Quarantine entry #94 - June 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. These days, Canada is almost fully open – on the inside – but its’ borders with the U.S. remain closed, and they will remain closed, because there is the talk of the second wave of COVID-19 by now already. Unlike fiction – movies, TV series, comic books, ‘just’ books, what else have you – reality showed that humanity is nowhere near the fictional cohesion in general, and that the U.S. is not at all superior to the rest of Earth’s civilization in particular.

…Yes, the RF has ended its’ own lockdown, and will have its’ parade, its’ elections/voting, its’ whatever within the month, and yes, karma will get them all, but at least they admit it between themselves – the U.S., not so much. So, let us talk about something else – the domestic dog, maybe?

…I admit that I have no idea as to what exactly I want to say about them. Domestic dogs, in all of their various breeds and incarnations, have existed alongside humans for the last 14+ millennia, (give or take an odd century or two), and have become some of our closest companions, alongside the cattle and the horses. Kipling’s ‘Just So Stories’ show this quite clearly – in one of them, the dog, the horse and the cow are the first animals to come to the first humans and become their companions/minions/servants/etc. without questions for some physical benefits, that is all. The cat, on the other hand, is the last of them, and is able to bargain at least some sort of a semi-independent position for itself. Yes, this approach comes with ‘penalties’, as neither the First Man nor the First Dog ever accept or give the First Cat, but that’s a cat for you – it thinks about itself first and foremost, and everyone else is secondary.

…Oh yes, there are some exceptions to that rule, and plenty of them too, but that is because they are exceptions, and that is why we hear about them. For dogs, they are the rules, and that is why we do not hear about them as a rule. What next?

The flipside of the rule is that unlike domestic cats, domestic dogs got a lot of diversity in their breeds. Domestic cats look largely similar to each other, with some minor variations, usually in the form of their muzzles and in the length/coloration/texture of their fur. The variations between domestic dogs go far beyond that; technically, while the smallest dogs of them all, (the Yorkshire terrier and the Chihuahua) are the same species as the biggest ones, (the rizenshnautzer, the great dane, the St. Bernard and the Newfoundland), any crossbreeding between them is impossible because of anatomy! Hell, the crossbreeding between the English and the French bulldogs is probably impossible for the same reason. Why?

Hard to say. Because humans love to breed and to play God, and they have created many breeds – of horses and cows, of goats and sheep, of cats and fowl and pigeons and goldfish… The Greek, the Egyptian, and the Norse pantheons were different from each other, but most of their gods were all anthropomorphic, (more or less), and all of their deities loved to meddle in human lives, (though yes, the Egyptian pantheon showed more restraint, proportionally). Put otherwise, in all of human societies the gods are reflections of the humans themselves, (I’m quite willing to assume that in the societies of sea serpents like Nessie, and in the societies of abominable snowmen like the Yeti, that situation is quite different), and just as gods loved to transform bodies into different kinds, so do the humans themselves: they transformed their pets and domestic animals, (and also plants), to be more useful… for the humans. Real life may suck, but it can certainly be weird as well.

 …For now, however, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #79 - May 8

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. On this particular occasion, we are talking about the natural world once more: Canada is about to be ‘invaded’ by the giant hogweed of all plants!..

What is a giant hogweed? For those that do not know, it is a perennial herbaceous flowering plant can grow up to 5 m in height, and cause 3^rd-degree burns; essentially, is the Asian giant hornet was a plant, it would be a giant hogweed.

 Initially, the giant hogweed grew in the Caucasus region of Europe; from there, it reached across the Old World, and then – to North America, aka the New World. Apparently, it is a trait of the Heracleum genus, as at least two other hogweed species – Sosnowsky’s and Persian – did something similar to the giant hogweed; it isn’t certain if they’d become established in the U.S. and Canada, but they are considered to be invasive species in parts of Europe all the same. Anything else?

…New Zealand is supposedly free of COVID-19 – officially. Whether or not this will come true for real is another matter, but for now? Lucky bastards; at least Canada and U.S. are finally may be beginning to open parts of their border for real now. Yay! Maybe I will be coming home now…but given how sucky real life is, I would not count on it, or perhaps, I should clarify:

When I come home, it will not be up to my plans, but rather, it will be a hollow victory, one that will steal all of the joy from this achievement, and as such, I do not look forwards toward it as I should.

