Oh this is just what I needed: Day 9 confinement

As if the mere fact of being locked in a basement for the past eight days wasn’t enough, Mother Nature decided to wade in today and throw an upper cut to the solar plexus: a snowstorm. Not too much, but enough.

Ottawacker Jr. took it all in his good grace and launched another project: learning Roman numerals. This is another little side venture from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, where all the chapters are numbered in this way. He was curious about it, and so off I went on a tangent – more waffle than fact, as usual – but he somehow managed to pick the bones out of what I said. He has a real gift for mathematics – which is something I don’t have (actually nobody in my family is too good at it), so it must all come from Mrs. Ottawacker’s side.

So, after dinner, as I was departing into the depths of Hades from my chair on the landing, I gave him 20 numbers to transpose into Roman numerals. Ten minutes later, a paper plane gets thrown down the stairs and lands at my feet: twenty perfectly logical answers… and I have no idea if they are right or not. I’m going to have to go on line and hopefully find a site that provides Roman versions of Arabic numbers. My God, what was I thinking of.

I mean, I am basically fine up to 100. But after that, while I get the logic, I am out of my depth. But being a bit naïve, I gave him numbers like 990 and 999. He’s put down, respectively, XM and IM. Is that right?  www.romannumeralsfordummies.com I need you. 

It’s been a bit of a crappy day to be honest. I started writing and then couldn’t stick to it, so I have frigged around on the Internet for much of the day, folding laundry, listening to music, etc. It’s the kind of day I don’t mind, usually, but somehow at the moment, it feels like a day lost. I guess this Day 10 (or Day X, as Ottawacker Jr. would write it) thing is hanging over me a little more than I would like. And it’s tomorrow. So every time I feel a little warm or my head aches or I cough, it’s an automatic mental sign of having Covid19 and not just me sitting under a heating vent or being dehydrated or having a cough.

These truly are crazy days.

In the evening, I made the mistake of watching part of a Trump press conference. I mean, what the actual …. does he think he is doing? There is pretty much no excuse for anything he has done in his presidency – but this, this looks almost wilful. I read a great comment today that snapped him, Johnson and Bolsonaro into place for me. It essentially said the populist leaders are lost if they have no scapegoat: if they can’t criticize the press or the opposition or the previous government or Europe for an issue, they have nothing to say. They just stand on the side throwing out ridiculous statements. Seeing the performances of Trump and Johnson has been painful. I haven’t followed what Bolsonaro said before today’s shocker…

However, credit where credit is due, Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, has been pretty good. Messages have been clear and on point, and he has been a real team player on the coronavirus issue. I am sure he’ll revert to type when this has finished, but for the time being, it feels like we have a real person in the big office.