-
The bubble
For some time, our state has been a rather relaxed and peaceful bubble within the world of COVID-19. We’ve only worn masks for short periods of time and life was mostly returned to normal, aside from the fact we couldn’t travel. The restrictions on travel did relax domestically but with the most recent variant, we are again way outside the rest of the world. We do have some local cases right now but they all seem to be from the delta variant. It’s been a weird situation all along but now that our borders are due to open to international travel, the idea of going out into the world feels rather terrifying. I’m curious to see how omicron goes once it gets here because it’s been crazy through the rest of the country.
On a related note, I am furious that Novak Djokovic has gotten an exemption from the vaccine so he can enter Australia and play in the Australian Open later this month. I’ve never been fond of him as a player before but I really dislike him a lot now. I rather imagine he will get an icy reception here. On my part, I really hope he gets knocked out in the first round.
-
Opening borders
It’s been a long time coming but Western Australia’s borders are opening up on February 5th. The announcement came yesterday just as we reached 80% double vaccination in the state. This means I can go overseas and avoid hotel quarantine when I return. It’s a relief to have a date in sight and now I can look at possible travel for next year. It’s going to be a bit strange at first as COVID will actually be in circulation in the community once we open. Apparently, our state has only had one death from COVID-19, according to what I heard at the press conference yesterday. The premier claims our hospital system is prepared but I’m not totally convinced. However, we should be at or near 90% vaccination by then, and hopefully, that means fewer patients from COVID requiring beds. This is in a state where ramping (leaving patients on beds awaiting treatment) is widespread right now, often for hours.
-
Something
I guess I didn’t have much to say for the past several months. Not that there hasn’t been anything much happening. In fact, quite a bit has happened. Currently, we are just coming out of winter after a fairly mild season. Funnily enough, we’ve had two days in September (spring), today included where it’s just been cold but didn’t have more than one day like this through the winter. But we had a few days of much warmer than usual temperatures earlier in the week that made me forget all about winter.
Anyway, spring has sprung and with a particularly wet July, plant life is really blooming. The bottlebrush trees are already flowering when that usually starts late in September. Pollen is everywhere and so the anti-histamine regimen has also begun.
After the better part of the year spent not doing much exercise, I decided I needed a kickstart and joined the new gym that opened up in our suburb this month. We’ve had a pool for 20+ years but no gym despite our suburb being one of the largest in the state. Not that there’s any shortage of gyms around here. Plus there are a couple of others opening up this year nearby. But I decided to go to the city-run gym because they have a pool and membership includes two free months. Well, it did when I joined as an early bird foundation member. The gym is high-tech with the machines all hooked to Bluetooth and the internet on many of the machines. It opened on Monday and I started off that morning. Last week I met with a trainer to do a plan and I got through the full plan. I was just a bit sore on Tuesday but went back and did some rowing and cycling and I was still quite sore. It was only today when I could say the soreness had properly gone away for the most part. So this morning I went and did another workout that will likely have me sore again tomorrow. I plan to do some cardio tomorrow. There have been some hiccups with the gym such as the fact that phone coverage inside is pretty poor, which makes it hard to access my online music service without downloading songs to the phone first. Some of the machines won’t connect online and so they don’t work with the online programming that is supposed to happen. This has slowed down my workouts a bit while I try to work out the bugs that can be sorted…or switch to a different machine. One of the treadmills was listed out of order on day two and is still not fixed. I am sure these things will get fixed but it’s a bit frustrating too. One of the downsides of having everything connected online, I guess.
Due to the rain in July, our yard turned into a jungle and I wasn’t able to mow earlier because the “key” for our lawnmower (battery-powered) got lost. New keys now exist but the motivation has been iffy at times for some good reasons and not-so-good ones. But I did get out and mowed a big section of the backyard and side and then got the front yard mowed this past weekend. The batteries don’t last long so I had to choose the most important parts. We do plan to get more batteries so we can do more mowing in the future.