No, really, just look – after the COVID-19 outbreak, we had an Asian giant hornet invasion; we have a giant hogweed invasion; we have civil unrest, because everyone is bored stiff about at the COVID-19; we got the election-2020 on one hand, and whatever the Hell the top brass in Ottawa is thinking on the other. Yes, going home shall be good, but somehow I am quite certain that real life will create a way of ruining it, period. And that  is before pointing out that the self-isolation is not really over, a large chunk of social life is still locked down, and is it any surprise that the civil unrest in North America is still being largely uncontrolled?

…Okay, ‘uncontrolled’ might be the wrong word here: in the U.S., ‘civil unrest’ is slowly transfiguring into a police reform, while in Canada? That is blurrier; it might be just a way for Canadians to blow-off steam, while the top brass in Ottawa decides as to where it goes from there, which brings us to the honorary mention of the U.K., whose COVID-19 misadventures appear to have buried the matter of Brexit… at least for now.

This – kind of, sort of – returns us back to the U.S., for as we have talked before, the U.K. Brexit would be most beneficial… to the U.S., for reasons that we have discussed before, but now the COVID-19/George Floyd civil unrest combination has ended it all for good…at least for now.

What next? Hard to say. Life goes on, and today I wanted to return to the domestic cat once more. Only… all of the latest news, about the giant hogweed and whatnot had pushed me out of mind frame, so here is a brief drabble about the lynx instead:

A lynx lurks in a dark forest, next to a sylvan path. Though a cousin of the house cat, it is more of a large dog in size. A lynx’s tail is short, its’ ears got tufts on tips, its’ hide is mottled. This lynx in question is lying on a tree branch, waiting... Do not go past this tree, or the lynx will get you. It will lunge at anyone, straight from the tree!

End

PS: This is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #67 - May 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I do not even feel angry about it, I feel empty. Pause.

First, an alert – now, I will not be reviewing AoS S7, because it is not accessible to me. The lockdown shook everything up, and while lack of TV access is one of the least problems ever, it still makes a mark.

Secondly, today is the sort of a day that feels anything but good. An 85- and 86-year-old veteran couple were gunned down earlier this week. Wonderful. Four Minnesota police officers, (now fired), abused the Afro-American that they have arrested so badly, that he died in the hospital. Bully. Did the story of A.A. fail to teach them anything? Apparently, yes. Ergo, here is another piece of my original fiction for my entry for this day, because I honestly cannot come up with a good idea as to what creature is to discuss today – it is that sucky, (though better than yesterday, which had been sweltering hot instead):

…The donkey stood in the overgrown field. Somehow, he got to be tied up, even though there were no humans around.

“Hello, Mr. Donkey,” the kitten said cheerfully, even as the other animals held back due to the donkey’s incessant cries of “Hee-haw!”. “Are you hungry?”

The bigger animal actually stopped shouting and gave the kitten a look. “...Shouldn’t the two of you be inside the home, anyhow, or has the author decide to put humans into our story after all?” He finally asked, somehow sounding more British than the other animals did, (and they sounded more American).

“No, but if you give the girl a ride I’ll set you free anyhow,” the dog replied cheerfully, instead of the kitten.

The donkey gave him a flat look: “I like to see you try,” was what he said.

The dog exchanged looks with his new friends. “Do it,” the mother cat finally said. “We might as well see beforehand.” Therefore, the dog complied.

...The leather cord burst with a snap. The donkey came free, and began to prance around, channeling his inner horse. (The horse in question was actually nearby, having some sort of a race with the hare and his rabbit cousins - who knows why?) The dog backed down, wincing, and actually looking hurt. 

The mother cat rolled her eyes, muttered something about men in general, and began to lick the dog to make him feel better.

“Mr. Donkey?” The kitten asked again, sounding insistent.

The donkey stopped prancing like a colt and gave the trio a thoughtful look. “Fine,” he replied at last. “A promise is a promise, after all, even though I am rather hungry...”

“Oh men,” the mother cat sighed, as she went through the hole in the fourth wall and rolled several baobab fruits briefly later. “There! Will they do?”

The donkey ate the fruit. “...Right,” he said some time later and carefully allowed the kitten to climb onto him. “Let’s give you a ride, shall we?” In addition, this was what he did, while being gentle, and keeping on the horse - but that is another story.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #59 - May 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In particular, the COVID-19 lockdown got prolonged for another month – until June 2020, so here is a big middle finger to all of those who made this decision; I do not know as to how Doug Ford was involved in it, directly or otherwise, but I’m sure that he was, so there!

