Another very bad night, I'm afraid. Before I could finally go to sleep, I would get up every 20 minutes to rinse with salt water, as another wave of pain swept through my head. Most unpleasant. It was past midnight before I was able to drop off ...
I've just spent most of this morning with salt water swishing around my mouth! Urgh! But every 15 minutes, the pain returns. I don't know what to do, except endure.
Mippies kept me very busy, too! Mewthos brought in a live mouse. Into the bedroom! And then 'lost' it under my bed. Sigh. He kept mewling at me to get it for him - sorry, boy! Nope! Eventually he left ... later, Mini came inside, heard, found and caught the mouse! When she had it firmly in her mouth, I ran, chased and caught the Mini and carried her - with the mouse dangling from her mouth - outside! Outside, I pulled back her head until she opened her jaw and the mouse could escape ... but both Mini and Janey were right there, eager to catch the poor thing again.
About half an hour later, Ziva brought the mouse back inside. Into the kitchen - dead! All mippies joined her ... don't ask. I don't know, either. Mewthos wasn't there, but I found him just outside the door, picked him up and carried him into the kitchen as well. Closed the passage door and finally got away to get fresh milk!
The farmer is also having problems: he can't get bottles to fill his milk into! Milk bottle manufacture is not considered Essential Service. He's also running out of the cold drink bottles he normally falls back on ... Yes, I have my own bottles, but I'm now short 2, remember? 1 broken by the car guard and one lid broken ... Today, I took 4 glass bottles and a clean 1 liter tonic bottle. I'm also running out of R20 notes ... sigh.
Our gardener came to the car, as I was leaving and asked me to get him 2 liter milk as well. When I got back, I told him that I'd be putting out my recycling as well as the black bag - there's nothing rotting in there, but I've emptied my ashtray into that. I'm sharing my cigarettes with him - he doesn't smoke very much, but he'll also roll some from the left-over on my butts. I used to do that, too, in my student days. Funny thing, though, we both have to 'sneak around' to help each other - Leon doesn't like him talking to me, ha ha! Anyway, I now have some space again in my kitchen cupboard for recycling - and as a bonus: a clean bin as well!
And then, I had to try and figure out what I should do about the blackmail I received! Yeah, not kidding. Plain and simple: pay me, or else. I've heard about the worse kind, where they get into your PC, lock everything and if you don't pay, you loose everything. In this case, I'm threatened with distribution of a video of myself watching porn. Apart from shock, my first reaction was simply, that I refuse to be blackmailed.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the amount ... even IF I wanted to, a quarter million? Seriously? When I barely make it through each month, sticking to a tight budget? And of all times, now? When I'm sitting at home with no income?
Clearly, no account information, nor even my location are known to this person. Oh, he sent me a password - my least secure one, which google had already warned me was compromised. And then there's a little fun fact: there is no camera attached to my PC - so the 'threat' is an empty one - which I realised at the start, of course. Oh, you're waiting for me to deny watching porn? Yeah, sorry ... Too much information? For this blog, I suppose, you're right, ha ha!
Anyway, things weren't adding up, so I contacted an online friend who has far more IT knowledge than I ever will - he wasn't online, so I tried another one. In the end, both agreed: Just ignore it. Change that one password, but otherwise, ignore it.
My friend also advised that I password my PC, the longer the password, the safer - no need to mix numbers & symbols in, just make it long. Ideally 3 unconnected words - so, what better 3 words which don't make a sentence than 3 names? So, now I have a password on my PC.
And finally, I wanted to share my impressions of last nights Information Sharing. Well the first and strongest impression left with me was that it was exceptionally well done. The information was presented so that ANYONE could understand everything. No techno-babble, no gibberish, just simple explanation.
And it's scary! Unless we discover some magic (they called it mojo), there's no way this disease can be stopped - it WILL spread through the entire country ... The lock-down is buying us time to prepare what can be prepared. Apart from the preparations, they are doing their best to track down every person who might have been exposed to the virus - back-tracking to the patient(s) zero from every positive case. You know, like they do in the 1-hour TV shows running around the city to prevent an epidemic.
