My in-his-twenties nephew in K-Town tested positive for Covid-19 about 16 days ago (still asymptomatic), after his roommate was sick the week before.

I had a soft tissue injury on the side of my thigh stumbling a landing a couple of Sundays ago and have had water on the leg to the tune of 9 or 10 lbs. extra at times. Had a little water on the knee a couple of times, decades ago; no big deal, wait it out. There was pooled blood behind the thigh at first but it cleared out. I can feel the leg filling as I move about in the morning. Skin gets tight, makes it slow to bend.

Last Saturday I flew briefly and felt exactly what tool in my harness had attempted to merge with my flesh. Sunday the tool wasn't there but I could feel the harness touching the area. Fun hour of hang gliding. Monday the thigh/knee had swelled up to just like the previous Monday! It was deja vu all over again!

Healing…

The Ants and the Mushroom

by Kenji Miyazawa

translated by dunhamrc

Fog descended drippingly on a bed of moss, on which a sentry ant marched back and forth in front of a forest of large verdant ferns, scanning the area with his sharp eyes from beneath the visor of his steel helmet.

From the distance came a single ant soldier in a bouncing run.

"Stop! Who goes there?"

"Messenger from the one hundred and twenty-eight regiment!"…

Chonk is an adjective that is used to describe something fat, with strong overtones of cute. Because internet, it is generally used to refer to cats, e.g., "that cat is a chonker". Doggos, birbs, trucks, airplanes, and round fluffy bois of any species may be considered chonking, but the platonic form of chonk -- in techspeak, a "heckin' chonker" -- is cat. For other entities to be chonk, they must be not just fat, but emphatically rotund.

Chonk appeared around…