Let us declare a war then on fire

I catch colds too easily. Show me a picture of someone sneezing and my throat will start to burn. I figure I better start drinking plenty of fluids. And then before you know it I have coughed a thousand times and I'm urging you to wash your hands after reading this blog post.

Please remember to wash your hands after reading this blog post.

This morning I called in ill at work. I didn't feel too bad. I just wanted to save my co-workers, and maybe a few library patrons as well, from all the things I carry and sneeze around me. When I told my co-worker that I was staying home sick she didn't say "thank you". My virtue had to be its own reward, that and not having to spend a day wandering around with a Kleenex box and with my colleagues backing away from me making the sign of the cross like I was a vampire.

A whole day ahead of me I opened up my computer to check on my blog and consider what I wanted to do. I read a bit of a book about vampires. I ate lunch.

Then I opened my computer again.

Not that long ago I found the world of live feeds on YouTube. This is 24 hour streaming footage of things like waterholes in Africa, or kelp forests somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. I've taken to checking in on them. Most of the time there's just some camera panning around on nothing, so when one pops in and sees a giraffe, or a couple of elephants fooling around it's pretty exciting. Nothing much was happening at any of the waterholes, but then I noticed there was a live stream of a Cathedral burning. 

A Cathedral.

Burning.

One that I've even been in.

So I spent the rest of the day watching that.

Notre Dame is still burning as I write. The rose windows are all gone (update note from the future: they appear to have survived!), the roof, that spire that so dramatically fell. The towers are going to be okay, I think, because people are walking around on them now with flashlights. But you all presumably know this since I present my blog in old fashioned tape delay. You do not read this via live feed. The world always outpaces my blog posts, and by now surely the main news will be well set for you. 

I however remain ensconced in real time. The moment I am done here I am history, preserved in amber, outdated, a piece of the past.

But what I lack in immediacy I try to make up for with- sorry, coughing fit. I'll get back to you later.