Sun

After a week of snow, it’s finally sunny again, and it makes such a big difference! Yesterday I took advantage of my new reading space on my balcony and read in the sun…which degenerated into a lovely nap, all the while soaking up some vitamin D. It was warm enough to be outside for lunch and the nap, and that was really nice.

I have two easy days, but they’ll be followed by two hard ones, so I’m taking advantage of the time off while I can. All the snow means I can get back on my cross country skis, which is a lovely activity to do in winter. It’s super efficient. I can ski in my village so it’s not a major time investment, and in less than an hour I can do a really good workout.

COVID is still raging everywhere, but it doesn’t affect me, personally, so very much. I have to wear a mask at work and on the train to work. I may have to cancel part of my vacation at Christmas. All in all, though, these are minor inconveniences. My job is safe, most folks I know are vaccinated so they’re as safe as can be.

It’s Christmas soon, the time of sharing and love, right? So maybe that will counteract the COVID virulence around at the moment. I’ve been watching The Good Place, again, on Netflix, so I’m going to do a Janet: “Fun fact: virus and virulence have the same root.”

This from a Google search for “etymology virus”: late Middle English (denoting the venom of a snake): from Latin, literally ‘slimy liquid, poison’. The earlier medical sense, superseded by the current use as a result of improved scientific understanding, was ‘a substance produced in the body as the result of disease, especially one capable of infecting others’.

And “etymology virulence”: late Middle English (originally describing a poisoned wound): from Latin virulentus, from virus ‘poison’ (see virus).

We are a wounded society at the moment. So go sit in the sun, if you can, and take a nap.