About six weeks ago, I was leaning across the sofa to reach for the remote control when I hit the top of my foot and toes on a footrest that was slightly out from its closed position on our recliner sofa seat. It really, really hurt at the time and then it bruised up but I thought it was getting better. Weeks later I was still having problems and went to the doctor and then had an x-ray and ultrasound. Turns out I fractured my foot with that injury and it’s still healing. And I also had a mildly sprained ankle that needed to be looked after too. My doctor sent me to get a Dexa scan as a fracture with minimal trauma as occurred was not normal. Results say I have low bone density but because I have had a minimal trauma fracture, they are calling it osteoporosis and I’ve been referred to a specialist due to my young-ish age. It runs in my family so not totally surprising but I honestly thought the results would show nothing special as they usually do…I guess my luck has run out there. Anyway, the new exercise will help with that and I need to put more calcium-rich foods into my diet. The fractured foot has made my exercise options kind of limited but hopefully will heal soon and allow me to do more walking and other weight-bearing exercises.
Meanwhile, my father had a stroke about three weeks ago and due to negligence at the VA hospital his outcome was worse than it should have been. The emergency room staff were quite good but once he was admitted it seemed his care really went downhill. He was left in a room for a day and they didn’t do the MRI that was scheduled by the ER doc (or anything else) and constant attempts by my mom to get in touch with the doctor went unanswered. She finally checked him out of that hospital and moved him to one closer to home and the care was amazing there. My brother flew out from Charlotte for a few days and was also able to help things along in some areas. My dad has just gotten home after a stint in a rehab center and is doing okay, all things considered. His mobility is okay but his speech has been very affected and his right side is also impaired. Most of that has improved but the speech is still a major issue. And he turns 80 in three days. But at least he’s home now.
I sent a birthday message to a friend who has been out of touch in recent years and got a lovely message back. I was fairly sure she had just retreated from the world but it is hard to know when you are out of touch for long periods. I’m glad I was right about that. It will be good to be back in more regular contact again.
I guess it’s hard to write about current events and not write about Covid-19…We are doing fine here. We have had a few very short lockdowns this year, lasting three to five days each. We are fortunate it did not spread widely. The last time was in June and we had four local cases total and I think all were the delta variant. I suspect some luck was involved in the limited spread along with some effective government regulation. (I’m mostly happy with our local government’s response to COVID although they do have a lot of issues with the health system, in general, that need a lot more care.)
On a related note, potential visits back home are still kind of distant future. I had moved thoughts to middle-late spring next year but I imagine it’s going to be later than that.
Also on a related note, I am fully vaccinated. I had my first jab in May and the second last month. I got the Astra-Zeneca version which apparently is showing as better protection against the delta variant. The Scientist had to wait to get his due to surgery he had in May, and he got the Pfizer one which is now the preferred one for under 60s. (This changed after I had gotten my first one.) The boys are both booked to get their first jabs next month.
I think there was more for me to say but I guess this is a good start.
-
Nearly normal
Our lockdown finished over a week ago, then we had some restrictions, including wearing a mask, until Sunday. Amazingly we had no new cases of community transmission here and so life returned to nearly normal on Sunday. Mask-wearing was annoying at times but we made it through that short period. I feel I can’t complain about it since we’ve only had a tiny taste of what most of the rest of the world has dealt with.
The Scientist and I went off to a local market/food fair for lunch on Sunday. It was pretty busy but our timing seemed to work out well since the event started in early morning and the stalls weren’t particularly crowded. It was a good thing as it was really hot and steamy during the day. We got our food and found a shady place to sit on the grass and eat our yummy foods. Afterwards, we walked around the stalls, bought a plant in a handmade pot, bought some brownies and fudge and then I got a really delicious smoothie that had raspberry, banana, mango and several other nice ingredients. It wasn’t sweet at all and was really refreshing on a stinky hot day.
Later we went home where I finally had to wake up Lego Lover to go out. He’d asked the night before and I said possibly okay. We went to a shopping center that is about half an hour away. I like the fact this place has five or six bubble tea places. I also hate making decisions on where to get a drink, lol. We walked up and down the place and stopped in the usual spots. We stopped at Nando’s to get him some lunch since he didn’t have time to eat before we left. It was super crowded at the shopping center so we were both relieved to get out soon afterwards. There was a stop at a toy store that has taken the space left from Toys R Us and then we headed home. On the way there and back we listened to the No Such Thing as a Fish podcast which we enjoy and learn a lot from.
