Tag: Fear

A new way of doing things

Well, welcome to the new world.

Perhaps in a lot of things, we should have been there a long time ago, but I suspect complacency and laziness has a lot to do with some of the issues.

Like washing your hands. It’s usually hell on earth to get a child to do anything and you have to be at them and at them to do anything.

I’m not sure about social distancing, but I’ve long wanted people in the supermarket to stop leaning over me to get stuff off the shelves when they could wait one minute longer.

Or being crowded into a restaurant where you can practically eat off the plate of the person at the next table. I like the distance, and the privacy it brings.

I’m also a fan of the new click and collect phenomenon where I don’t have to go out to get something I want; just get it delivered.

Of course, there’s still the necessity to go to a shop and physically see an item before you buy it, in my case clothes and shoes, but online sales for a lot of things are so much better, especially books and magazines.

I guess future traffic jams won’t be cars but delivery trucks.

I like the idea of working from home. Aside from having to face time with colleagues every now and then, if you don’t have to be in an office, then give it up. It will reduce pressure on roads, public transport, and reduce the concentration of the population in one place. You might even get to work on time, and get something to eat before you arrive!

As long as they get the internet right, which in this country is a pretty big if.

And perhaps now people will stop blaming 5g for the COVID virus.

Perhaps this homeschooling thing might work as well, as over the last few weeks I’ve seen it in action, and in most cases it works. Of course the isolation of students could be a problem, and there is always a need for face time for teachers and other students for interaction with contemporaries, but perhaps a compromise could be found.

Among the negatives in a time like this is the fear of using public transport, a fear no one is taking lightly, leading to children having to be taken to and brought home from school, and the fact there are potentially 800 cars needed to do it.

I used to leave home 30 mins before school end and was first in the pickup queue. Now I leave 45 minutes before and the closest I can get in nearly a mile from the school. And the traffic is a dangerous hazard in the main street, blocking driveways, bus stops, and lanes. It’s basically a mess, and it cannot continue without more organization.

Or we find a cure, or at the very least, a vaccine.

But there’s another problem. The anti-vaxxers. Everywhere in the world, it seems, not more than 50% of the population will get vaccinated, so it means that we may NEVER get past where we are now.

And the very worst problem that this new world has sprung on us, we may never travel again. Anywhere.

Perhaps we really do need a miracle.

Every time I close my eyes, there’s a nightmare waiting for me

I’m sitting at my desk surrounded by any number of scraps of paper with more storylines, written excepts, parts of stories, and a number of chapters of a work in progress.

Does this happen to anyone else?

The business of writing requires a talent to keep focused on the one project, and silence all the other screaming voices in your head, pouring out their side of the story.

But it’s not working.

I try to be determined in my efforts to edit my current completed novel, after letting it ‘rest’ in my head for a few months.

I planned to have so time off, but all of those prisoners in my head started clamoring for my attention.  A story I started some time ago needs revising, another story I wrote last year of NANOWRIMO has come back to haunt me, and characters, well, they’re out in the waiting room, pacing up and down, ready to tell me their life stories.

Is the temporary cure coffee or wine?

Now I think I really do need a holiday

Or a trip to the asylum.  Thank God this is not the early 20th century, or I might never return.  And if it’s named Bellview, it would be just another story to be written.

The Author that went Bonkers!

Does it ever end?

I have to say I’m gobsmacked

Its been a short morning.

After a long two weeks of early mornings after very late nights, looking after grandchildren, getting one to school and home again, lunches and everything in between, it was a well-deserved sleep in.

What woke me up?

Donald Trump.  It took only two minutes to realize it was a campaign rally, ‘I am the greatest person in the whole world’ self-aggrandizing exercise.  And an opportunity to rubbish the Democrats.

As a person looking in from the outside, I would be easily led to think that the Democrats were worse than the Nazis.  Dancing in Chinatown when there’s a pandemic raging around them?  Wow!

And not one positive word about what’s happening in relation to the COVID 19 problem

Except of course, ‘they asked for medical supplies and I drowned them in supplies’, ‘thank you Mr. President’, over and over and over.  You have to back up only a day or so when the reality from someone on the front line was drowned out by the loudest voice in the room, that’s right, it was Mr. President.

With him in charge, why would I be worried?

Thank God then, I don’t live in the United States.

Fifteen minutes of headache-inducing self-aggrandizement was all I could take before switching to Selling Houses Australia.

And work on writing a new chapter with something far more pleasing in the background.

Later I sat back and considered conspiracy theories with the coronavirus at the heart of it.

What if a country developed a virus, stopped it from spreading in their own country, but allowed thousands and thousands of people to travel overseas, to the four corners of the earth.

What if there was a massive deception program to downplay how bad the virus is until the carriers have left the country so they can infect the rest of the world.

What if it also involves skewing the infection and death numbers so no one really finds out how infections could multiply exponentially.  Not until the damage is done.  Then the world can be told about it being asymptomatic during incubation and transmittable stage, spreading the virus without anyone knowing.

To what end?

Destroy the economies of their trading partners, bring on a global financial meltdown, or just because they can?

No, there’s a far more sinister reason this happened.  We just don’t know what it is yet.

At last, some good news…

If only it is one bright moment among heaps of darker ones.

We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.

She has something else, perhaps just the common cold.

It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.

Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

But, you know, 15 minutes of fame and all that.

