I Didn't Lose My Temper (Visibly); Parking Spot Follies I & II; A Week in the Doghouse; Do I Care?; Not Wearing a Mask;

• I went to pick up Tony. On the way, I went to a bakery to buy bread. I was in a bit of a hurry because I parked where I shouldn't have, hoping I would be in and out in an instant. But it wasn't to be. I walked in and saw a lineup at the counter. The people ahead of me, in line, seemed to be slow. One of them was a woman who was with child and she was asking the clerks questions. Then a fellow behind me in line asked the clerk to help him and he was able to pay for his purchases. When I saw the guy get away with this, I was of course annoyed. But I held it in. This society has no soul or sense of charity. It really is everyone for themselves.

• I get to Tony's school early so as to get a parking spot. When I am looking for a parking spot, I try to not to have cars following me. The drivers, either being impatient or stupid or both, won't give you room to back up. They will honk their horn as soon as you slow down or stop. And e-bikers will swerve behind cars that are backing into a parking spot.

• No one in China can wait for anything. When I am parked (I park perpendicular to the curve because the locals have no compunction against double parking) and there is a space beside me, I will observe again and again a driver think about parking next to me, come to a stop and then immediately have a vehicle behind honk their horn and then stop right behind the backing up car. Sometimes the driver trying to park will give up trying to back into my space, perhaps because the horn has intimidated him or her, or the car behind won't give space by reversing. If the vehicle does try to back up, e-bikes coming upon the vehicle will never stop but swerve around the vehicle's back end. A few times, the e-bker after swerving to avoid the backing up car will have to quickly swerve again to not hit the front end of an already parked car. It must be my Western mind, but I have to wonder why no one ever stops and gives the guy space and time to back up. Surely, they know it is that time of the day and the chances are that cars are going to slow down and park their cars. But it always seems like a big surprise (or maybe it is a big annoyance) to all nearby vehicles that a car is going to park at school at pick-up time.

• This week has been the epic for being the dog house vis-a-vis my wife Jenny. She got angry at me on Sunday evening because I didn't tiger-father Tony when it was just he-and-I together on the weekend. She was working (the first time since the virus crisis started) and she assumed we had a fun weekend. Really, Tony & I spent the weekend, feeling trapped in the apartment because of the humid temperatures and were dreading the time when she was to come home because when she is tired, she is always unendearingly miserable, which is basically every weekend she works. The epic nature of her anger this week can be also be attributed to the lockdown. She is always miserable on a Sunday evening of her work weekends. But because of the lockdown, I have no work to escape to during the weekdays so I am stuck in the apartment during the day. My presence just makes her all the angrier (not that I am trying to provoke her, I stay mute, but our apartment is too small to hide in.) So for three days in a row, there is a person in the apartment I dare not try to talk to, and I am being made to feel like a non-person. And every week night, I have to listen to her scream-tutor Tony for two hours.

• I did talk to her once on the phone once during this week, and it was just long enough time for her to get snarky at me, and ask sarcastically if I cared. Well. I would like to. But it's hard to care when someone is making you a non-person. And just before the short phone conversation, I was wondering if perhaps I was being selfish and just not tender enough. After the call, I will still readily confess guilty to the charge of being selfish, but tenderness is not something I have ever been able to employ as a stratagem to get on her good side. She really has a bad temper which paralyses one into inaction.

• I have gone places without bothering to wear a mask. I went into the bakery without a mask. I didn't bother to wear a mask when I went to meet Tony at school pickup time. I didn't bother wearing a mask when I went for my Thursday Morning Walk. A lot of the locals are doing the same.