Body temperatures, showers & face masks

I am not totally sure, but I may have had my first hot flash one day last week. I was sitting at the dining room table working on our rainbows of hope when I started feeling a bit hot. I had been feeling chilly earlier so I had put on a sweater and turned up the heat in the apartment, which is a totally normal occurrence that happens every day (I'm normally cold). But then it was like I started heating up slowly until, all of a sudden, I was super hot, I felt like I had a fever and I pretty much ripped my sweater off.

Given the whole COVID-19 pandemic thing, Hal and I looked at each other with panic in our eyes and I ran to get the thermometer. My temperature was a normal 37.2 degrees Celsius and I felt okay a minute later. So, yeah, I guess that could have been a hot flash. By the time I had taken my temperature (it's an old school thermometer that has to stay in your mouth for 2 minutes), Hal had already Googled and was reading to me the symptoms of perimenopause. Hmmm... okay, I'm not sure how I feel about that...

On the related, but yet totally unrelated, topic of body temperatures, Hal told me last week that Pharmaprix has started taking the temperatures of every staff member before they are allowed to punch in and start their shift. Hal's temperature that day was a very low 34 degrees Celsius, so they took his temperature again and it was the same... is that normal? I wonder how effective it will be to take everyone's temperatures every day? Will it actually show if someone is carrying the virus around but not yet showing any symptoms?

Hal and I were laughing one day at how often we take showers these days. It's almost like it's the middle of the summer because hot, humid summer days in Montreal normally require at least two or three showers a day. It's only April, so it's not hot and humid yet, but we do take multiple showers on some days. If we leave the house and go outside to go shopping or for a walk, we come home, take off our "outside clothes", have a shower, and put on our "inside clothes", as if we want to wash off any coronaviruses that followed us home on our bodies or clothes. I'm sure that the rational behind all of that is probably completely psychological... but, oh well, it puts us more at ease when we're at home. I guess that we're just really clean these days with all of the hand washing and showering that happens in this home right now!

In that routine, I came home from being out one day a couple of weeks ago, let Belle (our sweet budgie) out of her cage, and got ready to have a shower. Belle flew onto my head just before I walked into the bathroom, so I just kept going. She likes the bathroom and sometimes flies in there just to hang out on either the mirror or the shower caddy. She'll also hang out on my head sometimes while I brush my teeth. I seriously just pray whenever she's on my head that she doesn't poop while she's up there... because budgies poop about every 10-15 minutes and will do so wherever they are at that moment, with not a care in the world. She's thankfully only pooped on my head once.

Anyways, I was curious as to what she would do when I turned on the water, so I put her on the shower caddy and watched her. She absolutely loves and is fascinated with the sound and sight of running water, so she was pretty much enthralled right from the beginning. She was a little shocked when I turned on the shower head, but then just sat there and watched the water coming out. I ended up having the shower with her sitting on the shower caddy and chirping and singing. I've brought her into the shower with me 5 or 6 times since then and she seriously loves it more and more each time. It is so cute... she sits on the shower caddy, chirps, sings, and watches the water. The humidity is also really good for birds, especially ones like Belle who don't love to have baths.

Belle also loves the sound of the vacuum cleaner and my hair dryer. When either of them start, she'll stop whatever she is doing at that moment and start singing and chirping along to the sound, like she's so overjoyed at hearing it that she just has to respond. She's so cute and sweet and funny, so that was just a random aside on all that cuteness...

It was just last week that the Government of Canada officially started to recommend that we wear face masks when we are out in public so as to, in the hilarious words of our Prime Minister, prevent us from speaking moistly on each other (it's at 1:20 of the video), which someone then decided to make into a really funny song. 😂 One of the neighbors on our floor is a seamstress who has made numerous things for us, mostly for Belle actually. I asked her if she would be able to make some face masks for us, which she did after doing an extensive amount of research on the best way to make them. A new fashion statement? Let's hope that this one doesn't stick around for too long!