Turkey pardons…

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the US, followed by Black Friday – aka the day to dash out and holiday shop ’til you drop…. 

US tradition has it that, on or slightly before Thanksgiving Day, the president “pardons” two turkeys from being slaughtered and consumed as the main attraction at the holiday repast. 

The pardonees go on to enjoy the rest of their life, threat-free, at Virginia Tech’s “Gobbler’s Rest” enclosure.
Hmmm, I look forward to the current hard-to-dislodge president 1) pardoning himself as this year’s turkey, and 2) the cornucopia of Trump-as-turkey-of-the-year themed cartoons…

Let the games begin – people need a good laugh during these dire times.

News blues…

With more than 3,000 new Covid cases over 24 hours, South Africa’s health minister is “very concerned” about the rise in infections, particularly in Eastern Cape …  (9:15 mins)

***

El Paso, Texas desperately needs Morgue Attendants at the county medical examiner’s office as Covid fatalities continue to rise. The work notice states:

“Morgue Attendants will be provided maximum PPE [personal protective equipment] and will receive a COVID test prior to starting. All Morgue Attendants will be tasked with physically moving Decedents… Not only is this assignment physically taxing, but it may be emotionally taxing as well.”
The request comes as the county has resorted to using low-level offenders from the county jail to help transport the deceased. Their work will continue until there are enough new hires, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said. “Not everybody is going to be able to do [the job]. We’ve had people there that have lasted an hour, 30 minutes, half a day…it’s a difficult process.”

Cry the beloved country.
Who’d a thunk?
Many immigrants may share my experience of ambivalence towards an adopted country. In my case, I went from adventurous country kid living in rural Valley of a Thousand Hills, KZN to life in a small city apartment within California’s 7-million-people-strong conurbation of San Francisco Bay Area. That massive emotional and psychological adjustment took two decades.
Today, locked down in a small village in KZN, 14,000 miles from San Francisco, I watch the unfolding tragedy in my adopted country… and cry.
How could such mismanagement of a deadly pandemic have happened in the United States of America?
Then I remember, ah, yes, Trump. A son of the soil… 

***

I seldom watch news anchor Rachel Maddow’s show (too long winded). Recently, however, I stumbled upon a You Tube clip she’d made during an enforced quarantine. Thankfully negative for Covid 19, her brief appearance was brave, clear, and very touching. Her message? Do everything you can to avoid Covid-19 – it can kill those you love… (8:15 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project: Michigan  (1:40 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Months ago, I made an offer to purchase a small, safe, secure, relatively inexpensive (in comparison to California’s prices) apartment in the village of Howick. The purchase was accepted and we began the very long process of transferring my funds from the US to seal the deal.
I worked with the conveyancing company selected by the seller’s representative.
FYI: Google explains that a “conveyancer is a licensed professional/attorney who provides advice and information with regards to the transfer of property ownership, as well as assisting buyers and sellers through the selling process.”
Alas, “assisting buyers and sellers through the selling process” is not how these conveyancing attorneys see their role.
Yesterday, after weeks of a very delayed timeline and regularly urging the conveyancing office assistant to attend to details of the very delayed timeline that costs me a pile of extra money – I met with a conveyancing professional.
My complaint? Their admin dropped the ball, made egregious errors on paperwork geared to transfer US dollars – and continues to cost me thousands of dollars more than budgeted.
Naturally, the conveyancing office practices CYA (cover your ass). They’re attempting to shift blame entirely upon my shoulders when dated documents clearly indicate the core of the problem: tardiness emanating from their office.
Moreover, I learned their office was operating on a halftime schedule due to Covid. No adjustment had been made, however, to address the staff’s ongoing fulltime workload – other than, “oh, well…” 

The turkeys seek a pardon…

Giving new meaning…

Trump as African dictator
(c) Trevor Noah  

Giving new, broader, and inclusive meaning to Donald Trump’s assertions about “sh**hole” countries, greed and corruption, in America millions of dollars have been stolen from the pandemic-related PPP – the US Payroll Protection Program 

Donald Trump brought his history of and reputation for shoddy business behavior with him into the White House:

• Whenever Trump has been in positions of power or authority, he has demonstrated a pattern of trying to enrich himself by abusing the trust others have placed in him — whether it’s creditors, contractors, charitable givers, Trump University students, regulators, or campaign donors  .
• Trump’s business failures are very real .