…Aye, on the other hand, J.C. from the team Snowbirds has it worse – she died. She took the risks and she died. What risks, you may ask? Well, from 1974 until now – that’s 46 years, almost half a century – the Snowbirds’ jets crashed every few years, so the odds were in odds of another crash now or sometime soon, and so it happened, last weekend, (aka May 17, 2020), and so Ms. J.C. died, and her partner broke both of his legs while escaping the crash. Canada! Canada! …And the woman’s from Halifax, Nova Scotia, aka the province where a certain mass shooting has occurred earlier this year already. Seriously, can we go back to the Asian giant hornets now?..

That said, because my personal state of affairs is derived from my family issues, (and I am not, admittedly, ready to share them on this blog online), here, instead, a piece of original fiction from yours truly. Enjoy!

Once upon a time, there was a mother rabbit, and she had two little bunnies...

The mother rabbit in question was not happy. The dog in the backyard was scary enough, (especially for a little rabbit), but the presence of cats was something else. True, the older feline preferred just to sit on the kennel roof, while her kitten played with the dog, but a mother rabbit is a worry-wart and couldn’t help herself, safety of an enclosure or not.

“Shouldn’t something be done about them?” She asked her neighbour, (a domestic pig, incidentally).

“Feel free,” the swine replied, as she went through a hole in the fence. “Personally, I am off to talk to my wild cousins - good luck!”

“Aren’t you worried about the humans-?”

“Silly rabbit - our story has no humans, at least not so far!” Commented the pig and left, leaving the rabbit family behind.

The rabbits just looked at each other, but before they could reach any conclusion, in popped their wild cousin, the hare.

“Yo! You!” He called out to the cats and the dog. “Where’s the lynx from our plot line?”

The mother cat just jabbed one of her paws in the direction of the hole through the fourth wall, (from the previous chapter).

“Is she coming back any time soon?” The hare pressed on.

The mother cat gave him a flat look.

“Oh good,” said the hare, “Since I was worried.” To further emphasize his relief, he turned around and jumping into the rabbits’ enclosure. “Hey there, cousins,” he told them brightly. “Want to hang around?”

The bunnies looked at their mom. “Fine,” their mother relented. “But let’s not get carried away, or our swine neighbour will come back or something!”

“Done,” agreed the hare, and the foursome went to the local vegetable garden, (which was located not far from the pigsty, actually), but that was another story.

…Well, this is it for now. Did you enjoy this piece? All comments and criticisms are welcome! See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #41 - May 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but at least the province of Ontario is beginning to show signs of recovery, as at least some businesses are going to reopen next week, since it’s the first of May people, yay! April is over, and life is changing again. …So, what is my point?

Ah, yes, to further progress my escapism, I have rewatched the 2004 ‘Catwoman’ movie, and…

…And it is not that bad. Oh, sure, the depiction of the titular heroine is problematic and doesn’t really mesh with the entire underlying ‘girl power’ message that the C-2004 movie seems to push forwards, but on the other end, it’s not a horrifying mess that ‘Cats-2019’ have been, you know? The movie feels kind amateurish, the villains are not very impressive, but the same can be said for the first ‘Venom’ film, and now we are getting a second one and everyone is excited already, and not just because of cabin fever… where were we?

Ah yes, the Marvel movies of the early 2000s aren’t all that popular – ‘Daredevil’ was rather reminiscent of the ‘Batman’ films, (and yes, the Catwoman version in ‘Batman returns’ was better than the 2004 one, no argument), and as for ‘Electra’… it was really more style than substance, flashy to watch rather than fun, but… since then Marvel got itself together, (cough, Disney, cough), while DC didn’t. It is still a tangled mess, as the repeatedly delayed film about Batman, (the latest one) indicates. ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn’ is itself something of a ‘Suicide Squad’ reboot, (even if it is getting a ‘proper’ reboot now), and the underlying ‘girl power’ message… pause. Didn’t we already mention it in the subtext of C-2004?

…Yes, yes we did, and it looks like as if everything old is new again; Selina Kyle has apparently appeared on S2 of the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon series, which in itself is something of a reboot of the ‘Batman Animated Series’ of 1990s, which went through several transformations of its own, before it ended, (I’ve seen it personally). Put otherwise, of all the DC aspects, ‘Batman’ is one of the more enduring and versatile, even moreso than ‘Superman’, so to have it struggle is…disheartening to say the least. I have no idea where DC will go in the future, now that ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation’ is over, and everything is suspended by COVID-19, where everything is falling apart.

…Yes, now that it is May, things are coming to life once more, but still. DC had problems before COVID-19, so during and after… who knows?

