Of Spring, Sewing, and Bats

WORLD NEWS:  Spring is in the air, AND in the ground.  I have snowdrops and crocuses blooming in the front flower bed.  And dandelions that have turned a lovely bright green, in time for St. Patrick's Day which is this coming Sunday.  Yesterday was sunny and 17c., perfect weather for walkies on the rail trail.  Today will be 18c. and maybe sunny (?).  That's VERY warm for this time of year.

GUILD NEWS:  I did a demo for the Binbrook guild on Improv Curved Piecing.  Working on these was quite fun.  Prep involved a few Youtube videos.  I swear, you can learn anything on Youtube.

SEWING NEWS:  A client gave me a big box of fabric for use in donation quilts, so I've started with the panels that were in there.  These need to be trimmed and bound. 

STORY TIME:  I'm pretty sure everyone has at least ONE bat story.

It was summer, several (many) years ago. DH was sitting in his chair in the living room, minding his own business.  Reading a book.  It was evening...8 pm?  9 pm?  I was in the kitchen, also minding my own business, reading the newspaper.  Enjoying a bowl of ice cream because being summer, the weather was hot.  I was having a problem with my eyes, though. I kept noticing a dark swirling as I was reading the paper, but it was very intermittent.  I'd look up -  things were fine, then I'd look down and dark swirling would start again, then the whole scenario would repeat.  Finally, one of the times I looked up I saw that something was flying around the room.  At first I thought it was a bird, but then the "thing" landed on the small kitchen speaker up in the corner at the ceiling.  Holy Mackerel Batman!!  (Hah, notice the pun?)  And, yes, I am a girl at heart, so of course my first response was a bit of a scream.  Then another scream for DH who, as many men would do, said "whaat?"  I continued screaming:  THERE'S A BAT.  THERE'S A BAT.  THERE'S A BAT.  And again, as many men would do, he said "what do you want me to do about it?".  I'm thinking to myself:  Uh...wtf?  This is why I got married?  I did a little more panic-ed screaming at him, until he finally came into the kitchen... to make sure it was a bat and that I wasn't imagining things.  Since, you know, ladies don't always understand these wildlife things.  Apparently.  Uh huh.  Then he got a light jacket out of the closet and managed to fling it over the bat as it was whirling around the kitchen.

The poor thing was lobbed out the front door, jacket and all, where it eventually made it's way to freedom.  We assume that it flitted into the house from it's normal roost by the front door when the dog took a little too long to come inside.  

I no longer say "Oh, look,  honey - there's a bat living by the front door.  How cute is that?"

 

2024 In Pictures...

The apron I made for my egg-providing neighbour.  I know she appreciates these...I popped over there one day for a visit and she was wearing a tattered apron that I'd made her a couple years earlier.  Ever since then I make her a new one every couple years.

I'm lucky enough to have friends who I meet at Mapleview Mall for an irregular dinner date, maybe a half dozen times a year?  We met through our work at Royal Bank ...so many years ago I don't even want to think about it.  Somehow these new shoes managed to come home with me last night.

Today's completed wall hanging, not quite in time for Valentines - the hand stitching won't be finished, but I CAN take it to the guild tomorrow for Show 'n Share.  In the fall of 2021 when things were starting to open back up after the pandemic, our guild meetings were being held in the church gymnasium.

We all had L O T S  O F  R O O M  T O  S P R E A D  O U T.  

I couldn't book speakers at the time, so I did a lesson on one-patch quilts.  This is all 2.5" squares, from stash/scraps.  Any simple shape can be pixellated like this - it makes a fun, easy project.  The first one I made was a Christmas tree, but the heart has been on my to-do list for the last few years.

Did you watch the Superbowl?  My sewing machine was by the tv - I stitched during the "game", then watched the commercials and the half-time show.  I make this "Simply Squares" quilt every year during the Superbowl....it still needs two borders, then it will be ready for quilting.  I buy one charm pak, then cut up another 40 squares from my stash and use all 80 in this top.

I saw a quilt online that was made with those triangle blocks on the right.  I had to google the instructions, then I made a sample for myself.  This is another quilt in my "To-Do" file.

I unthinkingly put my hand up and volunteered to do a quilt ruler demo for my guild.  When I got home I realized that I had to MAKE something so I could do the demo.  This is a Double Four-Patch quilt and I really like the way it turned out - all scrappy, using light (all the creams), medium (all the yellow/golds) and dark (all the blacks).  Hey - did you notice that my NEW SHOES match this quilt?

