Covid still lurks; sketchbook helps conserve paper

My wife Phuong got her Covid booster shot with minimal side-effects. Good for her. I've read where a fourth shot or second booster might be beneficial to someone over 60, which means I'll be a human pin cushion if that's what is necessary to eliminate or minimize the impact of Covid. The virus still has life here, with close to 70,000 new cases a day. The total number of cases is now at 9.7 million. Schools go on and off quite frequently due to the virus. Masks remain in vogue for most of the general public. Businesses are very slowly returning to something resembling normal, but people must still be a little jumpy about Covid because our park remains relatively quiet and the swimming pool we go to has only a handful of people. But the coffee and milk tea shops here, which are something of an economic barometer, are drawing more and more customers.
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My daughter Joanna's love of drawing, coloring and painting led to a minor dispute. Being a temperamental artist, she won't use two sides of a paper. I complained about waste. She can be overly fastidious at times, so I suspect that if the paper isn't absolutely, perfectly clean, she simply refuses to draw on both sides. She'll snatch clean sheets off the printer and she refuses to conserve despite talks about trees, waste and expense. At the mall bookstore I bought a good-sized sketchbook with about 15 pages. After two days, she's done elaborate drawings and colorings using only two pages. In the past, she would use between 15 to 20  pages over two days -- at least.  Maybe the larger size of paper and finite aspect of the sketch book has forced a change of attitude. The drawings are little stories and describe much of what we've learned in class. I say 'we' because so much of what 'we' study is as new to me as Joanna. Anyway, so far so good with the sketch book.
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My daughter saw her first motorbike accident here ... and I hope it'll be her last but I won't hold my breath. A guy came off the sidewalk and merged into a guy coming down the street at a good clip right next to us. The guy on the street stopped his bike but the guy who merged into him didn't look at him and rode away, which probably means he was in the wrong. I thought he was. Joanna just watched the proceedings and didn't say anything.
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Joanna and I returned to swimming this past week because Joanna is antsy and bored. Also, dancing at homeschool doesn't spin her beanie so much and there's no real playground in our area where kids gather. So we walk to Pegasus, a residential high-rise with a pool on the seventh floor. After some bouncing around the pool we go to the overpriced Japanese bakery across the street and Joanna eats a hot dog and pastry. I'm hoping the swimming helps my foot, which still hasn't recovered a from a marathon walk with Joanna last week to Lido and beyond. Ah, the Golden Years.