Andrew Cotters Labs and Winter

~ Amusives

Had Enough of Winter Yet?

Dear Mother Nature,
Having received my free sample of winter, I would like to cancel the remainder of my subscription. Thank you.
– Author Unknown –

As I’ve previously mentioned, we’re still in Alberta ‘enjoying’ our first full cold and snow winter in about 8 years. Though we would prefer to be in warm sunny Arizona, many factors convinced us to stay home rather than fly south, then home weeks later. This included Canada’s recent new rule that anyone who is allowed to fly into Canada will have to present proof of a negative Covid test taken in the previous 72 hours; then they will be required to stay in a ‘detention’ hotel for up to three days, at their own expense, until such time as another Covid test says they are still negative. Then they will be allowed to go home for the remainder of a 2 week quarantine where security officers may pop by to make sure they are where they are supposed to be. Last, but not least, another Covid test must be done on day 10 of home incarceration.

Our Prime Minister is showing how super tough he is when it comes to Covid! I guess that is to make up for the fact that his government failed to procure very much vaccine and Canada is now 45th in the world in terms of doses per 100 people administered. (The UK is 4th, USA is 5th.)

On the lighter side of winter life, here is #DudeDad and #CharlieBerens to tell you How to train for winter!

How Other Countries are Coping During the Pandemic

Back to the theme of fitness:

My favourite labs, Olive and Mabel are urged to join the gym that Andrew Cotter has built in his garage.

Quotes of the Day

The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not you. A lot more will make sense after that.
-Author Unknown –

The three hardest things to say are:
1. I was wrong
2. I need help
3. Worcestershire Sauce
– Author Unknown –

16 thoughts on “Andrew Cotters Labs and Winter”

    1. I’m relieved you are not me too. I’m not sure my family would be able to deal with me if I had a split personality… though they might really enjoy my ability to write really funny poems and stuff.

      As for the Trudeau government, the last time they tabled a budget was March 2019. They did present a Fall 2020 Economic Statement with one section called “Building Back Better.” Sounds a lot like Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’… both men should have consulted someone who knows how to create phrases that people can rally behind.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Ah, the proverbial ‘we’! The last time I supported the federal liberals was at the beginning of Trudeaumania – and I mean in ’68, not the one that put the son in power.

      No one captures the essence of the petulant teenager better than Rex Murphy: “Trudeau has no grounds, and certainly no mandate, to “re-imagine” the Canadian economy. And he should be the last person to assume he can reinvent it at will, having plunged the country into a bottomless cavern of debt and deficits. Whatever else COVID may be, it is not a passport to a minority government, of seriously deficient economic competence, to reset, restate or rearrange Canada’s industrial foundation.”

      Liked by 1 person

  3. I am hearing about the slow rollout of the vaccines in Canada – we may be 5th, but people either call or websites crash as they try to procure a shot. They get the first shot and can’t always ensure the second one is available and health personnel say “maybe we could vaccinate more and the first shot should be adequate.” And now the J&J shot has a lower efficacy but they say “take anything that comes your way.” Meanwhile the U.S. passed 500,000 deaths recently. Shame on that happening because the President thought it was a nothing virus and was self-absorbed.

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    1. I’ve been reading similar complaints and stories about the vaccine rollout here in Canada too!

      It seems to me that half of the voting American public hated Trump too much to believe anything he said!
      We were in the US when the whole thing started, and realized it was not a ‘nothing virus’ when Trump enacted the following:
      – closed travel from China (Jan 30);
      – asked Congress for emergency aid (Feb 24) – an emergency bill of $8.3 billion was passed Mar 4 ;
      – WHO declares it is a pandemic on Mar 11 and Trump announces the travel ban from most of Europe;
      – Trump declares a national emergency so that states and territories can access $50 billion (Mar13);
      – Trump asks population to work from home, postpone travel, limit social gatherings (Mar 17) – the Federal Government has to depend on each state to decide whether they want to do this or not because each state has complete authority for health matters. Many states did, some didn’t.
      – Mar 29 – Trump extends the recommendation for stay at home to end of April
      – Mar 31 – Trump says: “This is going to be a very painful — very, very painful two weeks,” he said. “When you look and see at night the kind of death that’s been caused by this invisible enemy, it’s — it’s incredible.”
      April 29 – Trump administration organized Operation Warp Speed to develop a vaccine by January 2021.
      – At this point, we came back to Canada – where our current case fatality rate is 2.53%. The American case fatality rate is 1.79% – which means Canada isn’t doing as well as the USA in that metric!

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      1. Well Trump minimized it as nothing more than a strong flu from the onset … had there been more attention paid to the pandemic and distributing PPE to states (ours was withheld as he didn’t like our Democratic governor), perhaps 525,000 lives would not have been lost. Our current president just ordered 100 million vaccines and says we will have everyone vaccinated (who wants a vaccine) by the end of May. It is, in part, the Trumpers who believe it is nothing more than a cold. We were doing well in our state, than they opened up restaurants a little more last week and we plateaued, then shortly afterward we spiked once again. When the Biden administration came in, they saw immediately that there was no stockpile of vaccines that the Trump administration had touted. There were no plans to distribute vaccines … there was nothing at all, partly because the Trump administration had dismantled the pandemic administration group that oversees what to do in a pandemic. Why he dismantled it is anyone’s guess.

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        1. The whole world, not just the USA, has had shortages of PPE: 3 Mar 2020: WHO “warned that severe and mounting disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) – caused by rising demand, panic buying, hoarding and misuse…”

          Vaccines. The USA is not the only country in the world trying to vaccinate. The manufacturers aren’t sitting with warehouses of product. They are shipping it out as fast as they can make it.

          Vaccine orders: From the US Govt Dept of Health and Human Services: July 2020: “an agreement with U.S.-based Pfizer Inc. for large-scale production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States following the vaccine’s successful manufacture and approval. The agreement also allows the U.S. government to acquire an additional 500 million doses.” Dec 23 2020: “purchase an additional 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer… to provide for a seamless transition from the first 100 million doses contracted earlier this year.” See both the CDC and HHS for the plan and process to distribute vaccines.

          The Biden administration has now ordered another 100 million doses from the agreed number that the Trump Administration secured in the original agreement.

          I could go on, but I really don’t want to spend any more time countering left leaning media bias.

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  4. The three hardest things to say are:
    […]
    3. Worcestershire Sauce

    A fallacy! My dear departed father taught me how to pronounce that correctly: it’s “war-sester-sheer-shyre-sauce”!

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    1. With all due respect to the departed, we lived in the UK for two years and they preferred the
      ‘lop off bits and pieces of a word’ approach. Hence: WOrceSTErshire SAUCE is woosstə sauce. Not so hard to say after all!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Ah, I see you didn’t see my tongue firmly in my cheek! I’ve lived in the UK my whole life. So did my dad. He loved messing words up… one of his other favourites was ‘sustiffikit’ (certificate).

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        1. In my defence, I just found your blog yesterday…

          My dad’s side of the family immigrated to Canada from the UK in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Tracing their roots and seeing their ‘homeland’ was a special treat. Figuring out the TV show ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ was also a major accomplishment.

          If we weren’t firmly rooted in Canada and could afford the cost of living in the UK, we’d love to live there again!

          Liked by 1 person

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