The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

The first Australian to die from the latest Coronavirus was from Western Australia. He was 78 year old James Kwan and he had become sick on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The one that was stranded off Japan

That was on Sunday 1st March. The case did get a lot of attention but it was still pretty much a case of "It can't happen here" because he did not catch it here. The only thing going viral in Western Australia that week was the videos of toilet roll wars in the supermarkets


Last week the number of cases here was hovering around 28 to 30. On today's news they said that there has been another 17 confirmed cases but only 5 of them have a traceable connection to anyone else known to be already infected. So that implies that we now have reached the tipping point where it is spreading around the community like it has been in the USA for probably months now. It turns out that while everyone was going crazy about China, South Korea, Iran and Italy, it was from USA that most of the csses in Australia have originated. The saddest one of all was the woman who came to Queensland to visit her mother. The daughter had been living in the USA. She unknowingly brought the virus with her, her 70 something year old mother caught it and died.

Some council libraries have already been sending letters to volunteers, staff and clients that they are now closed as of Monday 16th and therefore our services are no longer required until further notice.

Tonight, Australia will be closing the borders to everyone except Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families.
That means that it will not be too long before all the airlines will be slashing the routes and soon it will be only possible to get here by space shuttle
That grand plan to visit Amsterdam in September is looking less and less likely. Here is hoping that Emirates are obliged to refund any bookings once a destination is declared to be in a "Do not visit" zone. At the rate things are going, it is likely that Emirates with its bottomless pockets will be the last international airline left standing


Today I paid a visit to Petunia's grave. There were flowers in a little vase including a single white rose. But it was the presence of frangipani petals that was the tell tale sign that the
Snow Grinch had been there. He is in his glory at the moment with all the doom porn. He must be feasting on it. Stock market chaos, death, disease and destruction. So glad to have divorced him. I don't think I could keep it together listening to his endless rants and conspiracy theories.

I get all the conspiracy theories I could ever care for on Twitter. In fact the conspiracy wars between USA and China are as crazy as the tariff wars. And I suspect that in both cases they were started by trump. The worthless jerk has not realized that there is no game that two cannot play at. So funny to see him so indignant when it is OTHER people peddling lies and propaganda as if he should have a monopoly.

Whether it was some mad Chinese scientist who unleashed it from a biological weapons lab or a US army drone that dropped it over Wuhan, a bunch of little green aliens who did it or some very pissed off pangolins, is irrelevant to the fact that a whole bunch of genies have been let out of their bottles and it is far easier to unleash them than to control them

I suspect the REAL reason that Dodgy Don is pissed off is because the Coronavirus is getting all the oxygen of publicity and ATTENTION that he thinks by right belongs to him. Not just in the USA but everywhere


The story is moving so fast now that it is anyone's guess what happens next.

It is almost that time of year when the serpent attends to one of many annual rituals. This one is the little 3.1.5 Black Book
It is basically an assortment of To Do lists and Grand plans and is the serpent alternative to New Year's Resolutions

It is a place for recording Wish Lists and To Do lists for the next 3 months, 1 year and 5 years. Yesss. Those good old fashioned 5 Year Plans more honoured in the breach than the observance.
But the mere act of making such lists in the first place gives the inner serpent something to do and sometimes boxes get ticked off almost inadvertently.

I used to knock off the latest list in an hour or so at some cafe but now the ritual can take more than a week to complete.
The solstices and equinoxes are the times for writing new ones and also looking back on the old ones to see how many items got completed.

Last March's 1 year plan most definitely did not include "Organize Petunia's funeral"

It is now exactly 6 months ago since she died and today she would have been 77. So glad that I took time off work last year so that I could spend the whole day with her. Guessing that the inner serpent had been busy whispering that the odds were not in favour of her being around to celebrate the next one

Meanwhile I would most definitely like to turn up to work on Wednesday 10th October but will have to switch to another day because the Grinch turns 80 that day so I will have to make some sort of effort to do something nice for him.

There are two many other nasty anniversaries around that time and Daisy's recent visit provided a welcome distraction from those. September was in fact the only month in 2012 where Dolores and her goblin trolls left me alone. Turned out to be the calm before the storm. Aside from the calendar year matching, there have been other reasons of late to be reminding of the minions of Megatherion.

But it is awful to think of the Grinch and his mission to cart Petunia's garden off to landfill one green bin at a time. I could always get him a tree for his birthday. That would definitely piss him off. So far I have a stash of $80 in coins which he can count all day long. That should keep him amused. Then there's a bright shiny copy of "The Snowball" a biography of Warren Buffet because nothing pisses off the Grinch more than reading about folks who are richer than he is.
Daisy suggested some tickets to visit The Convict Establishment That's definitely gloomy and doomy enough.

Normal mortals love stuff like lunches and luxury tours but not only does the Grinch not enjoy such stuff, he thinks it is a sin to waste money on them. Even if it's other people's money.

But Petunia has departed this mortal coil and he is still here and no wishful thinking can get them to change places. So the only thing this serpent could do to mark this day in the most meaningful way is to plant trees in her memory. So that is exactly what I did. I also bought a birthday cake and shared it with the folks at the day job.

In some strange way, these last few days have marked a return to the land of the living. I guess spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing and everything is beautiful. The sun is shining but not sizzling and stinking like in high summer. Along with the autumn equinox, it truly is one of the most beautiful times of the year.

It is now five weeks since Petunia died. Strangely it was not the day she departed this mortal coil but the one after that was the worst one of all.
Once she was gone, it was over and at least she did not have to suffer any more and endure the soul sapping presence of the meanest nastiest most miserable Dementor ever to be incarnated in muggle form.

She passed the baton on to me.


( Mad as a March Hare )

It has been an unusually mild summer. Not one single solitary day over 40c when we normally get 4 or 5 of them
In fact I do not remember such mild weather ever since coming to Oz back in 1993
And then there was the Fringe Festival. 30 decadent days of freak shows and weirdos.
Got to see 18 shows this year. Had saved up a war chest for the occasion but kept on fringe bingeing even when it was empty. The old plastic fantastic to the rescue
But unlike previous years, barely a squeak about them because in spite of all these wonderful things, the best way to describe the last few months would be
“But apart from that Mrs Lincoln, what did you think of the play?”

( The Elephant in the Room )