A simple Internet search will reveal far more of The Donald’s shady business history. It wasn’t like We the People were not warned. Way back in the misty past of 2016, South African Trevor Noah was spot on with his assessment of Trump: How South Africa Could Prepare the U.S. for President Trump…  (11:49 mins)

News blues…

The Super Spreader in Chief:

• White House Plans In-Person Holiday Parties As COVID-19 Cases Rise 
• Over 900 Midwest Mayo Clinic Staff Diagnosed With Coronavirus In Last 2 Weeks  
• Trump Takes Credit For Vaccines, Remains Silent On 250,000 COVID-19 Deaths 

And, to ensure he kills more of us with inaction on Covid-19, the Super Spreader in Chief continues to fighter election reality: Trump Summons Mich. GOP Leaders To Special Meeting At White House 

***

The Lincoln Project: Leaders (0:55 mins)
And, an email from The Lincoln Project on not-leaders:

Our nation's institutions, and our vigilance and resolve, are being tested at this hour.
Trump and his entourage of grifters and sycophants continue to challenge the legitimacy of our nation's free and fair elections, despite a complete lack of any evidence of fraud.
And, despite the Trump team's incompetence, the damage they are inflicting on our democracy is very real.
The reality is that Joe Biden won handily, and will become the 46th President of the United States on January 20. That has not stopped Trump from sowing chaos, confusion, and doubt to sabotage the president-elect and further divide our nation on his way out.
Trump has summoned members of the Michigan GOP in a bid to continue his charade, with two legislative leaders confirmed traveling to meet with the president:

Lee Chatfield
Michigan Speaker of the House
LeeChatfield@house.mi.gov
Office #: (517) 373-2629 

Mike Shirkey

Michigan Senate Majority Leader

SenMShirkey@senate.michigan.gov

Office #: (517) 373-5932

Michigan’s Senate Majority Leader, Mike Shirkey, and Speaker of the House, Lee Chatfield, are meeting with Trump to continue denying Joe Biden the electoral votes he’s won.
Contact them now to demand that the results of the election—and the will of Michigan voters—are upheld.
We must stay focused, stay vigilant, and stay confident. Our system is holding firm. Joe Biden is our duly elected president-elect, and he will take the office on January 20.

***

Healthy futures, anyone?

Poet Robert Frost wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”
…Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense….

What would Frost write about the US/Mexico border wall?

In the 1980s, when Kevin Dahl first began visiting the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument in southern Arizona, the border was unmarked, save for a simple fence used to keep cattle from a ranch in the US from crossing into Mexico. In those days, park rangers would call in their lunch orders at a diner located just across the border.
Since then, a 30ft steel bollard wall has replaced the old barbed wire fence at Organ Pipe. The towering steel barrier cuts through the Unesco reserve like a rust-colored suture.
“It’s this incredible scar,” said Kevin Dahl, a senior program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association, describing the wall that snakes its way through a pristine track of Sonoran desert, dwarfing the giant cacti that give this desert its name. “What was once a connected landscape is now a dissected one.”
That dissection is now a reality across much of the US border. It is a landscape increasingly defined by walls, roads, fences and associated border infrastructure that is fragmenting critically protected habitats, desecrating sacred cultural sites and threatening numerous endangered species in some of the most biodiverse and unique places in North America. 

Read 'An incredible scar': the harsh toll of Trump's 400-mile wall through national parks 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The saga of what can go wrong, will go wrong – amid a pandemic, to boot. This morning, I head to meet with a set of lawyers who’d like nothing more than have me stop kvetching at them and just disappear already. Their inefficiency has cost what to me is a lot of money – and I’m fighting back. More about it tomorrow…. My challenge? Emotionality. My friend, himself a (public interest) lawyer, shared a lawyer’s motto: Don’t let your feelings become an enemy of your wallet.
Excellent advice for today.

Normalizing

It's that increasingly dreaded end-of week reviewing of numbers and facing Covid’s devastation on our planet:
Worldwide (Map) 
November 19 – 56,188,000 confirmed infections; 1,348,600 deaths
October 22 – 41,150,000 confirmed infections; 1,130.410 deaths

US (Map)  
November 19 – 11,525,600 confirmed infections; 250,485 deaths
October 22 – 8,333,595 confirmed infections; 222,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)  
November 19 – 757,145 confirmed infections; 20,556 deaths
October 22 – 708,360 confirmed infections; 18,750 deaths

News blues…

While the particulars change day-by-day, each day seems to offer a rehasd  of yesterday’s news:

• Covid-19 wreaks havoc around the world, and particularly in the US (“North Dakota COVID Mortality Rate Highest in the World, With 1 in Every 1,000 Residents Dead”).
• Donald Trump wreaks havoc to the rule of law and highlights the weakness at the heart of a democratic republic that espouses “the rule of law .” 
• Climate change, unacknowledged, wreaks havoc on the environment .
• Honest, coherent, forward-looking leadership remains absent. 

