Corona Virus Diaries...

[shadowkat]

The above picture is from 2016 - November 2016, during my walk around Prospect Park.

I'm tired. And I've writers block - although Nano (nanowrimore) is sending me loads of support messages. In one, the writer stated that he was struggling to write as well - it felt as if he'd ingested a hive full of bees and they were all buzzing about his brain. The words were clogged up somewhere within all of it.

The news, at this point, is driving everyone, including the news commentators themselves insane.

I'm reminding myself that miracles aren't quick. They take time.

I asked for four miracles in September. Somehow, I got two of them, but it took a long time and for a bit it was touch and go, and I really didn't think they'd come through. I thought, maybe I'm asking for too much, hoping for too much? Because that's the definition of a miracle really - when you've lost all hope, resigned yourself to your fate, and voila - there it is.

I'm half afraid to mention them out loud...for fear of jinxing. And the next two miracles I desperately want are on a much broader scale and affect far more people...and like the first two? Also, seemingly outside of my control. Oh, I can do small things, and I've done them but mostly, I have to put my faith in others and the Universe to carry them through. And it's really hard to have faith right now in much of anything, especially people, when doubt seems to be hovering around every corner. But...I got two miracles, and people came through for those two things - so perhaps two more isn't too much to ask for?

I learned this week that jinxing and superstition are really an expression of a fear of having no control. Or things being completely out of one's control - which I considered odd, yet also makes sense in a way.

We still don't know who the winner is. It's done to five or six states, who have very close races, neck and neck. With between 87% to 99% of the votes counted in each.

One of my social media friends (who dates back to my days on the Buffy boards) compared American Politics to watching test cricket.

I kind of wish I was watching it from the safe distance of New Zealand.
Someone else posted that our Canadian neighbors probably feel like they live in an apartment above a meth lab. So, yeah, New Zealand. New Zealand appears to be sane. I've no clue why Neil Gaiman left it - I'd have stayed. Is Amanda Palmer really that hard to live with? Now, he's apparently trying to return, but New Zealand is being difficult. It may have been easy to hop on a plane and fly to Scotland at the start of the pandemic, but flying back not so much - New Zealand has some strict quarantine procedures. (You have to self-isolate in quarantine for a month or more.) New Zealand isn't taking any chances.

To make matters worse? The US has 100,000 cases a day of COVID-19. That was Wednesday and Thursday. It's widespread. And a new strain of the virus has emerged in minks - which showed up in Sweden and in one of the States in the US, can't remember which one. I want to say Nevada, but I'm not sure that's right. Both killed the minks.

And the virus should not be taken lightly - people who have had mild to moderate cases have come forward to state that it leaves lingering and debilitating effects - such as high heart rates, inflammation on the heart, difficulty breathing, etc. Some good news, however, my cousin's brain aneurysms have decreased on their own, so she won't require surgery nor do they appear to be about to blow. Two disappeared altogether.

Also the micro-cluster in my area is now down to 3.04%. It's been wavering between 3% and 4% for well over a month and a half now. Also NY has managed to test 15 million people. (I have a feeling there may be a lot of repeats in there.) No, I've not been tested. I don't have any symptoms, and outside of venturing to grocery store, cemetery, doctor's office, and occasionally park - I've not really been anywhere. And I've not exactly socialized in person with anyone but my super's wife, and maybe briefly folks at work in mid-September.

I've not even gotten my hair done. While others have had it done multiple times. Caveat - I don't like getting it done. It's expensive, time-consuming, and I usually am not all that happy with it. The girly/vanity gene apparently jumped over me and landed on my brother and his daughter.
He cares about stuff like that. I don't. He wears more jewelry than I do.
I don't wear any. I should put earrings in before my ears close up.

My father seems to be improving day by day. Mother doesn't have to catherize him as much, and he's peed on his own and more frequently. I even spoke to him for about fifteen to twenty minutes today. He didn't make much sense, so that was a learning experience. My father and I are now on the opposite sides of a conversation. When I was much much younger - I had a lisp and speech impediment, and a tendency to say the wrong word without meaning to. It drove my father nuts. I didn't correct this until high school and college - weirdly theater classes helped. Speech therapy was useless. But theater courses - did the trick. I still hate public speaking, and doing things orally though - much prefer writing as a communication mechanism. Zoom is not my friend. Anyhow, now my father is having difficulty being understood. His words are often garbled, he says the wrong one a lot of the time, and mispronounces them. I have to be patient with him. It's a learning experience for both of us. Made all the more difficult with a phone cord as the link. I think it would be easier sometimes in person, other times, not so much.

Father and I discussed greetings for fifteen minutes.

Father: How are you?
Me: Hanging in there. How are you doinMg?
Father: Fine. (pause) I've discovered fine is a great word. You can use it in any situation and it is open to interpretation. No one knows how you are feeling - except fine.
Me: Well, no, actually - fine tends to mean - I'm not okay but I don't feel like telling you about it.
Father: No one really wants an answer to how you are doing anyhow.
Me: True. At work people tend to vary between "hanging in there", "okay" and "no complaints". They love "no complaints" - which means, they have complaints but they don't want to express them - because they aren't that major. Hanging in there - means hanging by a thread. And Okay - well that's the best by far.
Father: So you can use - okay, but not fine?
ME: Usually.
Father: I rather like fine.
Me: It's kind of crisp and to the point. If someone is having a great day - they'll say so. Crappy? It's fine.


I'm not positive, but I think I annoyed him or confused him. Although he reported to my mother when she returned from her dental appointment that he'd had a nice conversation with me. I know this, because she asked if I had spoken to him today.

Mother: You didn't happen to speak to your father today, did you?
Me: Yes, we had a twenty-minute conversation.
Mother: You did?
Me: Yes, it wasn't a hallucination. We actually spoke.
Mother: Oh good. I can never be sure. He said you called and talked to him. But you never call that early, and I thought it odd...
Me: No, I was bored and had a MS Teams meeting at 12:30, so decided to call at 11:30 for a change of pace. You can let him know that I verified it.


But all that said and done - I see my father's ability to be home, in my mother's care, and cognizant - a miracle. There was a time, not that long ago, that I dared hope for it.

Life, which we all take for granted by the way, is a miracle in of itself.
I wonder at it sometimes. Was watching a cardinal pop about this morning in the trees beyond my window. And later a black and white cat. Both are miraculous creations.

I'm working hard on focusing on those things. History has shown us - the human squabbles come and go, and aren't lasting. As my walks through a cemetery continue to make quite clear - human life on this planet is a temporary thing. We all die, eventually.