23 Saturday May 2020
Posted in casa azahar, cats, caturday, home
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Lovely Luna doesn’t get as much “air time” as the other two. But today I found her fast asleep on the sofa in the timeless paw over face pose and she was just too adorable.
22 Friday May 2020
Posted in coronavirus
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Steven Soderbergh has a knack for assembling a whack of big name actors for his ensemble casts, and Contagion is yet another of those. I don’t even remember hearing about this film when it came out in 2011 despite its star-studded cast . But when I saw it pop up as a viewing option just a week or so after LOCKDOWN I decided to give it a go in spite of it having La Paltrow as one of its main stars.
The good news is Gwyneth dies in the first ten minutes 🙂 though (spoiler alert) she does return in a couple of flashbacks. What’s interesting about the film is how the reality of a pandemic varies from what we have experienced. In some ways it’s very much like what is going on now with two main differences: the nurses’ union refused to work under unsafe conditions and went on strike, and the Secret Service moved the US President underground. If that had actually happened the first would have collapsed everything and the latter would have been an excellent idea, especially if they’d taken his phone away.
As for other “front line heroes” forget about it. Shops were abandoned and looted, there were no supermarket workers, no food available, no public workers at all. Garbage filled the streets. Mass graves just like we saw in NYC. End of days.
But one of the many unrealistic things was that a vaccine was found lickety split and then magically mass produced so that – YAY – everyone was saved. I lost count of the days but it all seemed to have happened in less than half a year.
Recently I read that there has never been a vaccine for any coronavirus. This was also a coronavirus in the film, attacking the respiratory system and one thing that rang true was how the virus spreading was shown. There were plenty of meaningful lingering shots of door handles, bus handrails and just SURFACES in general. All the stuff about washing your hands was there, they even mentioned “social distancing”. It’s almost like we already knew about this in 2011, that it was likely to happen, almost inevitable. And here we are. Anyhow, it’s interesting to watch this now from our new first-hand experience perspective.
21 Thursday May 2020
Posted in animals & pets, casa azahar, cats, home
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WTF. I bought this cat scratch tower thingy last September and now look at it. Eight months later and it’s been totally ripped to shreds (mostly by Luna; Loki still prefers the back of the sofa and Morcilla has all but destroyed my office chair). But as you can see, it’s only the posts that have been shredded. The rest of the stand still stands and is in more or less good condition. I wish these companies would sell replacement posts for these things because they’re not cheap to replace. It’s a shame to throw this whole thing away, and in any case I can’t afford to replace it. But posts at, say 10€ each, would be a reasonable option and would also mean less waste.
Probably the only one who will miss it would be Luna, so it’s not exactly “essencial”, but Luna has so few things she loves (she’s such a weirdo) that I will leave it here until she actually destroys the cardboard posts themselves (which she did with the previous tower) and the whole thing collapses. But at least the previous one lasted a year and a half. Cats, eh?
20 Wednesday May 2020
Posted in coronavirus, lockdown, lockdown sevilla, sevilla, sevilla shutdown
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Remember yesterday’s mini-rant about seeing so many people in the streets still not wearing masks? Well, as of tomorrow it will be obligatory to wear a mask in all public indoor spaces, as well as outdoor spaces where it isn’t possible to keep two metres apart. That last bit spells trouble though… srsly, you’d think the government would know better by now than to give us options.
What I noticed yesterday was that, even in wider streets and in squares, people still weren’t being careful enough with “social distancing”. Meanwhile, most of the streets in the old centre of town are barely two metres wide, making it impossible to keep a safe distance apart. Add to that the fact that wearing a mask is uncomfortable as fuck, especially in The Heat, I am predicting mask mayhem. Entitled selfish assholes will start bleating about their Freedom and Rights, there will be protests, more pot banging bullshit.
Me? I almost suffocated yesterday wearing my mask. But I learned that I shouldn’t go out there when it’s 33º without a cloud in the sky. Duh. Not that difficult. The main problem is that people want things to go back to the way it was before and they have yet to accept that it just ain’t gonna happen. Nothing is ever going to be the same again. They also have yet to cotton on to the reality that you don’t just get freedom and rights handed to you for nothing, they come with obligations and responsibilities attached, and one would hope with some respect for those who came before us, and including today’s frontline heroes, who have made and continue to make much greater sacrifices than simply wearing a fucking mask. Honestly, I get so tired of people sometimes. Not you guys though. 🙂
Blog buddy Jodi Ettenburg @legalnomads has written an excellent, informative (and less sweary) post on the subject of mask wearing…
19 Tuesday May 2020
Posted in city walks, coronavirus, lockdown, lockdown sevilla, sevilla
The thing about my rooftop walks is, now that it’s heating up, I have to either go up early morning or else after 8 pm because any shade up there totally disappears around noon. And since I’ve got used to lazy mornings, well, it’s evenings or nothing. But because I had to take out rubbish in the afternoon I ended up taking the (extra) long way (6000 steps) to the supermarket because I was dying to see my Sevilla again. I decided to go as far as Plaza Virgen de los Reyes (my favourite square) and was surprised to find out it was basically a construction site. Turns out they are using this “down time” to finally pedestrianise Mateas Gago, the street that comes off the square and where I lived the first 18 years. Bad news for the bars that are already going to struggle without any tourists, but I suppose there was never going to be a good time to do this.
It was lovely to be out walking around again, and I managed to stay at least 2 metres away from people, but it was shocking to see how many still aren’t wearing masks. I had mine on and nearly suffocated – it was 33º by the time I went out – but I mean, c’mon guys. If/when the second wave hits it will be largely due to these Covidiots. Though as my friend Ricardo tells me, there really aren’t any “Covidiots”, they are just the same idiots as always.
Gotta say it was tempting to sit down somewhere and enjoy a cold beer, but I’m not there yet. Perhaps in a couple of weeks, depending on how things go. Meanwhile, enjoy this stroll through Sevilla. It really my heart good.
casa azahar 