actual think-tank at work today, though, which isn’t something I’d ever thought I’d do. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “so it goes.”

Cumulative death toll in the US as of right now: 78,318; in Canada, 4,569.

Thursday night. Xgf called a friend with an empty basement apartment and decided to stay there for the next three days as an experiment. (She doesn’t deal well with solitude, but it’s a great place to wait out the pandemic.) I dropped her off there after we drove up to the last open fingerprinting agency and got my FD-258 form filled out for the FBI background check.

…now there’s a paragraph that would’ve confused the hell out of my younger self. Heh.

They’re starting to slowly open up more parts of Canada. Most people are opposed to opening up too early, but I guess the had to placate the extroverts at some point. Businesses that had been deemed non-essential (which is very few businesses, to be honest) are being allowed to reopen. You still can’t walk into any fast-food places, mind you. (I wonder how junk-food addicts who have no cars are dealing with the drive-through-only ordering system.

The fingerprinting agency was extremely safety-oriented. The employees all wore masks and gloves, and I was asked to sanitize my hands at least five times as we exchanged IDs, papers, etc. Tomorrow morning, I’ll try to swing by a UPS store to print out one last piece of paper for the FBI (it’s the third decade of the 21st century and we still treat paper as if it were magic…) and send it off by snail mail. Two possibilities exist: their dossier on me will be either one sad little paragraph or a giant volume filled with redacted sections. I’d be excited (and mildly afraid) to see the latter, but it’s almost certainly the former. Can’t wait to see it either way.

The world news is as depressing as always, only a bit more so. No headlines or death tolls tonight.