I'm also doing the Mystery Quilt that is being hosted by the CQA.  Duh - the last mystery quilt took me 25 years to finish...is my head actually screwed on????  Instructions said "do not use directional prints" (whoops - my black is directional).  And "do not use large scale prints for the background" (whoops - my red has large snowflake-ey motifs in different colours).  Apparently I'm a rule breaker?

  

Knowing that I sometimes forget what my intention was when I put something in the freezer, I guess I recognized my limitations last fall, when I wrote the name & page of the cookbook.  lol...  The apples, btw, were from my same egg-neighbour. ❤

 Pretty, calm & sedate Coco.

Nina.  Hellraiser on four paws - now six months old.  My theory:  puppies only have two brain cells, and one of those doesn't work.

Lots of things to be grateful for so far this year. ❤

the Sewing Watch, a Beautiful Border, and Strawberry Biscuits

Waaay back in 2013 my Singapore niece was married in Bali.  If you have insomnia some night, you can scroll back through my blog and find my stories about that.  BUT, on the way home from Bali I had a layover in Hong Kong.  While strolling around, killing time, I wandered into a little gift shop and saw a watch that was clearly made JUST FOR ME.

It was originally equipped with a red, fake leather band.  Which lasted about two weeks.  Seriously - that's no joke.  Two weeks.  On one of my adventures with Beach Girl Diane to a quilt show somewhere in the USA, I found twill tape printed as a measuring tape.  That self-made watchband lasted almost 10 years, but it truly needed replacing this year.  And what did I do as soon as the new band was installed?  I dropped the watch on a ceramic tile floor.  🫣  Had to take it in to the watchmakers and get new guts installed, which cost me $65.00.  How much was the original watch, you ask?  About $20.00.  (we will not add on the $5000 wedding trip cost).

This was a fun quilt I worked on last winter.  Love, love, love those borders.

It's high season for strawberries now.  My freezer still holds a large bag of berries from LAST year.  A few days ago I was awake at 4 am, so by 6 am I was getting hungry.  And I wanted sugar (which seems to be a companion to insomnia???).  Hmm.  What to do, what to do...

Strawberry Biscuits.  Very good. (**)  Used up some of the frozen berries.  The biscuits were totally gone the next day.

(**)  Recipe was adapted, because y'all know how I like to cook healthy, if I can:

• replaced 2/3 cup flour with Whole Wheat Flour.  
• for the buttermilk I used leftover whey from when I made yogurt a few days ago.  There wasn't quite enough so I topped it up with sour cream.
• I whizzed up a handful of walnuts in the food processor and added them to the mix, for the Omega 3's.  If "bad" food is on the menu I can at least try to get some good cholesterol, right?
• Slightly smaller size - I made 12 biscuits.  Although that didn't help much, as we still managed to eat all of them in the space of about 30 hours.

This message was brought to you by my cutting garden.

 

The Tobermory Event

 I keep telling myself that I'm going to blog smaller and more often, but that clearly isn't working out so well.  sigh.

Tobermory with the Beach Girls happened from Oct. 17 - 22.  I would happily have stayed another week but responsibilities are a fact of life sometimes.

This is part of the sewing stuff.  Retreats require a lot of packing!  The upstairs fridge is jammed full and the downstairs fridge is holding the overflow.

Getting reacquainted with welcome cocktails. 

Sunset on the 19th.

Afternoon cocktails on the 20th.  Most of the week was gorgeous weather.

We did accomplish some stitching.

In the weeks leading up to retreat I made pear-infused vodka and the Peartinis were a hit with the girls.  Some years they're not quite as enthusiastic over my cocktails.  Here's the recipe
from the spruce eats.  The numbers on the right make a pitcher of 5 servings.

This was definitely the laziest and least productive one of the bunch.

When we left on Friday we took a bit of a circuitous route home, going to Lions Head for lunch at The Taste Kitchen.  That was my first indoor-dining experience since the pandemic started.  I figured where would I be LESS likely to catch something?  We had spent the morning figuring out how to get our vaccination certificates on our phones - when you go through that much trouble it is necessary to make it worth your while.  The whitefish and sweet potato fries WERE worth it.

Since returning I have the quilting done on a little xmas wall hanging that I pieced up there.  Currently at the hand-stitching of the binding stage, and then I'll be adding some embellishments.  The star needs some work to make it show up, and the packages need some ribbons & buttons.  

All of the green squares are leftovers from 2013 when we made the bags.  Personally, I think it's a miracle that I could FIND the ziploc bag of squares from eight years ago.  I still have a bunch of pink squares left, so there might be a valentines quilt in my future.

