My Mother-In-Law; A New Place to Play Catch; Anti-Anti-Racist; Funny Virus Thoughts; Lockdown Thoughts; Silly Thoughts

• The People's Republic of China has been a terrible in-law for the world this year, but my actual Chinese mother-in-law (Mama) is a great woman. She smokes, drinks and is a gentle sort. She reminds me of another gentle and indefatigable soul who I known in my life, and probably didn't deserve to: my Aunt Ritma. Ritma was a person who you could be around and never imagine her never getting angry. (Ritma, R.I.P.) Sadly, Mama has sight only in one eye. Recently, she had to have an operation on the eye which was basically for cosmetic purposes. The eye had degenerated to the point where she could use it again. 

• In the previous entry, I told you about the travails of playing pitch and catch with Tony. A certain incident at a basketball court caused me to look for another place to do this. Now, I do have some familiarity with the area around Casa K, and I decided to try this park which I recalled had a fairly big and level playing field. Tony was initially skeptical as I drove him to the park, but once we were there and found the field, he was pleased. We do have to play around people pulling kites and kicking football, but the park will do.

• Far now on, if someone goes on an anti-racism rant, I will ask them if they are in fact not racist themselves and why is it that they think they aren't. I would then maybe ask them to define what they mean by racism, whether racist people are lying or are just mistaken, whether anyone can be racist (not just southern white people or people who would vote Republican.), and why racism is such a big problem.

• Funny thoughts I have heard about the virus. 1) Call it the Xi-ingles. 2) The virus hasn't killed as many people as Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, and Adolf Hitler.

• I have read all sorts of thoughts about the lockdown currently taking place in North America and Europe. I have heard compelling arguments that say the lockdown is necessary and equally compelling arguments that say that it is a over-reaction. I do strongly agree, on one point, with those stating that it is an over-reaction in that some unfortunate and near evil precedents have been set vis-a-vis government control resulting in citizens having to be subjected to stupid procedures. The ridiculous security procedures at Airports are an example of what I am talking about.

• For some inexplicable reason, I decided to publish WeChat moments where I posted photos of famous or notable public figures, and changed the "son" in their family names to stone. So I posted moments for Johnny Carstone, Jackie Gleastone, Howard Johnstone, Dwayne Johnstone, Lyndon B. Johnstone, Charles Manstone, OJ Simpstone, Chris Watstone, and Daniel Johnstone. The last two people on my list were an Australian PM and a Quebec Premier, respectively. (I suppose I am a big fan of common names being slightly mispronounced. Nothing, for example, gives me a bigger tingle up my leg than a certain way of pronouncing Los Angeles: Los Angelees.)