Good morning, Angels.
I hope you had a great week. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve been under the weather again. I was diagnosed Monday with my fourth round of pneumonia, which frankly just sounds like an excessive amount of pneumonia.
I am feeling a bit better today, so I’m glad you stopped by for a visit. There are clean cups in the cupboard. There’s tea in the pot. Let’s do this.
The little things
First off, if you’re going to have pneumonia, it certainly does help if the pill the doctor prescribed you is pretty as heck.
Look at this little guy. Twice a day (at mealtime, but not with dairy) I am dazzled by the colour of my antibiotic. I’m certainly glad the pharmaceutical industry hasn’t given up on the visual aesthetic.
This particular bout of pneumonia required a lozenge or two, and Erin put together this lovely little presentation for the coffee table by the couch. Sometimes a fellow doesn’t feel like a cherry Halls. Sometimes, he feels like a Green Tea with Echinacea Ricola.
All I’m saying is it’s nice to have the choice.
(Note Squeak in the background)
Another early pandemic artifact
I was going through my phone the other day when I came across another artifact I associate with the pandemic. This isn’t front the March 2020 era, but from when COVID finally broke through on the Island in a real way. That would have been late 2021/early 2022 when the Omicron wave hit.
The Omicron lock-downs coincided with the early popularity of Wordle — the word puzzle where you get six attempts to guess a five-letter word. Wordle, if you recall, spawned a million copycat games, and for a while, we did a bunch of them every morning. Erin and I would finish our breakfast, eye each other coyly, and say “is it puzzie time?” And inevitably, it would be.
We were already old hats with The New York Times Daily Mini Crossword, but to that ritual, we added Wordle. We did Globle and Worldle (guessing countries by their shapes). For a while we did Heardle (identifying a popular song by its early seconds). I played Chessle for a while (identifying chess openings by their opening moves).
Most of the games faded away, but we still try to do the Mini every day, along with Wordle, and a newer game from The New York Times called Connections.
For some reason, I’ve not edited the folder on my phone where I kept all these games. They reflect a very specific time in my mind.
Another thing that hasn’t changed
One thing that hasn’t changed with Wordle: my opening word. I’m almost embarrassed to show you. I started using it as a joke in the early days, but honestly, it works pretty well. I’d stack my Wordle results against most anyone… even if my first word is always:
Some painting
Laying on the couch got a little boring yesterday, so I set up at the kitchen table for a while with a pencil, a pen, and some watercolours. All thanks to Erin for realizing I was getting antsy and digging out the supplies. I didn’t know I felt like painting until I was staring at my brushes.
It’s been a while since I painted. I think if I were to do it again, I’d use better paper and less paint. I have to relearn over and over that with watercolours, you really have to decide where not to put paint.
I hope you forgive me that I’m a little short in my word count today. I’ll also not be recording the podcast edition of today’s issue of The Quack. I’ll get back to that when I’m feeling better next week.
Thanks, as always, to the wonderful members of my Patreon. Your support helps keep the creative things I do free for everyone to enjoy. I’ll be sending a special Quack Postscript to members of my Patreon later this morning.
I hope you have a great week.