ed_rex

Aside from the plague, Young Edifice, how are things going?

I feel as if I ought to be pulling a Dr. Johnson, reporting on my experience of the Great Plague of 2020 (and 2021? Time will tell), but my own, personal life has thus far been so little affected, I really feel I have almost nothing to say about it at all.

Prior to the emergence of Covid-19, I worked a job in the transportation industry 4 days a week, on a shift that usually saw me get home around 2:00 in the morning. Three days a week were spent domestically, some shopping, some cooking, some cleaning, lots and lots of time with the baby.

Meanwhile, Raven is looking forward to returning to work in August, and hoping against hope that she will not be working from home, but she too is normally pretty hermatose; I doubt she goes out with friends even once every couple of months as a rule.

So for us, what's not to like? (I know, I sound like a privileged asshole, and yet, it is my personal experience with this thing thus far.) And whaddo I know about the social dislocations, the anxieties, the economic suffering, caused by the plague? Basically, only what comes through my Facebook feed and, to a much lesser extent, here or on Twitter.

It isn't that I feel above the concerns of the world, so much as that I just feel apart from them. Hell, we never even ran out of toilet paper or kleenex because we always bought in bulk when such things would go on sale. (I even managed to find a fucking pound of yeast last week to replenish my dwindling supply!)

So, I dunno, what the hell am I supposed to write about here, that I am not already writing about elsewhere?

Oi. I hate this entry already. Here, have a video showing what I've learned from my small daughter and, maybe, that might express something that some of you are feeling during these weird times. Then I'll talk a little about her, and our latest anxieties.

Well, now that I've buried the lede, I can report on our nine-month check-up with our GP (by telephone, nat'ch!).

Tiny, perfect baby growing slow ...

Well, I dunno about "perfect", but what else would you expect a father to say?

Baobao is healthy so far as we can tell. She has lots of energy, is crawling well and starting to show signs of being interested in standing; she's eating (and enjoying) a super-wide variety of foods to supplement her breast milk; her pee is clear and she's had no problems pooping; she's vocal as hell and if she's been crying more than she used to, there doesn't seem to be anything actually wrong with her — she just resents having to go down for a nap.

So, lucky us, so far and so it seems!

But one thing is causing Raven some stress, though her papa is un-bothered and, in truth, thinks it kind of amusing.

As those of you who have met me in person already know, I am not a tall man. In fact, I am considered pretty damned short, at least in the first world. I used to be a bit over 5'5" tall but at my most recent physical I measured under. Shrinking already, apparently. Nevertheless, on my dad's side of the family, I am one of the two or three tallest of a dozen or so cousins.

I credit my Mongolian heritage (a paternal aunt recently had her DNA tested and came up with 5% "central Asian" (not to mention 3% Neanderthal!) heritage, so this thesis is edging onto proven) for being what my father has long called "normal height".

Raven (5'2"? 5'3"?), on the other hand, does not subscribe to my less-is-more philosophy, and so was underwhelmed when we reported Baobao's latest measurements to the good Doctor Chow.

• Length/height: 66 centimetres = 5th percentile;


• Weight: 15.2 pounds = 10th percentile;


• Head circumference: 45 centimetres = 80th percentile

So. Super small baby, actually. And Raven told me just this morning as the three of us lounged in bed for a bit that if she were in the 3rd percentile there would be reason to worry there was something wrong with her &dmash; so she's only just within the normal range.

Which means I can still laugh about my baby's size (in contrast to my sweetie's unfulfilled desires; she wanted a boy, too), rather than worry about it.

A view from the self(ish) perspective

Young Edifice says goodbye to his baby as he prepares to venture out into the plague-emptied streets of Ottawa, afternoon of March 25, 2020.

I feel as if I'm tempting fate to type the following, but here goes ...

Presuming we don't get sick, the semi-lockdown we're experiencing in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has barely touched our lives except for one thing: I am out of work.

Out of work, but not disastrously so. Raven is still on maternity leave, at either 90% or 100% of her salary (I think the latter), and I have learned sufficient frugality from her that I actually have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank — something I was unable to accomplish back the days more than a decade ago when I earned twice what I do now. And it looks as I will be eligible for some sort of government package that will cover my lost income at least until August — which is when our plan had me leaving work to become a full-time dad anyway.

And in a worst-case scenario, if we both somehow lost our jobs, we live in an apartment owned by non-profit housing corporation and so, would be eligible for a rent subsidy until we were back on our feet.

Long story short, I don't think any of us are sick, I want to stay home with my daughter and I might get paid to do so for the next four months, and I now have more time to write and to work on being a publisher — yes, if you're looking for something good to read, click this long link!.

What's not to like?

Not quite eerie ... but close

Photo taken around 14:45 on March 25, 2020, outside a grocery store at the corner of Bank and Somerset Streets in downtown Ottawa

Oh yeah, there's plenty not to like.

On a personal level, we had intended to visit Raven's parents and family in Macau in April but that plan — obviously — is on an indefinite hold.

Much more seriously, people — quite a lot of people in some places — are dying. Many others are seriously ill and still more people are losing their jobs and anxious that they will lose a lot more than that.

And I believe, too, from information derived via The Other Place, that at least one of you has symptoms of Covid-19 and is feeling understandably anxious because of it, so the situation is hitting me on a personal level as well, if at some distance.

Here in Ottawa (see photo above), life goes on but in an eerie sort of half-normal fashion. A lot of stores are closed and the streets — even close to rush hour — have a Sunday feel to them, while queues to get into grocery stores are now the norm. (I also went to the Beer Store yesterday — yes, booze has been deemed an essential service; and rightly so, as the last thing an over-burdened medical system needs is to have its emergency rooms crowded with alcoholics suffering from delerium tremens — and found it nearly empty.)

People are mostly being very good about keeping their "social distance" from one another and seem to be dealing with the situation with consideration and good humour. That said, our just-in-time supply system is having serious problems keeping things like toilet paper in stock, as has been widely noted throughout much of the world. The toiletry section of my local supermarket reminds me of the empty shelves we so often found in Cuba.

And here we are ...

Photo of Young Edifice holding his daughter in what might have been the final snowfall of the season., Tuesday, March 24, 2020.

And so the entire world lives in times more uncertain than ever. A global economy based on suicidal fossil fuels and with a production capacity that far exceeds demand, while the rich hoard an ever-greater percentage of the whole is now being stressed by a deadly new virus that has spread across the world with shocking speed.

I think that most of us, myself definitely included, feel on a gut-level that things will soon (or soonish) go back to normal, and maybe they will.

But will they?

On the one hand, governments in a lot of places are instituting emergency measures that provide them with powers they may be loathe to relinquish, while on the other, many of capitalism's contradictions are ever-harder to paper over.

Can the climate movement become a fully-fledged anti-capitalist movement? I dunno, but I can dream ...

Me, I'm doing my best to hunker down and raise my daughter as if the world is a safe and wonderful place and will only get better. I will dream.

Meanwhile, how are you folks coping with the situation?