haiku

suddenly color
emerges as the clouds part
permission to paint

for Three Things Challenge

TWIV

i’d say that the virolgists deserve to win one of these weeks. why not this one? there are currently 172 vaccine candidates queued up for testing. most haven’t begun phase one, but many will get there soon. there are a few in phase one and a couple in phase two and one candidate recruiting for phase three. best guess for a successful vaccine, if there is one in this batch: available next summer.

i enjoy listening to the podcast This Week in Virology (TWIV). Most of the dialog goes over my head, but I catch enough to feel that I have a rough idea of what’s going on amongst the researchers and clinicians who staff the program (they are numerous). The podcast has been around awhile, as there are 160+ episodes. It’s a sister to This Week in Evolution, This Week in Microbiology, This Week in Parasites, and This Week in Machine Learning/AI, all worthy podcasts.

listening to the experts makes clear that daily media should be understood as limited in the information it provides – not necessarily biased or otherwise wanting, but limited.

for Who Won This Week?

mr. right

I met my date at the Saint Benedict Hotel. He was sitting in an easy chair with a drink in his hand. First impression: a bit coarse for me. The shaggy distracted look of an armchair anarchist.

“Are you all right?” I said. “I’m Poppy.”

“Where did you spring up from?” he said. “You’ve given me a start.”

“I’ve just come from Westminster,” I said. “I work for the MP from Aberavon.”

“Bloody hell,” he said. “Plague on both your houses.”

“Oi, you are an anarchist.”

“Don’t vote – the government always wins.”

“Speaking of voting,” I said, “so far I’m giving you nought out of ten on the dating site.”

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

“Ta ta,” I said.

“Hang on,” he said. “I told them you’d pay for the drinks.”

for On-line Writer’s Guild

tough relationship

Photo courtesy ofSue-Z

kicked out of the house again. i deserve it. i was mean. must learn to resolve differences with my partner in a more civil manner. must suppress my impulse to take everything personally and to “counter-punch” during arguments, and must stop using “air quotes,” as it makes my partner crazy.

so i’ve been expelled to the doghouse for the night, the doghouse actually being the “doghouse,” meaning the back yard, which is really the copse behind our home.

first time this happened, i brought out a sleeping bag. second time, a mister coffee on a long extension cord. i’ve got books and magazines out here, but what will i do when the rains come? added a lamp to the extension cord, and a smart tv and sound system, creating an outdoor “man cave.” which causes my partner to shout out the back window to “turn it off, it’s three in the morning for christ’s sake!”

do i build an actual super-size dog house? a tree house? a bomb shelter? extend the back porch? bring the car around from the front? somehow construct my own little “pied a terre”?

for Sunday Photo Fiction