B and I have an ongoing discussion.

He says people aren't working because they have been given too much money by the stupid gummint. Also now he's reading that the younger folk are just saying, yeah, I ain't gonna work for the boomers. Working for the boomers does enrich the Waltons or whoever. It's kind of annoying. I am in total sympathy with not working for Walmart. I hear Costco treats their employees better, but still. Just another cog in the machine.

I think people are unenthused about dying of Covid-19. The medical assistants abandoned clinic first, as I've watched the articles. The nurses quitting is pretty obvious. Lots of them died and a job where tons of your patients die and then tons of them die while refusing vaccination and refusing to believe they have Covid-19, well. Wanting to help people becomes more difficult when people are being spectacularly stupid and stubborn. Why they will take cow ivermectin or…

the air today is.
not more, not less. the leaves
have their way with me,
siphoning steam and things
that are no more true than
clothing or colour. a separation.
it’s all so funny.

a little more naked.
I tread soft and silent, as if,
(this here is a truth), I could get so
quiet I could dissolve, right inside
the air itself, the way of it.

I peel away, a colubrid scrubbing
itself against a rock. malleable.
pliant. willing to change.

The Ring O'Bells Mystery
by Enid Blyton
Armada, 1951

This is the third book in the Barney Mysteries (sometimes called the R Mysteries), a short series of six books. It follows the adventures of the siblings Roger and Diana, their younger cousin Snubby, and their nomadic friend, Barney. They are helped in their adventures by Snubby's spaniel, Loony, and Barney's Monkey, Miranda.

The children should be heading back to…