We are enjoying* our first real rain in months. We’ve had a few drizzles but today is more typical of BC (* enjoyment is a word very infrequently used on the coast in reference to rain).

I got my lumber yesterday. And gasoline and propane. We are good for a year. In theory, I can now start pluggin’ away…..except it is raining! Funny how that works, eh?

Sal has gone drive-about down to Victoria for few days for a family do. All hotels are full except some of the fancy ones at $500.00 a night so she is sleeping in the car. Not to worry, she is parked in her mother’s driveway and that is because the guest room is occupied. She’ll be fine. Our daughter came from Alberta and she is in her car, too! Same driveway. Kinda funny.

We are almost through the ‘guest season’ with only two more visits scheduled. Whew!

Our life is almost back to normal – whatever the new normal might be…? And that is the topic for the day….what is the new normal gonna look like?

Covid is turning out to be an even bigger deal than I prophesied a year ago and, even then, I was all doom and gloom. I think my gloom has now darkened somewhat. Set aside the idiots that refuse the vaccine and risk their own and other’s lives, set aside the uber-idiots that rely on divine intervention, Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin or claims of freedom, set aside the economic seizures being felt throughout the world, set aside the now-unfair drain on the entire Healthcare system……it is going to get much worse than all that! The poor countries – the ones that rely on the scraps and crumbs of the First World are not getting any. They are starving. They are really hurting. And, of course, they are dying and we don’t even know the numbers.

Official WHO numbers are round 5 or 6 million globally. The Guardian did their own investigating including all the poor countries and estimate the numbers are in the 15 to 18 million range. And growing.

I know, I know…who really cares about Madagascar or Bali? ‘Screw ’em!’ goes the chant of the privileged, the Albertans, the GOP, the alt-right and the great unwashed Fox and OAN watchers. Fine. I get it. You are not only selfish, deluded and unbelievably ignorant, you are also incredibly stupid! Those poor, neglected countries become the Petrie dish for the variants! Those unvaccinated countries generate the new strains and it is inevitable that one of the mutant strains will erase the overall effectiveness of the vaccine we have all taken. Ignoring Madagascar and South Africa and all the countries not included in the First World, simply puts everyone on the planet at risk….just a little further down the road…you know, when it is all too late!

Herd immunity (a theory based on too many people resistant to a virus for it to spread easily or at all) is hard enough to achieve in a country that actually has the vaccine (we have Alberta to keep the virus thriving, the USA has the red states led by Florida!). It is impossible in countries without it. And viruses mutate. Let the poor get sick and we will all get sick along with ’em. Eventually. That ‘end game’ makes Covid a greater threat than it ever has been and it is already hitting the world like the Spanish flu or the Black plague did.

“Dave, what are you going to do about it?”

Nothing. I can’t stop a plague. Of course, Sal is gonna have to quarantine in the boatshed (better than the car) for two weeks but, other than that, I am planning very little except my shed, updating my will and ordering scotch by the drum. What are you doin’?