I got the blues as the US normalizes havoc!

***

In South Africa, Covid-19 cases jump by 2,888 in a day  

***

Healthy futures, anyone?

Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health:

Every day we depend on biodiversity (the sheer variety of life found on Earth) to keep us alive and healthy. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat and the medications we take are all by-products of a healthy planet. Read more  >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The rainy season arrives with drama and fanfare: hail stones, the size of tennis balls, fell in Pietermaritzburg yesterday . Here, a 15-minute drive away, hail stones were of inferior size, mere marbles. 

Hooray for inferiority!

Lost the plot

News blues…

Recycled outrage. Current news isn’t new. That’s my conclusion about the current state of news reporting. US news anchors repeatedly express, 1) outrage about Trump’s latest gambit to accept reality, 2) outrage about the Trump administration’s inaction to address the unprecedented surge in Covid infections, and 3) routrage about the most recent Republican election shenanigans. That’s about sums up “new” news.
While ordinary (thinking) people, grapple with understandably high levels of fear and anxiety associated with an out-of-control pandemic, US media increases the levels of anxiety and fear, but does not address it. Is fear un-American?
One solution? Replace the 24-hour news cycle with hour-long news shows each morning, noon, and evening. For the other nine hours, present shows on, say, how beautiful and beautifully complex is our planet - or show cartoons. 

 ***

John Heilemann sums it up: Maximum moment of vulnerability…  (3:14 mins)

***

Meidas Touch: They lie, you die  (1:00 mins)
Don Caron: Fifty ways to leave the White House  (3:00 mins)
Randy Rainbow: Don't Tell Donald He's NOT RE-ELECTED TODAY! (3:55 mins)

Healthy futures, anyone?

Got fleas?

Highly toxic insecticides used on cats and dogs to kill fleas are poisoning rivers…. The discovery is “extremely concerning” for water insects, and the fish and birds that depend on them – scientists… expect significant environmental damage is being done.
Research found fipronil in 99% of samples from 20 rivers and the average level of one particularly toxic breakdown product of the pesticide was 38 times above the safety limit. Fipronil and another nerve agent called imidacloprid that was found in the rivers have been banned from use on farms for some years. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Blogging each morning has, until now, provided a structured way to attend to the world’s goings-on, and to express my quirky point of view. I find, however, that I’m increasingly falling into a “oh, what’s the use,” state of mind. This is unconstructive… and it adds to my inherent anxiety.
Yesterday, I awoke with the dreadful feeling that I must find a way to fill in surplus time. This feeling is unfamiliar and further anxiety-provoking; seldom have I experienced time as heavy on my hands.
Today, I awoke with the same dreadful feeling.
I need a new direction that engages head, heart, and hands….

Power(lessness) of positive thinking

Humans. Gotta luv ‘em. Nurse says, “…Some coronavirus patients often don't want to believe that Covid-19 is real, even in their dying moments…”   (4:29 mins)

News blues…

The news media repeatedly repeats repeated news: Trump refuses to face reality; Republicans support Trump no matter what; Covid 19 crisis continues to surge; Covid-19 decimates We the People; Trump tweets while the US burns; corruption reigns; comedians try to make light of tragedy….

Healthy futures, anyone?

Australia’s latest State of the Climate Report finds,

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel burning, has driven more dangerous bushfires, rising sea levels and a rapid rise in the days where temperatures reach extreme levels.
“What we are seeing now is beyond the realm of what was possible previously,” said Dr Jaci Brown, director of CSIRO’s Climate Science Centre.”
Among the key findings, the report said Australia’s climate had warmed by 1.44C since 1910 with bushfire seasons getting longer and more dangerous. Australia’s oceans had warmed by 1C and were acidifying.
In a briefing to reporters on Tuesday, Dr Karl Braganza, manager of climate environmental prediction service at the bureau, said … “What we are seeing now is a more tangible shift in the extremes and we are starting to feel how that shift in the average is impacting on extreme events.
“So we don’t necessarily feel that 1.44C increase in average temperature, but we do feel those heatwaves and we feel that fire weather.” 

Read the article, “Rising levels of carbon dioxide increasing extreme weather events in Australia.” 