Vintage Quilt Finished

 This is a pretty top that I bought at a local antique/junk barn around the corner from me.  I paid $25 for it two years ago.

I need another quilt like a hole in the head, but I just could not walk away from the poor thing.  It's partially hand pieced and partially machine pieced.  To respect the era I used 100% cotton batting instead of my usual 80/20 blend.  That makes it a little more "flat".

You'll note the Mennonite Mistake (also known as a Humility Block) in the bottom right hand corner - that one pieced corner block is turned the wrong way.

I just happened to have (a common expression which is often heard spoken by most quilters, lol) a pink that was one shade darker than what the maker used for the sashings & border.  It was perfect for the binding, and I'm currently about half way through the hand stitching on that.

Here's the back.  I was a wee bit shy and had to piece in a bit of different fabric in one corner.  Nothing I plan on worrying about, though.  The list of my own quilts waiting for quilting is now down by one!

I had a couple people mention to me that my last blog post had a BIG FAT MISTAKE where I mentioned I was planning to sew through the Superbowl last Sunday.  Ahem.  I am now aware that the big event is THIS weekend, and I'm all prepared.  Two charm paks, one pattern, one card table, one sewing machine.  And a frozen lasagne.

It would be nice if I could be all newsy-like and tell you what I've been up to but...yeah, I got nothin'.  I'm doing a LOT of reading and a LOT of tv watching.  I did order seeds tonight - normally I go on a field trip to the seed store and spend a lovely hour or two wandering the aisles.  Do a little inner eye-roll when my bill adds up to almost $100 (saving sooo much money!! pfftt.) then head on home with my treasures.  This year I am doing a parcel pickup and my scheduled date is MARCH 8th.  WTH?  sigh. Ontario is still under stay-at-home orders, which should be ending late next week I think.  However this morning I read two different news articles, and one of them indicated the government is second-thinking and may leave the orders in place for a while.  I guess we'll find out when we find out.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  106 million cases, 2.31 million deaths, 349,200 new cases Feb. 2/21

USA:   26.9 million cases, 460,000 deaths, 129,600 new yesterday

CANADA: 801,000 cases, 20,702 deaths, 4,022 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 280,000 cases, 6,435 deaths, 1,784 new yesterday The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.

HAMILTON:  9,470 cases, 265 deaths, 63 new yesterday

Newsy 2021 Post

Santa brought me a new tablet so I've been having my perpetual challenge with technology, trying to transfer over all my "stuff".  Today's project is DROPBOX, setting up the auto transfer of all photos from the tablet to the cloud, and from there I transfer them to the desktop.  The desktop has folders for each month of the year, and folders for my personal quilts, trips, special events, guilds, etc.  This kind of filing system is the easiest way for me to locate items, although I must admit I've had the occasional "oopsy" where I've moved something inadvertently and then not been able to figure out where I sent it.  I didn't want to do a blog post until I had this project finished...why?  I don't know.  Just because.

This was my New Years Day Sewing Marathon project, a Block of the Month from the Binbrook Guild 2017/18.  Each pattern was made twice using the opposite colours.  That was a fun exercise.  I had 16 blocks complete but I wanted four more to give the quilt a rectangular shape, so I pulled two of the block patterns and made them again with different colours.

Apparently I cannot follow graphic instructions which resulted in a NEW BLOCK.  lol... 

Normally Janice comes over and spends the day with me, sewing and (ahem) drinking and having dinner.  Sadly, covid made that not possible so I had to sew & drink alone.  Hubby had dinner with me, thankfully.

Within a week I had the blocks together into a top, and here it sits waiting for borders.

Major news event from 2021 that will remain burned in our memories for a long, long time include the insurrrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol.  Egged on by Donald Trump, thugs broke in and disrupted ("disrupted" is a very weak word to explain what happened) the vote count that cemented Joe Biden's win of the presidency.  Worries that the actual inauguration on the 21st would be also be disrupted were, thankfully, unfounded.

2021 CHALLENGES

Me, personally, I have perhaps foolishly, joined a few challenge groups again this year.