They actually screened some hundreds of thousands of people, of which less than a fifth warrant testing, of which less than 2% are positive, of which less than 1% result in death.
Doesn't sound very bad, does it? But these numbers aren't yet verified data - as in, we can't use these numbers to extrapolate the final numbers. Because this disease has such a long incubation period (i.e. time between catching it & displaying symptoms), the numbers today reflect the people infected BEFORE the lock-down. And we'll only know the real effect of lock-down by the end of this week.
Apparently, we're the only country testing communities - the rest of the world waits for them to show up at hospitals. And that, in turn, means that comparing South Africa's numbers against the numbers in other countries is not apples and apples.
They also answered a question on face masks: They will protect others from you but not vice versa. Which I don't understand. If the virus cannot get through a plain cloth face mask when I exhale - how can it get through, if I inhale?
And the most frightening part of all, though predictable: Lock-down can not be simply lifted. There's no 'back to normal' ... not soon, maybe never. IF the numbers on the 18th meet certain criteria, then lock-down may be eased. Some restrictions may be eased - but unlikely to be lifted completely. Normal is being re-defined ...
Overall, I feel very confident with our Health Department. Since there's nothing I can do about it anyway, it just means I don't have to work on acceptance.
Our Police Force, on the other hand, leaves a LOT to be desired. Serve and protect are clearly not even the least part of their role ... innocent shoppers are being harassed - no serving the public there; and schools are broken into and burned - no protection there! They're clearly enjoying the freedom to bully anyone they choose! Nuff said.
I didn't do much again, today. I could use the pain as an excuse ... but it's weak, so I won't. I did bake a loaf of bread and stuck the grated cheese into the slices. When it was done, I topped it with my home-made cheese and enjoyed! Deeeelicious!
It started thundering around four in the afternoon, mippies came inside and I shut them in for the night. It rained quite hard, and then the power went out. For over an hour. Mippies didn't mind being shut in early, since all the wets is outside - and they got their treats early, too! Now they're spread all over the place, napping, curled up, looking cute! Ready to be cuddled! So, I'm answering the call for cuddles for tonight ... feeling pain free at the moment, hopefully I'll get to sleep tonight!
Mippies kept me very busy, too! Mewthos brought in a live mouse. Into the bedroom! And then 'lost' it under my bed. Sigh. He kept mewling at me to get it for him - sorry, boy! Nope! Eventually he left ... later, Mini came inside, heard, found and caught the mouse! When she had it firmly in her mouth, I ran, chased and caught the Mini and carried her - with the mouse dangling from her mouth - outside! Outside, I pulled back her head until she opened her jaw and the mouse could escape ... but both Mini and Janey were right there, eager to catch the poor thing again.
About half an hour later, Ziva brought the mouse back inside. Into the kitchen - dead! All mippies joined her ... don't ask. I don't know, either. Mewthos wasn't there, but I found him just outside the door, picked him up and carried him into the kitchen as well. Closed the passage door and finally got away to get fresh milk!
The farmer is also having problems: he can't get bottles to fill his milk into! Milk bottle manufacture is not considered Essential Service. He's also running out of the cold drink bottles he normally falls back on ... Yes, I have my own bottles, but I'm now short 2, remember? 1 broken by the car guard and one lid broken ... Today, I took 4 glass bottles and a clean 1 liter tonic bottle. I'm also running out of R20 notes ... sigh.
Our gardener came to the car, as I was leaving and asked me to get him 2 liter milk as well. When I got back, I told him that I'd be putting out my recycling as well as the black bag - there's nothing rotting in there, but I've emptied my ashtray into that. I'm sharing my cigarettes with him - he doesn't smoke very much, but he'll also roll some from the left-over on my butts. I used to do that, too, in my student days. Funny thing, though, we both have to 'sneak around' to help each other - Leon doesn't like him talking to me, ha ha! Anyway, I now have some space again in my kitchen cupboard for recycling - and as a bonus: a clean bin as well!