In other news, I have also rewatched a DW S1 episode – ‘Knight vs. Pirate’. The pirate won, of course, but the knight had him working for it. Was it a fair episode? Yes, as the entire DW team were busy establishing if the basic firearms, (a flintlock pistol and the like) could penetrate the Medieval plate armor…and the answer is yes, it could and it can, but it was much dicier than in case of the more modern weapons, (19^th century onwards, I suppose). This episode of DW was all about the weapons and the warriors, and as such, it was one of the better ones. Anything else?

Here is another piece of my original fiction – hope that you will like it:

Once upon a time, there was a dog, who lived in the kennel. Though the kennel had no furnace, the dog's fur kept him warm, and since he did a good job of keeping various thieves and blackguards out, he was well fed as well...

"Screw this!" said the dog as he looked over the author's drabble take of him. "I'm a dog! Man's oldest companion and best friend! Surely, I could get something bigger than just a drabble - a story, maybe, or a sequence of them..." He looked around, as he scratched himself behind an ear in a thoughtful way. "Maybe I could do some sort of a crossover, even..."

The dog looked around; he sniffed around and he walked around the enclosure of his drabble, which was supposed to be a yard. He tested the borders of his drabble, examining the entire fourth wall concept, until he got the idea of the lay of the land, so to speak, and he also tried to figure out as to where his story was going to go, because he also felt kind of lonely, (domestic dogs are social animals, as is their close cousin the grey wolf, and don't like to be by themselves, period), until he finally made a decision.

///

Once upon a time, there was a cat, who lived in the house. She caught a mouse in the cellar and was rewarded with milk, while her kitten, who was too young to appreciate milk properly - her mother could always give it to her fresh - was busy playing around the house, being a nuisance to everyone else, but a lovable one...

...And then the window into their room slash house opened wide, and the dog looked inside. "Hello there, neighbor!" he spoke in a particularly dopey way, which was typical of overly enthusiastic canines. "Doing anything currently?"

"Hello!" the kitten called back cheerfully. "Hi there, neighbor! And what are you doing?"

"Young lady!" the mama cat was far more defensive and less enthusiastic. "Behave yourself! And you," she turned to the dog, "what are you doing? The human owners will catch you at any moment-"

"Nuh-uh," the dog did not back down. "There are no humans, not right now - the author didn't put them into their drabbles, not yet! Anyways, I am going to break borders through our original fandom and another one - could you two please come along with me? It'll be lonely on my own-"

The mama cat looked decisively unimpressed by the dog's plea - cats and dogs don't constantly fight, but neither do they always get along, plus unlike dogs, cats are individualist creatures and don't do large social gatherings...unless they want to, (and there's catnip involved. When there's catnip involved, all bets are off).

"I don't know, mister," the kitten spoke up suddenly. "Mama doesn't really like to travel and to have adventures. Maybe you can come in and play with me - I mean, with us, instead?"

The dog thought this over for a bit. "Sure!" he finally agreed, and jumped into the house through the window, right onto the carpet, where he gave himself a good shake, shaking himself clean. Well, cleaner. The kitten giggled and imitated him to an extent; the mama cat just stared.

The dog stared back. For a while, the two grown-ups just looked at each other, clearly trying to establish some sort of a telepathic communication slash argument. The kitten just looked at them, feeling rather worried - she did not like it when the grown-ups fought.

"So where are we going?" the mother cat suddenly changed her tactics.

"Yay! We're going on a trip!" the kitten mewed enthusiastically. "Thank you mama!" and she hugged her mom.

"Yes, well, even a trip is better than having our... neighbor here," the older feline mewed. "Also, where are we going?"

"Oh, I got it all figured out!" the dog replied brightly, as he reached out and pulled the fourth wall between this original fandom and the next one...

///

"...Wow, where are we?" the kitten mewed delightfully as she pranced around the grassland - literally. Well, no - literally speaking they were in a savanna, complete with long grass and trees that were more tropical than the ones that grew in the forest that was located beyond their village...

"In Africa," the dog said brightly, as he sniffed around one of the trees in question. "Smell, or see, this one? It's an acacia tree-!"

"Yay!" said the kitten and immediately began to climb it. Her mother was far less amused.

"You!" she told their new acquaintance. "You! You man! Do you know as to who lives here?"

"Your relatives?" the dog suggested brightly, as he pointed out to a lion in the distance. (So far, the latter was more interested in a herd of zebras and was ignoring the disturbance, not that the smaller mammals minded that, king of the beasts and all).