In conjunction with rising temperatures and sea level rise, “humanity’s destruction of biodiversity creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19”… 

Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue. But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity …creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases… to arise—with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems. Is it possible, then, that it was human activity, such as road building, mining, hunting and logging, that triggered the Ebola epidemics …is unleashing new terrors today? … “We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants—and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote  in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I recommend treating pandemic fatigue with limited, safe, masked social interactions with friends and colleagues. Be prepared for side effects: Wanting more interactions with friends!
Successfully engaging with friends after months of lockdown feels liberating. Afterwards, however, lockdown feels like imprisonment. Lockdown isolation is stressful. One rebels, but… stays home, again. 

 ***

A word of warning to anyone thinking of doing business in South Africa: Expect costly delays!
Protect yourself – even if things “sound” feasible and appear straight-forward.
Do not expect any busines-person to show up on the agreed upon schedule.
What can go wrong is likely to go wrong!
Unfortunately, I’m discovering this the hard way: financial loss, threated law suits, avoidance and displacement of responsibility….
Not to be cryptic, but for now, best I express chagrin, not air details.
To date, this extended stay in South Africa has confined me to a home not my own, and far from my immediate family; strained relationships with my extended family; included verbal abuse and insults from my mother; had a bad actor threaten to rape and kill me; put me in front of a local magistrate to request a restraining order; illegally (unbeknownst to me) carried licensed firearms in my vehicle in an (unsuccessful) effort, on behalf of my mother, to turn them in to local police….
Things can only get better. 

Right?

Déjà vu all over again

News blues…

A look back at the influenza pandemic of 1918 reveals that a chaotic White House response to a public-health emergency is nothing new. 

President Trump talks about the fight against COVID-19 as a war against an invisible enemy, but a little over 100 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson was fighting both kinds of war: the Great War in Europe was in its final stages as the flu pandemic swept the globe, including the United States. Wilson chose to focus on the battlefronts of Europe, virtually ignoring the disease that ravaged the home front and killed about 675,000 Americans.
The 45th President has made inaccurate public statements about the coronavirus — last Wednesday, for example, Facebook removed a video in which President Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19—but, by comparison, the 28th president never uttered a single public statement about the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.
In terms of managing a federal response to the pandemic, “there was no leadership or guidance of any kind directly from the White House,” historian John M. Barry, says the author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. “Wilson wanted the focus to remain on the war effort. Anything negative was viewed as hurting morale and hurting the war effort.”
Tevi Troy’s book Shall We Wake the President: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office, ranks Wilson as the #1 worst president in a disaster: “The federal response to the influenza outbreak in 1918 can best be described as neglectful. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died without President Wilson saying anything or mobilizing nonmilitary components of the U.S. government to help the civilian population.”

President Wilson, until now ranked the #1 worst president in a disaster can rest assured: he’s now #2. Number One goes to The Donald.
Trump was 100% correct when he said we’d “get sick and tired of all the winning,” and that we’d tell him, 'Please, please, we can't win anymore….”
Winning a la Trump is killing us.

***

Now This: Say Goodbye to Trump’s Cabinet (5:52 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After 7 months of lockdown and severe pandemic fatigue, I drove 50 kms to Mooi River (“pretty” river) to visit friends. The village of Mooi River serves surrounding farmers/farms in the foothills of the Drakensberg. 

 While waiting for my friends to guide me to their home, I snapped this photograph of a traditional Zulu songoma. 

I also snapped a warning to drivers regarding the state of road (photo below). 

The phenomenon of potholes is par for the course in South Africa. Few roads are absent potholes. The interprovincial N3 is relatively free of potholes – as one might expect given the exorbitant road tolls one pays coming and going. I paid R53 at the Mooi River toll gate to access the village and R37 to leave. (Approximate total of tolls one way from Durban to Johannesburg is R250 – steep for your average South African driver.)

Overall, my visit was restorative. I needed it. Safety first, but positive human interaction is vital, too.

“A slaughter”

The Case for
Political Exile for Donald Trump   

The Case for Political Exile for Donald Trump suggests We the People  exile The Donald as Napoleon was exiled. I second that. 

Indeed, why not exile The Donald - and family - to Thomas island. This is the 70–78 acres (28–32 ha) island in the subdistrict East End of Saint Thomas, owned, from 1998 until his 2019 death, by Donald’s friend American convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . 

***

Cry, the beloved country. Doctor reacts to US Covid-19 numbers: 'It's a slaughter' as forty-four states see a rise in hospitalization and the number of daily new cases in the US… 

News blues…

Another example of Karma at work?