I’m looking at my continuously updating COVID 19 count, and it’s up to 3,223,596 cases worldwide and 228,195 deaths.

I feel a deep sadness for the families of those people who have died.

But, on the other hand, I feel somewhat angry that world leaders, instead of focussing on the job of saving more lives, are more interested in finding someone to blame.  Perhaps when this is all over everyone should band together to see what happened, what they did wrong, what they did right, and be prepared next time.

And there will be a next time.

One thing that should happen is, no blaming the opposition party but actually work with them, without politicizing the pandemic, make sure the right people are put in positions where they can do the best, and most of all honour and respect the health workers whose only mission is to save as many lives as they can.

In a word: Idle

It can relate to an object such as an engine in a car when sitting at traffic lights. Then the engine is not in gear or under any load, therefore it is idle.

That he is idle might mean he is currently not working or refuses to work. Then it could be said he is bone idle which is to say he is any or all of lazy, or shiftless, even indolent

It could refer to the time when nothing is happening.

It could also refer to money in accounts not earning any interest

How many of us indulge in idle chatter, which is meaningless?

And how many of us have made an idle threat, especially to a child who refuses to go to bed, or sleep.

 

This is not to be confused with idol

An idol is generally thought of as a representation of a god, one used as an object of worship.

An idol can also be a person who is greatly admired, like a celebrity or superstar or a hero.

It could also be a figment of the imagination.

 

Then there is idyll which could be an extremely happy place, or a picturesque period or situation, one that is unsustainable

It could also be a short verse about rustic life.

Conversations with my cat – 97

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This is Chester

Still hiding away.

Like any wise, old, skeptical cat, he’s not believing the good news.

We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.

It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.

Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for al; the wrong reasons.

So, after broadcasting the news, that is, walking up and down the passage saying it was safe to come out, there’s still no sign of him.

But…

I have a cunning plan.

I bought a can of his absolute favorite food.

Come dinner time I’m putting it out.

 

Of course, food trumps fear every time.

He walks past me on his way to the tasty treats, the tail movements indicating he is not a happy cat.

The things I have to suffer at the hands of you humans, he mutters.

So, I say casually, we have guests for dinner.

He stops, turns his head in that dismissive manner of his.
What else can you do to me?

COVID 19, Grandchildren, I suppose you’re going to let me outside.

Do you want to go outside?

With COVID 19 lurking on every corner?

It’s under control.

Right. I’ve been watching TV. You do realize there’s good news and fake news, and there’s more of the latter than the former.

So, he’s going with the confuse the poor human with blather.

It’s working. I say, Go back into hiding. I was quite enjoying the silence.

After dinner, he says, ending the conversation with the angry tail swish. Yes, we are not amused.

Conversations with my cat – 97

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This is Chester

He has disappeared, and no one can find him.

He was there, out in the library earlier this morning keeping an eye on the Coronavirus statistics which I have constantly updated on one of my computer screens.

In fact, he mentioned the fact there were more than 3,000,000 cases worldwide.

Then Rosemary came into the room to tell me she was calling the doctor.

A glance from Chester to her then to me was a quizzical one.

What’s wrong, he asked.

Cold-like symptoms, I said, but didn’t elaborate.

Then, as we were leaving for the COVIS Clinic, yes, the doctor had advised her to go and have a test, I was equally evasive about where we were going.

Bear in mind we have the two grandchildren over because their parents work, and they are doing their schoolwork from our home.  We made an oblique reference to them about what was happening and then left.

I suspect Chester, rather than avoid them, decided to confront them, wanting to know what’s going on.

He as well as I are fully aware of the ramifications of COVID 19 in this house.

And when we arrived home, he was nowhere to be seen.  The girls said he loitered around them for a few minutes then went up the passage, to what they thought was one of his hiding places.

He was in none of them.

If she has COVIS 19 then I’m willing to be we don’t see him again until the crisis is over.

Oddly enough, I don’t miss him yet.

Maybe in a month or so…

What happens when the unthinkable happens?

Today, the unthinkable happened.

It might be possible the coronavirus may have penetrated the fortress walls.

My wife has suddenly got the dry cough, the sore throat, and a damp forehead which may indicate fever.

Three out of five or six symptoms.

It can’t be possible.  She had gone to work, kept strict social distancing, only gone out for essential reasons such as shopping and medical.  Continuously washed hands, everything expected to keep it at bay.

It should be just a bout of the common cold.

But…

We call the doctor, he rang back for a teleconsultation.  Just in case, he gives us the number of the COVID 19 testing center.  We call, and they say to come down.

Yes, testing anyone with any of the symptoms.  It’s a scary thought.

We drive to the center, and I stay in the car.  It’s probably moot whether or not going in myself is going to be a risk, because if she has got the virus, then I’ll definitely have it because there’s no social distancing in families.

And especially those who don’t expect to get it because we’re doing everything right.

Except, I suppose, disappearing completely from the face of the earth.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Now we have a 24 to 72-hour wait for the result.

Bear in mind there have been numerous cases that have the symptoms, got the test, and died before the result of the test was known.  A worst-case scenario, but anything is possible.  Then, if you’ve got a cold, or a flu virus, and then get the coronavirus?

The horrors that have always been so far away just sneaked in the back door, and for the moment we can now understand the plight of those caught up in the pandemic first hand.  And just how frightening it can be to unsuspecting and ill-prepared people.

But let’s not go there just yet.  Crossed fingers everything will be fine.