And then, I had to try and figure out what I should do about the blackmail I received! Yeah, not kidding. Plain and simple: pay me, or else. I've heard about the worse kind, where they get into your PC, lock everything and if you don't pay, you loose everything. In this case, I'm threatened with distribution of a video of myself watching porn. Apart from shock, my first reaction was simply, that I refuse to be blackmailed.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the amount ... even IF I wanted to, a quarter million? Seriously? When I barely make it through each month, sticking to a tight budget? And of all times, now? When I'm sitting at home with no income?
Clearly, no account information, nor even my location are known to this person. Oh, he sent me a password - my least secure one, which google had already warned me was compromised. And then there's a little fun fact: there is no camera attached to my PC - so the 'threat' is an empty one - which I realised at the start, of course. Oh, you're waiting for me to deny watching porn? Yeah, sorry ... Too much information? For this blog, I suppose, you're right, ha ha!
Anyway, things weren't adding up, so I contacted an online friend who has far more IT knowledge than I ever will - he wasn't online, so I tried another one. In the end, both agreed: Just ignore it. Change that one password, but otherwise, ignore it.
My friend also advised that I password my PC, the longer the password, the safer - no need to mix numbers & symbols in, just make it long. Ideally 3 unconnected words - so, what better 3 words which don't make a sentence than 3 names? So, now I have a password on my PC.
And finally, I wanted to share my impressions of last nights Information Sharing. Well the first and strongest impression left with me was that it was exceptionally well done. The information was presented so that ANYONE could understand everything. No techno-babble, no gibberish, just simple explanation.
And it's scary! Unless we discover some magic (they called it mojo), there's no way this disease can be stopped - it WILL spread through the entire country ... The lock-down is buying us time to prepare what can be prepared. Apart from the preparations, they are doing their best to track down every person who might have been exposed to the virus - back-tracking to the patient(s) zero from every positive case. You know, like they do in the 1-hour TV shows running around the city to prevent an epidemic.
They actually screened some hundreds of thousands of people, of which less than a fifth warrant testing, of which less than 2% are positive, of which less than 1% result in death.
Doesn't sound very bad, does it? But these numbers aren't yet verified data - as in, we can't use these numbers to extrapolate the final numbers. Because this disease has such a long incubation period (i.e. time between catching it & displaying symptoms), the numbers today reflect the people infected BEFORE the lock-down. And we'll only know the real effect of lock-down by the end of this week.
Apparently, we're the only country testing communities - the rest of the world waits for them to show up at hospitals. And that, in turn, means that comparing South Africa's numbers against the numbers in other countries is not apples and apples.
They also answered a question on face masks: They will protect others from you but not vice versa. Which I don't understand. If the virus cannot get through a plain cloth face mask when I exhale - how can it get through, if I inhale?
And the most frightening part of all, though predictable: Lock-down can not be simply lifted. There's no 'back to normal' ... not soon, maybe never. IF the numbers on the 18th meet certain criteria, then lock-down may be eased. Some restrictions may be eased - but unlikely to be lifted completely. Normal is being re-defined ...
Overall, I feel very confident with our Health Department. Since there's nothing I can do about it anyway, it just means I don't have to work on acceptance.
Our Police Force, on the other hand, leaves a LOT to be desired. Serve and protect are clearly not even the least part of their role ... innocent shoppers are being harassed - no serving the public there; and schools are broken into and burned - no protection there! They're clearly enjoying the freedom to bully anyone they choose! Nuff said.
I didn't do much again, today. I could use the pain as an excuse ... but it's weak, so I won't. I did bake a loaf of bread and stuck the grated cheese into the slices. When it was done, I topped it with my home-made cheese and enjoyed! Deeeelicious!
It started thundering around four in the afternoon, mippies came inside and I shut them in for the night. It rained quite hard, and then the power went out. For over an hour. Mippies didn't mind being shut in early, since all the wets is outside - and they got their treats early, too! Now they're spread all over the place, napping, curled up, looking cute! Ready to be cuddled! So, I'm answering the call for cuddles for tonight ... feeling pain free at the moment, hopefully I'll get to sleep tonight!
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