Quarantine Diaries, Day 28
(Posted 13 Apr 2020, 20:25)
19:00 On the way back from my evening walk, I saw a group of teenagers trimming each others’ hair with an electric clipper in our courtyard. Personal hygiene concerns aside, there was something atavistic about it, like social grooming rites of apes. When I told this to the wife she merely asked why I hadn’t queued up.
18:00 My iPhone has been my primary camera for several years now. Today I felt like shooting with my DSLR again and with the 24mm lens at that, which I probably hadn’t used in two years. Some pictures from the neighborhood that once housed warehouses and shipyards but is pretty residential now - though parts of it look every bit like they do in their 19th century daguerreotypes:
A large boat
A large boat
Looking back towards Westerdok
And by now there should be no doubts about what season it is here:
Spring!
Some bridges here are so narrow that I waited at one end to let someone pass because it certainly won’t be possible to stay 1.5 meters apart if we were to pass by each other on the bridge:
Driehaaringenbrug - Three herrings bridge (with only enough space for about two of them)
10:00 I was already a month overdue for a haircut when the lockdown in Amsterdam began. A week into it the wife started to threaten to cut my hair at home. I’ve resisted her advances and even teased her with Regina Spektor’s song about Samson and Delilah:
A month in and I am beginning to relent. Based on the recommendation from a friend, the wife looked for a suitable hair clipper online but all of them were out of stock. If you’d said to me that a pandemic would cause a hair clipper shortage, I would’ve laughed at you.
Hair clippers are sold out online
I doubt they will be available for another month1. Till then, I’ll continue to fantasize about the pony tail I’d be emerging out of this lockdown with.
One of the realisations from having started working recently at a logistics company has been that about 45% of the world’s air cargo travels in the belly of passenger planes. Most passenger routes from Asia (where most of the world’s manufacturing capacity is concentrated) are seeing little traffic. At the same time, a lot of dedicated air cargo capacity is being diverted towards moving more important goods, such as personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. As a result, the days of ordering something and having it magically show up at your doorstep within a week aren’t going to return anytime soon.↩︎