The Alaska congressman who once ridiculed the seriousness of the novel coronavirus, calling it the “beer virus,” said on Thursday he is now infected with it.
The announcement by Representative Don Young comes as the state’s governor on Thursday warned that health-care and public-safety systems were at risk of being overwhelmed by the rapid spread of the virus across Alaska.
Young, the 87-year-old Republican who is Alaska’s sole U.S. House of Representatives member, made the announcement on Twitter.
“I have tested positive for COVID-19. I am feeling strong, following proper protocols, working from home in Alaska, and ask for privacy at this time.”

With so many of Trump’s do-nothing-about-Covid cabinet and more than 130 Secret Service protectors infected, one might reconsider Karma. Hinduism and Buddhism state that the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, decides their fate in future existences. 
Or, as Westerners put it, “What goes around, comes around…. 

***

News from the neighborhood. Today, while bantering with gals in a hair salon (see details below), I carefully asked what the women thought of the US election and the results.
An elderly woman to my right said, “I think Trump’s an idiot.”
A younger woman on my left said, “I think Trump’s great! He’s a strong leader.” She added, “Bidden (her pronunciation of ol’Joe’s name) isn’t a strong leader.”
Another woman chimed in, “South Africans love Trump!”
The elderly woman to my right opined again, “They’re idiots, too!”
Usually, I’d chime in with my firm opinion – at least say, snidely, “I’m with her” and point to the woman on my right. Instead, I corrected pronunciation – “It’s Bye-den, not Bidden,” - and not only refrained from offering my opinion, I changed the subject. Me not opining shows I am capable of holding my tongue. Progress!
Nevertheless, Trump as a “strong leader”?
Baffling.

***

A message to the citizens of the USA from UK actor and comedian John Cleese (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, etc.): "Britain is Repossessing the U.S.A."

In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Arkansas, which she does not fancy).
Your new prime minister, Boris Johnson, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

First, look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary, then:  

1. Look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" and “right?” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.
6. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrification will help you understand the British sense of humour.
9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.
12. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them.
13. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
14. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us. No more Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cereal Bowl or Super Bowl. From now on..... get used to the World Cup.
15. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
16. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
17. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
18. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

God save the Queen.
John Cleese

(FYI: The humor in Cleese's  message may appeal only to those deeply familiar with USA/UK cultural differences with a soupçon of British colonialism....) 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Except for my own snip-snip-snippings and cut-cut-cuttings, I’ve not had a “real” haircut in 7 months. Today I splurged with a professional cut at Rene’s salon, Classic Cuts. What a treat to be among chatty, vivacious (if uninformed) people!
Moreover, Rene remembered me from 7 months ago when we’d discussed the neighborhood: she once lived in a house on the same short street.
Today, I learned that she’s in touch with Johan, a man whose father purchased this house when Johan was two years old (he’s now in his early forties). These days, Johan lives in Pretoria (aka, for South Africans, as “behind the boerewors curtain.” For non-South Africans: boerewors, Afrikaans for “farmers’ sausage,” denotes a long, no link-cut-as-needed, uniquely South African “meaty treat” – and implies conversative views.)

I asked Johan if the smallest pair of the children’s footprints memorialized in concrete – shown here, on left - were his. They were.
He shared that his father had built the garden pond – although the current pond configuration sounds different to his father’s version.
Peoples’ history. I love it!

***

Mint plants run rampant in this garden. I don’t mind; mint is fragrant, what’s not to like?
Last year, I tried, unsuccessfully, to make mint jelly. Mint has no natural pectin and, alas, my attempts to add pectin failed: my mint jelly never gelled. Instead, I have a large jar of mint syrup. Surprise! Mint syrup is the perfect ingredient for the Cuban mojito cocktail. Ice, soda, two spoons of mint syrup, and a dash of rum. Unlike many South Africans, drinking alcohol is not my regular habit. Lockdown has persuaded me, however, of the efficacy of an occasional “sun-downer” while relaxing on the bank of the pond – albeit a solitary activity since I’m starved for company. I purchased a bottle Bicardi white rum: R199.99I/ US$ 12. (Compare this to the fancier brands that cost into the range of R400 to R500/US$26 to US$32.)
In the past, my mojitos required mulling mint and sugar, adding ice, adding soda water, and topping off with rum. Nowadays? Two spoons of mint syrup, ice, soda water, and rum. Voila. Mojito-in-a-moment!
Cheers!
Hiccup!