• Lose five pounds.  Last year my goal was TEN pounds and that turned into a major fail.  Overall I was ok with my fail, because so many people struggled with weight GAINS during the pandemic, and staying on track prevented that from happening to me.  Year over year I was only down 0.6 lbs., so not even one full pound was lost.  And my sanity was saved by the distractions and deliciousness of the breads, cakes, pies, crostatas, rolls, and creamy cheesy casseroles.
• Get rid of 2021 things in 2021.  Unbeknownst to me, DH had already started thinning his  many many piles of collections and saved items.  For example, we have, I think, three broken office chairs in the basement.  Why?  Oh, Helen, don't go down that rabbit hole.  Not today.  Yesterday I put cardboard box #1 just outside of my workroom doorway so as I find things for the Goodwill I can easily add them to the box.  Coincidentally there is a whiteboard on the wall there too, so we can track our progress.  Items counted will be thrown away, given away, and donated.  At the moment the filled cardboard box won't be able to go anywhere because Ontario is still under STAY-AT-HOME orders.  But someday...
• Stash reduction of 50 m.  Last year my target was also 50 m. and it was easy-peasy, especially with all the covid lockdowns.  How's a girl supposed to shop?  Last year my total year over year was down 108.5 m.  I anticipate no difficulty with this challenge, at all.

Next Sunday is the Superbowl.  

Quilters' Math:  tv football = piecing & cocktails

I have not yet settled on a project but it may be a small quilt using two charm paks from Missouri Star Quilt Company that I bought in 2017.  These are pretty pastel florals by Moda.  I need to drag the card table & sewing machine up in front of the tv so I don't miss any of the commercials.  Supper might be nachos using the corn chips that were in a Christmas gift basket.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  98.983 million cases, 2.12 million deaths, 600,790 new cases yesterday

USA:   25 million cases, 417,000 deaths, 168,000 new yesterday

CANADA: 746,000 cases, 19,065 deaths, 5,965 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 257,000 cases, 5,764 deaths, 2,417 new yesterday  (3,555 on Jan. 11th was the highest, so our numbers are finally dropping!  The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.  I expect it will be extended.  My understanding is the daily average cases need to go below 1,000 before the order will be lifted.

HAMILTON:  8,611 cases, 232 deaths, 71 new yesterday

Half-Square Triangle Quilt, Yes I Have Flour, Covid Update #2

I really enjoyed working on this quilt.  There is so much depressing/horrifying/shocking (pick any one) news every day that this really cheered me up.

The whole thing is made from half-square triangles.  If you are involved in a guild swap of half-squares, this is a great use for them.

Mmm, love the back.

YES, I HAVE FLOUR

Like many people I'm not sleeping very well some nights.  Although I don't usually get UP at three in the morning, last Tuesday I was WIDE AWAKE.  So I figured, what the hell.  And since I have flour I decided to rattle around in the kitchen and make a couple of these delicious breakfast fruit braids.  The filling is cream cheese, fruit preserves, and some fresh berries.  DH and I managed to eat the first one over two days.  To show a bit of respect for the waistlines, I put the other one out of sight in the freezer.

One of the problems with the current lockdown is a lack of will to go get treats for Sadie.  Well, not that we don't have the will but it's a bit of a production, and frankly, quite stressful. So I fished around in the messy pantry and located the dog cookie cutters and the collection of recipes.  These are dirt simple.

After cutting and rolling, then kneading the leftover dough and cutting some more, I finally used the last bits to just roll out little globby blobs of cookies.  Sadie does not care - they taste just as delicious as the cute bones.

Forcing my way OUT of the kitchen I ventured down to my workroom and made up a bunch of masks.  And yes, I started cocktail hour a bit early that day.  Don't judge me.

More entertainment...I located a set of guild blocks.  Rather wonky, ranging in size from 12" to 13", but pretty nevertheless.  Hopefully quilting will happen this coming week.  This is one of the guild donation quilts.

COVID UPDATE #2

I need to update my blog more often if I'm going to continue this personal diary.

