Sunday Orthography, Bugs, and Monopoly
The Trick
The Girl comes running in where I am working and asks, “Hey Dad, what does ‘t-w-a’ spell?”
“It stand for ‘Trans World Airlines,'” I reply.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She shakes off mild frustration and fascination and continues, “But if it were a word, what would it spell? How would you say it?”
“Twa.”
“What does ‘t-w-e’ spell?”
“Nothing.”
“What would it spell?”
“Twe.”
“Say it three times.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“Twe. Twe. Twe.”
“And ‘t-w-a’?”
“Twa.”
“And ‘t-w-e’?”
“Twe.”
“And ‘t-w-o’?”
I don’t fall for it. She gets frustrated.
K’s Day
Masks Unmasked and Wheelies
Masks Unmasked
Two facts to begin with: fact one — the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, issued an executive order today prohibiting cities from mandating masks to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only that, but he is suing Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms because she implemented such a mandate.
The lawsuit marks a stunning escalation in the brewing feud between Kemp and Bottoms after the Atlanta mayor introduced her mandatory mask ordinance. Under her order, not wearing a mask within Atlanta’s city limits was punishable by a fine and even up to six months in jail.
But the governor’s office has argued the mayor’s plan is not “legally enforceable” because Kemp signed an executive order that prohibits local action from being more prohibitive than the state’s requirements. (Source)
Fact two — of the states with the highest growth of cases in the US (Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and California), four of the five have Republican governors. Florida, South Carolina, and Texas were among the last to shut down and among the first to open back up.
It leaves me wondering what in the hell Republicans think they’re doing. I get the feeling that most of the anti-science individuals and policies come from Republicans. They seem to have a positive fear of science.
Anti-vaxers? Usually Republican. Parents who reject the clear evidence for evolution and want creationism taught in school? Republican. Climate-change-deniers? Republican. Anti-maskers? Republican.
And it’s not just a feeling, not just a perception: there are data to back it up.
I think this pandemic is really highlighting an ugly truth about America that many of us sensed but couldn’t really prove: we can’t help but see it all around us now.
At the other extreme is New Zealand, where politicians let health professionals and scientists make decisions about how to deal with the pandemic. They now have zero active cases. Zero.
But it’s not just who’s making the decisions: it’s also the mentality of the populace. This pandemic is also showing the ugly side of American “freedom-at-all-costs” thinking.
As it stands, I think the rest of the world is now just looking at America and shaking its head. We elected someone who has no business working as a public servant to the highest office in the nation and rejected clear scientific findings regarding the pandemic, which lead us to have historic levels of infection — to the degree that the EU has banned Americans from traveling to Europe.
Wheelies
Today, as we went on our evening walk, the Boy was popping wheelies on his bike. Right now he’s just pulling his front tire off the ground for a fraction of a second. Soon enough he’ll be trying to ride wheelies for as long as he can.
I found myself trying to remember whether I could ride wheelies as a kid. Could I? I honestly can’t remember. It seems plausible and implausible at the same time.
Such is the fragile and unreliable nature of memories.
A Little Reworking
Tuesday Adventures
We all woke up at seven this morning. For K, that was sleeping in half an hour; for me, that was my normal wake up time; for E, well, it depends; for L, it was definitely early. Our plan: a morning bike ride on a route that we repeat regularly to check for improvement. After mapping out a route, we headed out. I stuck with the Girl because I knew she would be zooming ahead; K stuck with the Boy because he just doesn't have the stamina a thirteen-year-old possesses. L and I made the 7 km ride in 24 minutes, which means an average speed of 16 km/h. Not too bad for a then-fussy girl who didn't even want to get out of bed to begin with.
After breakfast, the Boy and I set up his wooden train set to take some pictures: he wants to sell it (eBay? Facebook Marketplace? Craig's List?) since he doesn't play with it anymore.
Then we did the same with his Duplo blocks. "I haven't touched those in years!" he proudly informed me. But after we just display them, we have to make something out of them.
One last time.
The afternoon passes with a lot of reading.
The Girl reads Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in its entirety for the second time. It's the HP book I've agreed to read, so she wanted to get through it quickly so I could read it. I struggled through the end of Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot -- a book I had high hopes for but which ultimately left me disappointed.
In the evening, the Girl played a game of chess with K while E and I went on another bike ride:
And throughout the day, I popped downstairs for the next lesson in the series on Photoshop compositing and ended this evening with this creation:
Next step -- apply those newly-learned skills to pictures of my own kids...
Stay-cation
We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow for a small vacation with the family. It seems like a crazy idea to go out during a pandemic, but we were just going to the beach — easy enough to stay away from everyone, and since we were Airbnb-ing it, we wouldn’t even have to go inside restaurants or stores.
Then we realized K and I have chickenpox. How is it possible to have chickenpox during a pandemic that is forcing us to isolate ourselves? Well, we go to the store; K occasionally works with real estate clients; we have been going for hikes. During all of this, we take the appropriate CDC-recommended precautions.
Morning reading session
What’s more frustrating about it is that I’ve had them before. When my best friend came down with chickenpox our senior year, I was one of the friends who would drop by every day and tell him what he’d missed in school. I brought over R.E.M.’s newest release at the time (Out of Time). and we listened to it together.
Perhaps it was for the best, though — perhaps we were being idiots even for thinking about it. At any rate, the Airbnb host agreed to let us change the date and agreed to be very flexible about that new date, so we’ve theoretically lost nothing. Perhaps we gained more than we thought, though.
Composite play
Sundays
sometimes suck.
Cleaning
A significant portion of our lives is involved in taking back to the outside the dirt we drag inside. When you have a cat and a dog, there's even more to contend with. When you have an eight-year-old boy, that grows yet again.
So today, the Boy and I took on his room, something that we've neglected for far too long. Sure, we've done some mild interventions, but nothing like today: everything gets dumped out; everything gets rearranged; everything gets cleaned.
Views from the Past
