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Today's donation goes to Harmony House, Ottawa's only second-stage women's shelter:

https://www.harmonyhousews.com/

With people cooped up together under a provincial stay-at-home order, conflicts are natural and inevitable. But when conflict escalates to the point of family violence, an abused woman's prospects for escaping and for achieving safety, security and peace of mind for herself, her children and her pets may prove particularly daunting.

In addition to providing safe transitional housing for women in crisis, Harmony House also offers numerous advocacy programs to help them and their dependents access long-term housing and other services and safely re-integrate into society.

Ford's Instructions: Stay Home

or maybe: Frickin' Infection - Stay Home!

"What could be clearer than that? Stay home." That was Doug Ford's reaction when people asked for more clarity concerning the new restrictions that were to take effect today on the last stroke of midnight. As if that weren't enough, apparently an emergency alert about the Stay-at-home order was broadcast to "smart" phones at around 10AM. I'm so glad I don't have one of those devices!

Okaaay... So is Ford himself going to be staying at home all the time? Well, no. How about the posties and the other delivery people? Again, no. Grocery store employees? No. Health care workers? Nope. And most of us would say "Thank goodness for that!"

What about recipients of the initial doses of vaccine? Ironically enough, it was precisely the most vulnerable folks, the residents of long term care homes, who could NOT get vaccinated because they WERE forced to stay home - and the vaccines (it was first thought) could not be moved out of the hospital they had been delivered to!

When asked some very specific questions like how the Government was defining "essential" he said it was impossible to define because essential varied from one situation to another, That's clear??

So Ford's Instructions (from me and other Ontario residents): Stop Hedging.

Later today I found the following:

https://files.ontario.ca/solgen-stay-at-home-order-2021-01-13.pdf

Now THAT's more like it! Who knew that a document written in standard legal and legislative style (in short, what many consider to be jargon) could be so much clearer than the supposedly straightforward popular language of our populist Premier?

Maybe. Maybe not. The greyer I get, the more I see issues in shades of grey, not black and white. Or, for that matter, red, orange, yellow or green.

I hear that the Quebec government is considering not only extending the lockdown, but also imposing a curfew. Meanwhile, Ottawa's Covid numbers have been trending sharply upwards since Ontario included the city in its (minimum) 4-week lockdown.

Clearly that doesn't prove that the lockdown CAUSED the uptick in numbers, but I do think that in some respects, Lockdown Ottawa may have done more harm than good, particularly when it comes to teens and young adults who would normally be just starting to venture out and make their way in the grown up world. People for whom the peer group, their circle of friends, classmates, work colleagues, acquaintances and contemporaries, tends to be of pretty great importance.

Until lockdown took effect on December 26, Ottawa was in the "orange" zone, verging on yellow. There were still some opportunities for young people to socialize. They could go skiing. They could go shopping. They could go to a restaurant or a bar. All under controlled conditions, of course - and probably pretty safe conditions too, if the numbers were any indication.

Now they are allowed to do none of those things. Technically they're not allowed to host or attend private gatherings either. But "technically" is the operative word here. Many, perhaps most people, are following the rules; others are bending them a little; a few are no doubt flouting them entirely and organizing anti-mask rallies at which they confidently proclaim that the virus is one big hoax.

Here's the thing, though: it's much easier to enforce the law at a commercial establishment than in a private home. Police and by-law types can't be everywhere at once. The scofflaws who do get caught are most likely those who live in the student ghetto, those who have darker skin, those that some neighbour or other holds a grudge against, whether or not it's for a valid reason. Meanwhile, people who live in affluent, neighbourhoods, especially if they are personable and generally well-liked, can get away with even the most serious and blatant flouting of rules. Those five vehicles in the laneway plus any hiding in the 3-car garage? Well, that family does own a lot of cars, you know. I really wouldn't like to get on their bad side - they're salt of the earth sorts, pillars of the community!

Law enforcement is just one tool, and not necessarily a particularly powerful one at that. Far better in most cases, I think, is to make it easy to do the right thing. To be socially conscious and socially considerate, which for now may mean being a bit anti-social when it comes to in-person contact.

Consider how society has evolved in terms of other issues unrelated to the pandemic. We no longer have capital punishment in this country. Or corporal punishment in schools. In most communities, non-judgemental sex education and birth control, including access to abortion, are now reasonably available to most young people who want or need them, including those below the age of majority. These are just some of the changes I've seen in my lifetime.

In a number of other areas, we still have quite a way to go. For example: do we really think that putting gory pictures and dire warnings on cigarette packages will deter young people from smoking? Or using plain packaging, hiding them behind the counter or outlawing cheaper, fruit-flavoured or candy-flavoured varieties?

With alcohol, we no longer have to skulk into the liquor store and fill out a little form to get our beverage of choice; we've lowered the drinking age below 21 in most (all?) provinces while still warning against drunk driving or alcohol abuse during pregnancy. That's some progress, I think.

Still, I think the "forbidden fruit" aspect of tobacco or alcohol or cannabis or any other kind of potentially addictive substance is very often the main driver of serious substance abuse issues in young people. If they had grown up having the occasional civilized glass of wine with mum and dad at dinner, would they still feel compelled to go get hammered when work or classes ended for the weekend? Not so much, I suspect. And our children's generation was if anything subjected to more in the way of "helicopter parenting" than we ever were, which might have further strengthened the Gen X and Millennials' need to rebel.

