I hope the unique photo in the heading caught your attention today. It’s from a fascinating project which I’ll describe more below.
The black heading also describes my mood of mourning today as early this morning, I found one of our two guinea pigs dead in his enclosure.
His name was Chopper and he was a unique and hyper little guy:

He was a rescue guinea pig that we adopted from our local animal shelter almost three years ago. When we adopted him, he was profoundly skittish as any noise or sudden movement near his enclosure would make him bolt for a hiding spot.
What I will always remember him for is how he’d stand on his hind legs and and chomp on the framing of his enclosure. He’d do this mainly when he heard me preparing his lettuce for breakfast.
It was a distinctive sound which filled the room. We won’t be hearing that any more and I will miss him in that silence.

Chopper is survived by his “brother,” our other rescue pig, Buzz Lightyear – pictured here:

If you’ve ever had guinea pigs, you’ll know they are sweet, tame, funny little creatures. After I finish this post, I will be taking Chopper to the vet where they will cremate his remains.
And hopefully his energetic little spirit will join our two other previous piggies – Jack Black and Teddy.
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I missed posting yesterday’s (Day 124) Pandemic Photo O’ Day – it’s my first miss of this daily feature since I started these posts almost 100 days ago now.
Ironically, my photos were to be of our other pet friend, Lucy the Dog and these before and after photos of the first grooming she’s had since coming to live with us about 5 weeks ago now:


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Here’s the excellent sources that I feature each day – The Week and the Five Things to Know Today
Good News Network site and the Daily “Good News in History”
Creighton U. Daily Reflections
National Catholic Reporter – Copy Desk Daily, July 16, 2020
And Thursday is a day when NCR’s Michael Sean Winters posts the Distinctly Catholic Links for 7/16/2020
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And here’s the link (which stays the same each day) to “My Paper.li”
The Ed Tech Emergent Daily, Thursday July 16nd
https://paper.li/e-1584814795#/ You can bookmark this link!
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Here’s the top five stories from today’s My Paper.li:
[COVER STORY] – “Introduction to ‘The Decameron'”
NOTE: This NY Times project is pretty amazing and I highly recommend you check it out. In the spirit of a short story written during a much earlier Pandemic Period, numerous popular writers penned short stories inspirited by our current COVID Crisis. If you like to read literature, this project is a must read!
“Scientists Reveal ‘Unequivocal Evidence’ of Greenhouse Gases”
“Is Savoring the New Mindfulness?”
“Country Music Can No Longer Hide It’s Problems”
“Netflix Cartoon ‘Midnight Gospel’ Is a Serious Trip”
