ThePlagueYears: Sunshine, lollipops...no roses yet

To those who may occasionally drop in to this blog: if it seems by the way it's written that I assume an actual audience for my ramblings, and because of this you are concerned about my grip on reality, rest assured. With that out of the way, welcome back (ha-ha, a little joke), and on with the show.

What a glorious day! When I got up this morning, the Weather Channel reported that it was -17C - yikes! - but the sky was blue, that pale blue you get in winter, and the rising sun was reflected in the windows across the street.

By the time I got out for my walk about 11:30 - after a brief video chat with Caitlin and 35 minutes on the bike with Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (see below) - it had turned into a perfect winter day: about -6C with bright sun sparkling on the snow.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have left-over business from yesterday, or left-over pictures anyway. Here are some more from my tramp around downtown in search of street art.

Fullarton St., federal building (not street art)

Spotted on Queen's Ave. (also not street art)

Alleyway from Richmond St. to Spageddy Eddy's restaurant

Back of north side of Dundas St.

Regarding the message in the second picture: People whose lives have been blown up by the pandemic - lost jobs, kids underfoot driving them insane, loved-ones dead - might feel justifiably a little resentful about the glib message of "solidarity" in the windows of insurance broker NFP's offices on Queen's Ave.

Are we really "all in this together," or are some of us basically screwed while others are faring relatively well, even thriving? (Don't get me started on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose net worth increased $75 billion in 2020.)

I've mentioned Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (Netflix) twice now. Although I haven't finished it - I've been watching in half-hour chunks while on the stationary bike - I can recommend it highly.

It's the story of what happens after the 2018 discovery of an intact 4,500-year-old tomb in an ancient burial site outside Cairo. A couple of things make the doc extraordinary.

First, there are no non-Egyptian characters. The Saqqara tomb dig was done by Egyptian archaeologists. All the experts quoted are Egyptian. Many speak only Arabic, with subtitles. I don't know about you, but I almost expect to hear plummy British or cultured-sounding German voices in programs about Egyptian archaeology. Not this one.

The other interesting feature is the story-telling. It's almost like a fiction film. There are characters we get to know: the lead archaeologist, a couple of his staff (including one young fellow who picks up his boss each morning and drives him to the site on the back of his motorbike), a pair of hieroglyph interpreters, an expert in animal mummification (a delightful woman who switches back and forth between fluent English and Arabic, sometimes in the same sentence) and the foreman of the works, a thoughtful older fellow who makes the case that the ancient people the team is digging up, or hoping to, lived not so very differently from many modern-day Egyptians.

There is also tension in the story. It sounds a bit contrived, but there is something about Ramadan coming which will shut down the dig for the holidays. After which the government is threatening to end funding - unless maybe the archaeologists can make another splashy discovery at the site. Will they come up with something good in time?

The pacing is more like a fictional film too. The story is told in roughly chronological order, but there are several strands the filmmakers switch back and forth to. All in all, it makes for surprisingly engaging viewing.

Back to the beginning: my morning walk. No real agenda for the picture taking, just back to the river and capture snow. I was practically never out of sight of our building. It was a z-shaped walk, up one side of the river, down the other.

Here's a sample.