Day Two of freedom. I celebrated by going out for a run.
The Weather Channel said it was -8C, and I dressed accordingly: cotton joggers over insulated cold-weather joggers, fleece turtle neck over cotton turtle neck, nylon shell, light woolen hat over fleece lined ear muffs, thinsulate-lined mittens, scarf.
I might have been over-dressed but, hey, it's good to sweat.
I ran a hybrid route that combined parts of my regular running and fast-walk routes: 3.6 K, with some ups and downs and a good stair climb near the end - not bad for a first time out in three weeks. I'll build it back up to 5 K. My quarantine regime included jogging around the apartment for 30 minutes at a time or riding my bike on an exercise stand for 25. It was evidently enough that I wasn't horribly out of shape.
As I was coming out of the building and walking along Talbot St. to start the route, a car driven by a pretty thirty-something woman came towards me. The woman did a little double take when she saw me, then looked away and smiled to herself. It's a response I've had before when out exercising. It's almost always young or middle-aged women, and it feels a teensy bit condescending: 'Ah, isn't he cute, the old guy out getting his exercise!'
I don't really mind. If I'm honest, I'm charmed in a way. I remember when I was in my thirties and hadn't yet quite got myself into the habit of exercising regularly, I'd see guys in their forties and fifties, not necessarily out exercising, but obviously very fit and vigorous. I didn't smile to myself at the sight of them or anything, but I did think, 'Yeah, that's what I want to be like when I get to his age.'
I'm not sure that's quite the same response as my smiling young women, but if those women went home and egged on their couch-potato fathers or husbands to get out and exercise more like the old duffer they saw on the street today, it would be worth the slight sting of condescension in their smiles.
I was a bit disappointed in how little has been done to clear the paths. Eighty-five percent of my route is on riverside walking/biking trails and most of that way, I was running on packed snow. It's not really dangerous, but it slows you down a bit. And it could get dangerous if thaw and refreezing turns it to ice.
I know walkways can't be as high priority as roadways for snow clearance, but unsafe walking conditions provide one more disincentive for people, especially older people, to get out for fresh air and exercise in the winter.
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I find it ironic as a Canadian that we, who were vilified as selfish first-worlders for buying way more Covid vaccine doses than we have people, are now having our vaccine shipments cut, future supply threatened and inoculation program disrupted, while the Europeans who were prominent among our critics are trying to make it difficult for vaccine producers based there to export product out of the Union.
And more than half the population of France doesn't even want a jab! We do.
The Canadian government strategy of over-buying from multiple suppliers was never about hording - I didn't think. It was about insuring that if some of the vaccines failed to pan out, we'd have a reasonable chance of at least getting some from somewhere. If we do end up with a surplus and we just sit on it while poorer countries go begging, then we'd deserve all the criticism, but not otherwise.
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Every picture tells a story: If you take enough photographs, occasionally you catch a break. Here's an example.
The picture was taken in Córdoba, Spain. (Which we incorrectly call Cor-DO-ba, but which is properly pronounced COR-do-ba - that's what the accent over the first 'o' indicates.) It was shot at the Mezquita the fabulous mosque-cum-cathedral in the city's centre. Southern Spain was ruled by Muslim North African rulers until the Reconquista - the reconquest - by Christian kings in the 13th century. Córdoba, a major power centre in Al-andalus, the Muslim state, fell in 1236.
The Catholic church runs the place today. It's a fascinating amalgam of mosque and church architecture and decoration, beautifully restored and maintained. The day Karen and I visited, in 2011, I noticed that many of the other visitors appeared to be of North African or Middle Eastern origin, and presumably Muslim. These little boys, there with their parents who had let them explore on their own for awhile, were among them.
It was difficult taking pictures inside because the lighting is deliberately kept very low to help preserve the ancient paintwork. I shot this one at a very high ISO and slow shutter speed to get enough light, which is why it's a bit grainy (the ISO) and why people in motion, like big brother taking the picture, appear blurred (the slow shutter speed). I was incredibly lucky, though, that I clicked the shutter at the exact moment the boy snapped his picture and his flash was illuminating his brothers.
Using flash was supposed to be strictly forbidden in the Mezquita, but hey, they're just little boys. Or they were in 2011, they're teenagers now.
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Amusing bird fact of the day: The Bird Way author Jennifer Ackerman devotes a chapter of the book to bird mimicry - not parrots mimicking human speech, but birds very accurately mimicking the calls of other bird species. Why do they do it? Some can perfectly mimic dozens of species and do it constantly. There are a bunch of reasons, it turns out, among them impressing prospective mates with their cleverness. But sometimes it's about deceiving other birds or other animals.
Scientists were long mystified by Australian superb lyrebirds, champion mimics, emitting the alarm calls of other birds while they were in the midst of mating.
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| Australian superb lyrebird |
Lyrebirds lure their lady loves to a special private place they've prepared by clearing and raking a patch of ground. Researchers now believe the male's object in mimicking alarm calls is to fool its mate into believing other birds in the neighbourhood are sounding the alarm about a nearby predator so she'll freeze in fear and won't be tempted to leave before he's had his way with her and ensured his genes are passed on.
Sneaky bastards!
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