• 3/31 Public schools in Ontario will be closed until May 4th. Toronto cancels all events (parades, conferences, festivals, cultural programs, until June 30th. Hamilton has a snitch line to report non-essential businesses flouting the mandate as well as people gathering with more than 5. Haldimand-Norfolk has 27 confirmed cases, Anson Place (seniors facility in Hagersville) has 3 dead, 11 positive.
• 4/1, it's one of those days when I had every expectation of working. Morning news until 11 am, with a bit of online messaging thrown in. 11 am pull up a half hour exercise video, which is interrupted by a call from Dr. Adachi's office (he's my bone density specialist).  I got my "visit" over the phone. 1130 shower & dress.  1200 lunch & newspaper. 1230 dry hair then go back to the paper. 100 call from  a friend about the cancellation arrangements for our fall Italy trip, and some mutual Trump bashing. 130 finally finished reading the front section of the paper. DH & I go into town. ..get water, get meds, mail cheque to food bank. 230 take Sadie for a walk. 300 go fish small potatoes out of the bag in the fruit cellar so DH can plant them. 320 make tea & write up this timetable of today's activities. 330 go to work...it's obviously going to be a short work day today!  Hamilton reporting 112 cases as of today. Ontario = 2,392.
• 4/3 Trump orders 3M to stop shipping N95 respirators to Canada and Latin America. Gosh, you couldn't ask for a better neighbour than that, eh? (yes, VERY tongue-in-cheek)  
• 4/4 Provincial forecasting...by end of April 80,000 cases and 1,600 deaths.  Dr. Zizzo's death (my family doctor!) was featured on CH news, possible Covid death. Ontario today 3,630, Hamilton today 147. Effective midnight tonight I am no longer  permitted porch pickups or dropoffs, although I wasn't taking dropoffs anyways.(*)
• 4/8 Hamilton 198, 6 deaths. Hald - Norfolk 110 with 6 deaths (60 cases are at Anson Place who are reporting 8 deaths which is at odds with gov't numbers).
• 4/10 Ontario govt has extended all restrictions and regulations until April 23. Made 15 masks.
• 4/11 Tried to mail masks to family but the post office closed an hour early.  This is the first time I've left the house in 11 days.  I even had on mascara!
• 4/12 - Easter Sunday.  We took a drive to 1-800-Luke's and threw a bag on his porch containing two masks and a few gloves.  DH cooked us a roast beef for Easter dinner.  Yum.
• 4/13 - Got myself mascara-ed up again and made a succesful trip to the post office.  I also picked up my meds.  Only a 30 day supply is being filled these days to prevent hoarding and to limit shortages.
• 4/14 - 3 am and I'm WIDE AWAKE.  Decided to get out of bed and make a couple of breakfast braided breads, filled with cream cheese, fruit, and walnuts.  Later I will be making dog cookies since Sadie's cupboard is bare.
• 4/15 (*) I called the Ontario government for clarification on the non-essential business rules regarding porch pickups and dropoffs. Apparently that decision is up to the business owner, although my "storefront" must be closed.
• 4/17 Picked up our first produce box that was ordered online.  For $25.00 we got: 5 oranges, 1 melon, 1 box blueberries, 1 box blackberries,  1 box mushrooms,  2 sweet peppers, 2 red onions, 1 head lettuce (yay!!  I've been wanting lettuce for at least a week.), 1 head of celery, and a large bunch of snow peas. You drive up, tell them who you are and what size box you ordered and they put it in your car.  Nice.  After we got home I left a quilt on the porch for a client pickup, and she left me a bottle of wine as a tip! How sweet is that?  I was reading the news before bed (stupid, studid, stupid.  Always a mistake). Donald Trump was tweeting that three of the states needed to be LIBERATED. Wtf? He thinks the restrictions are too limiting on the population.  And, oh yeah, those three states are all DEMOCRAT states. That man is such a frightening character.  He instigates chaos and encourages frenzied behavior akin to a pack of wild dogs, all for the sake of politics. Check out the "rallies" of protest that are going on because of his vitriol. As much as I don't like Doug Ford, I agree that our border should stay the hell shut. Fucking nutbars over there.
• 4/18 Yay, the US/Canada border is staying closed for another 30 days. I started another batch of masks using the Patrick Lose pattern.
• 4/19 Canada 33,383 cases. Ontario 10,010. Hamilton 323 cases.  Anson Place 71 cases, 23 deaths.  Dear God.  And so many people still think this is no worse than the seasonal flu?  Today was supposed to be the SOLO meeting in Elmira.  Sigh, not happening now until the fall.

Entertainment During The Pandemic, UFO's, Quilt Ideas, Local Happenings

SCHEDULING UPDATE
At the moment I still have seven quilts here that I will be working on.  As they're ready I'll contact you and arrange a porch pickup.
I am not taking in any quilts until the provincial restriction on non-essential businesses has been lifted.  I realize you might find that to be an inconvenience, but as a rule I do what the "people in charge" tell me to do. Depending on how long this situation persists it might mean your booking in May gets delayed until Julember, or whenever.  With all the UFO's that are being completed you can certainly be added to the calendar, so feel free to contact me.

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I was on retreat the first weekend of March and worked on these three tops.  The first little panel quilt is a challenge at the Binbrook guild.  It's due in June and I hope we're back to having meetings by then.