Anyway, back to the matter of lockdowns. I don't think there's any going back now and I don't see Ottawa, or any of Ontario or Quebec getting out of lockdown any time soon. I hope things turn around sooner rather than later. And I hope we are filing away a few "lessons learned" to apply to the next public health emergency!

Ontario will go into lockdown on Boxing Day. It will last for 28 days in the south (including Ottawa and the rest of the Eastern Ontario region) and 14 days from Sudbury to the northern border.

So is Ontario still ours to discover? Not so much. Is it a place to stand and a place to grow? Well, it seems that those blue-plate specials with the newer slogan on them were recalled for being illegible. And there are plenty of people around who can't stand Doug Ford, particularly in Ottawa. With one hand he virtually pats us on the head and tells us we're doing great at observing the health and safety rules while with the other, he signs orders putting us into lock-step with Toronto's shutdown.

Having said all that, I'll concede that it will not make a huge difference to my life as I know it and have lived it since March 2020. I'm somewhat relieved that the lockdown does not start on December 24 as many were expecting. In some quarters, of course, people are saying that it should have started even earlier than that.

The main rationale for including Ottawa in the lockdown is to prevent would-be Gatineau Boxing Week sales-goers from flocking across the bridges into the Ottawa shopping malls, their viral droplets in tow. But honestly folks, who knows what Legault & Co will decide to do next? Prediction is a fool's errand and our rules and regulations have never been completely in harmony with each other.

In Ottawa, restaurateurs will be particularly hard hit. I feel for those who had already lost out on office Christmas parties and then spent a whack of time and money assiduously planning Covid-safe New Year's Eve parties, thinking they could at least recoup a few of their losses from what has been a disastrous year for them. Will they be able to access enough in compensation packages to enable them to survive into 2021?

One can only hope.

When the lockdown first began, how long did you think it would last? When I look back not just at some of my earlier entries but also at what a lot of the experts were saying, I think how naive we all were. And how very wrong many people were.

For example, when the schools first closed, I remember one of the CTV questions of the day was: Should we extend the school term into the summer or should the kids just go back in September and catch up on what they missed during lockdown? By and large, we didn't foresee that the 2020-21 school year would involve all these online classes or masked kids in small cohorts taking one subject at a time. Instead, we banned kids even from typical kiddie OUTDOOR activities like swings and slides and climbing structures and basketball courts. We banned kids and adults alike from sitting on benches or even on the grass in public parks. It wasn't until we were in "stage three" of the the initial re-opening process that we let the kids back into the playgrounds - with no apologies for having kept these kids from these safe and healthy activities before or explanations for why it was suddenly okay (maybe even encouraged) for them to play in the great outdoors again.

Of course, we knew that it would take time to develop a vaccine. But then, flu shots are a relatively recent phenomenon and people have gotten the flu throughout history - but we haven't been in continuous flu pandemic mode ever since the first pandemic. We have anti-viral and antibiotic medications that our ancestors could only dream of. And in many (though not all) ways, our living conditions are healthier than they used to be.

Since we entered the second wave, the advice, rules and restrictions have become a little more realistic. The overall message is that we're stuck with the virus for now and since we can't immediately "Conquer Covid" (as one of the initial slogans went), we need to manage and mitigate the risks as best we can.

Predictions are dangerous, even when you can trot out all kinds of well-reasoned evidence. But most of us need hope, the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not looking forward to this winter, but I'll make the best of it. And plan for next summer, which I'm confident will be better than the one that's just happened.

Back in the lazy summer days of my youth, I used to watch a lot of afternoon TV. Things like People in Conflict, Magistrate's Court and Paul Bernard, Psychiatrist (no relation to Paul Bernardo!) Part of the appeal of those shows was how people's problems would all be solved within a one-hour or even a half-hour time period. But as we all know, real life doesn't work that way.

I also seem to recall an old book with a title something like: I'm running away from home but I'm not allowed to cross the street by myself. It could almost have been written within a pandemic context although there, the same principle could apply to adults just as much as to kids.

If you're feeling ticked off at the people you live with - and I wonder who ISN'T, at least occasionally, during a lockdown - you come to realize that many of the tactics and strategies you once relied on to restore your equilibrium and equanimity are simply no longer available to you.

No longer can you spend hours brooding and reflecting in your favourite coffee shop over a super-mega-cappuccino and maybe a little comfort food. No longer can you wander through open hallways of soul-restoring national art and replica Rideau chapels with Tallis emerging in multi-part harmony from all the speakers. And of course, solo travel to far-flung places - the chance to poke about and get the lay of land in a place where you know no one and no one knows you - has been flung far out the window as trains and boats and planes have curtailed their schedules.

As long as your living conditions are not too cramped, there is still the option to get a little privacy and look within yourself - meditation, reading, journalling, writing songs or poetry or prose or painting or crafting or baking: in short, reinventing yourself by creating in whatever way you like to create.

It's a start, and it will have to do for now.