The mother cat looked at the king of beasts in question and her ears went flat. "You!" she switched her attention back to the dog. "You! You bachelor! You bachelor man! You self-designated bachelor- dog-! You!"

"Mama!" And the kitten (of whom the mother cat had kind of forgotten, cough), fell from an acacia branch - she did not have too much experience at climbing trees yet, and right onto the dog.

There was a pause as the trio tried to get their bearings together, because reasons. "See, mommy? I landed on my feet, as a big cat!" the kitten said brightly, switching her mental gears really easily, and doing her best to sound innocent, too.

The mother cat was not impressed - mothers often are not. That said...

"Right," she spoke finally. "Let's go and walk around here for a while - gently. We can play and all but do so quietly, and without making a commotion. Understood this, both of you did?" she asked, sounding a bit like the older version of Yoda, (not the new baby one).

Instead of commenting on this, however, the other two just nodded in understanding, and this was that: the not exactly dynamic trio went on for a walk through the acacia grove and had many adventures, both here and elsewhere - but that was another story.

End.

Did you like it? All comments and criticisms are welcome! I will see you all soon!

Real life sucks: U.S. politics' version - Nov 9

Real life sucks. I can tell it to you from a personal experience. When our cat died several months earlier this year, we had about two cases left of specialized cat food left behind – for aging cats with kidney problems. Either we could have thrown them out, or put an ad onto Kijiji and that would have been the end of that. Instead, we rode downtown to hand them over to the Toronto Humane Society in person.

Life being what it is, THS DIDN’T accept the cat food, on account of it being so specialized, but they DID ‘kindly’ offer to throw it out for us. Since we did not need it anymore, and because we were emotionally exhausted, we accepted. The food was thrown out regardless of what we did. We wasted TTC tokens on top of everything else, (and these days they are not cheap). I hate real life.

And then, on November 8^th, Donald Trump was elected the 45^th president of the U.S. Immediately, the Americans began to look into immigration to Canada, (over here), or to New Zealand (and Australia?) as soon as this morning (November 9^th). The stock market is having the next bad experience since the British Brexit, too. Life, thanks for further reinforcing my point!

Do I feel sorry for Hillary and the rest of the Clintons? Yes. However, earlier this year, I have participated in Canadian elections, albeit on a municipal level. My family was supporting a Conservative candidate, (personally, I lean more towards NDP, actually), who is something of a family friend… Okay.

Our role was fairly small: we put down promotional posts over the candidate’s neighborhood, and promoted him in there as well. And at the same time we could see firsthand the ‘chaotic optimism’, cough, that he generated, he and his aide, (sent by Mr. Harper directly, so we were told). It was a clear case of counting chickens before they hatched, and it ended in failure – not only for our friend, but for Mr. Harper too: he lost his job to Mr. Trudeau. The moral? The same thing had happened to Ms. Clinton.

There is one more thing – the mass media. According to it, Trump is a racist, misogynist, et cetera, Anti-Christ. Of course, Hillary is barely better. Thus, at least for SOME people, the LEAST disgusting candidate won. In the U.S., mass media has acquired excessively too much power over the lives of people, (including the politicians, maybe). Internet, with its’ features such as Facebook and Twitter further complicated things – it is getting next to impossible to figure out of the information is true, false, a deliberate falsehood or just some person sharing their opinion – and getting quote-mined. On November 9^th, U.S. found itself in a world very different from the one depicted by its’ mass media where the good guys always won and/or were Democrats. Now they will have to decide if the Democrats are good guys but still have lost, or they were never the good guys to begin with, or if the mass media has lied to them all along all this time. For some people, it will be tough to adjust, let us be honest.

Anything else? As people are pointing out, life goes on, even if the Democratic set of values that had been gathering power and dominance since the 1970s were checked – severely – by Trump’s election. No, no one is going to secede as it happened after the election of Abe Lincoln – maybe you remember that man – but the presidential race has torn the American society apart and putting it back together won’t be easy or simple, even if everyone wanted to, and probably not everyone does. The democracy is a very powerful political system, and its power comes from its variability, instability, changeability, and not everyone likes it, because otherwise Trump would not have been elected, but he was. Now, for the next 4 to 8 years, (unless something ELSE happens, and not necessarily for the better), he is the new president of the U.S. Real life sucks, and it always did.

…Did Hillary have to go the extra mile and lose the election to bring the point home for all of us, though?

End

real life 4

News update on my cat: it got a kidney disease, which is genetic and incurable. I hate my life.