DH and I cleaned and defrosted the freezer.  We had to throw a few things out that have been hanging around too long, but overall it was pretty good except for the frost.  I really like the accessibility afforded by the upright but it seems to be much worse for frost, or perhaps I can just SEE it better.  Another plus:  it defrosted REALLY FAST.  Although we left everything in coolers outside overnight (it was well below freezing that night) we could easily have reloaded it within a couple of hours.

The cleanout located a couple bags of frozen cranberries, which meant I had to (had to?) make a cranberry loaf.  This was really good with the cheddar, so I will definitely make it again.

Deciding on quilting designs is helped along by a bit of doodling on cello wrap.

And when life gets to be too much, make brownies!  This is a Buttermilk Brownie recipe from an old Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.  I never have buttermilk, so I've always had to substitute with soured milk (by adding vinegar or lemon to regular milk, not by using the stuff that's gone off and makes your gag reflex kick in... in case you're new to cooking).  Now that I make my own yogurt I use the strained whey - it also adds that nice bit of tart flavour.  My other baking tip is to reduce the sugar by about 25% and to skip the icing.  Trust me, they are still quite edible.  I bake this in two 8" cake pans and hide one of them  in the freezer after baking.

Here's where I've ended off with the Four Patch Posie.  I got sick of the news Sunday night so I finished this up while I was waiting for the I Heart Radio Living Room Concert to start.  Now it needs quilting.

The panel quilt is finished and ready for presentation.

LOCAL COVID HAPPENINGS

3/22 Hamilton cases = 27
3/23 Ontario closing all non essential business as of midnight tomorrow. Porch dropoff of 2 quilts today and I won't open the bag until 27th at the earliest.  DH got 2 emergency bags of dog food, just in case.
3/24 Hydro rates are going down for 45 days - woo hoo, I can do laundry in the middle of the day for a change. Took a walk this morning to get away from the news, and spent a lot of time messaging with the Beach Girls about our respective needs for batting. I spoke to a customer who's a little annoyed I won't take her quilt now. Did not wash my face OR  make the bed this morning.  I thought this was just a facebook joke, but apparently it's not. 😜
3/25 I spoke to a customer who is picking up on Friday - she wanted to drop off 2 quilts.  I initially said yes since she was going to be on my porch anyways, then I called her back and said no. I've penciled her in for June.  It was 13 degrees today so we went for TWO walks. I set pea seeds in water tonight to presprout, and a friend has an "in" with someone at Stokes Seeds - she's trying to get us a seed order.  Apparently, seed companies have been overwhelmed with orders.  There are 100 new cases in Ontario today, and Hamilton is reporting 39 cases today. NY governor announced 5146 new cases in one day. Omg.
3/26 Any travellers coming in to the country are required to quarantine under the quarantine act - 14 days, the only exception is essential workers. Trump wants to put troops at the Canadian border. Wtf? Sigh. Nice day today, the pea seeds are soaking to presprout. A friend of ours quit her job at BMO because they have done nothing to protect the staff in the branch. Cases in the U.S. rose to 83,836 on Thursday — more than any other country, overtaking both Italy and China — while the death toll passed the 1,000 mark.
3/27 Regarding the McDonald's closure in Hamilton last week ...the employee FAKED the doctor's note. Lol.  Teenagers can be sooo stupid!  (and yes, that also applied to me when I was a teenager)
3/28  First death in Haldimand-Norfolk was announced last night, a resident of a  nursing home.  Current stats: Ontario 1144 with 19 deaths. Canada 5655 & 61 dead.
3/29 Ontario gatherings are now limited to no more than 5 people.  Six Nations starts limiting access to the reserve - they have two people tested positive. Haldimand-Norfolk has 23 cases.
3/30 Hamilton  has 70 cases today...from March 22nd (8 days) that's an increase of 43 cases.

I am quite horrified by the numbers coming out of the USA.  Their screwy health care system is leaving uninsured people to fend for themselves.  They can't afford to get tested (one news article reported a cost of $900.00 for the test), and if they land in the hospital they will end up bankrupted by the final bill.  HERE is a news article about a California teen who was denied medical care over a lack of insurance and subsequently died.  If you have precarious employment and live paycheque to paycheque, chances are pretty good that you will get sick but keep going to work.  If you have no medical insurance you won't go to the doctor, won't find out you're infected, and will carry on infecting everyone you come in contact with.  Dear God...  HERE's an article about medical insurers and their adjustments to the co-pay system from March 12th.  This should scare every American (AND every Canadian, since they're our next-door-neighbour).