We arrived home and there was still Game Fanatic to feed. There’s a shop where we used to go regularly for charcoal chicken and then it suddenly changed to a kebab shop. Then months later it added the chicken back in. So we went there and again they are only doing the kebabs. I think that one is a lost cause. Then we thought to go to the fish and chip shop but we wanted to watch the latest Wandavision episode first. So we did that and pondered on various parts of this week’s show before heading to the fish and chip place. Which was closed for the upteenth time. We nearly came home when the Scientist thought of a Thai restaurant we recently discovered and liked. It was a bit out of the way but surely was open.
And that’s how we found ourselves sitting in a park, next to the little strip where the Thai place exists. We had a half hour wait for our order and we’d wandered around the playground and tried out the swings. I tried to take a photo of the Scientist but the growing darkness and the movement meant it was all a blur and it wasn’t an aesthetically appealing one. We laughed at the notion that some would claim it was a ghost if they saw it. :D
We eventually sat on a park bench and took photos of each other and then of both of us together. He has a Samsung Note and I have an iPhone so we have mostly different apps for photography. After several false starts we both got a couple of decent shots. It just happened that a car’s headlights were on in one of mine, which lit his hair from behind and caused a bit of a glow. And overall we both looked decent. I found most of my other ones had me and/or him with closed eyes. Anyway, we had such a nice time for such a simple thing as waiting for take away order. And that was the highlight of my Valentine’s Day.
-
Strange times
We’ve just finished one month of 2021 and it feels as though the world is less stable than ever. For the first time in a little less than ten months, we had a case of community transmission here. Within hours we were in a hard lockdown. We spent late Sunday afternoon rushing to get requirements before the shops closed. It was not a pleasant experience.
We didn’t hear about the lockdown until well after the announcement when a family member sent a message about it. We’d been watching tennis on the tv but no news was broadcast about it. Lockdown began a t 6pm Sunday and it finishes at 6pm today.
For the first time we needed masks and they were nowhere to be found. Well that’s not really true because I found some at my favorite tea shop. The owner had sold them last year so we went there on the chance he might have them and he did. He wasn’t selling but was happy to share his supply with us and we got a handful of disposable masks, and that ensured we were covered until we could get cloth ones.
There was another run on toilet paper and I saw a couple people with several packs in their trolleys at the grocery store. The Scientist went in and managed to get a massive pack that was left. Not the brand we like but it is better than nothing since our supply had dwindled to the end. I’ve been doing better at keeping stock but admit I missed this time. Lucky we got in in time. There was also a run on meat and milk but we were fine in that area until we needed it.
I must admit that wearing a mask has been a novel experience. I knew there would likely be issues, especially with my glasses and now I have a better idea of it. I ordered cloth masks from Amazon on Sunday night, mostly as I knew there was a better chance of them arriving more quickly than just about any other place. I got two with filters included and they arrived earlier than expected on Wednesday. For the most part mine is quite okay but it is difficult wearing it for long periods of time. Yesterday another order arrived with three more masks. These aren’t as nice as there’s not filter but they should work for the boys should they go out. The last one will got to an outside family member.
Work has been a bit off kilter this week. My long time client is staying with family and I only supported him briefly this week. Another client has quite different needs and I did provide support but not for the usual time frames.
The state government implemented contact tracing through an app and qr codes back in December. This enabled them to narrow down all the places where the case had been, and people have been testing in large numbers through the week. So far, no new cases have been found so our hard lockdown will end tonight at 6pm. We will have to continue to wear masks and follow some restrictions until 12:01am on February 14th when it will be two weeks since the previous case turned up.
Meanwhile, a major bushfire started on Monday and has been ever present in our lives all week. So far 81 homes have been lost and the fire is still not contained. It’s been super windy here much of the week which is hampering efforts to bring it under control. Tuesday was one of the worst days when we woke to ash falling from the sky throughout the Perth area. We don’t live that close but also not that far from the fire and we ended up in the lowest alert zone for a couple of days. Today we have been moved out of that zone so can relax a bit more. The danger for us was more about embers travelling from afar. In all the years living here, we’ve never been in that blue emergency zone before. So while we weren’t in immediate danger, we were in an area where we needed to be on alert for sudden changes to our safety.
It was quite eerie on Tuesday afternoon when an ice cream truck was moving up and down streets nearby. I haven’t noticed it around much lately although maybe I tuned it out before. But still it was almost creepy to hear it moving along when everything was so still and quiet. Not to mention yellow and grey skies about. We couldn’t run our air conditioner due to the smoke and ash so we spent much of the day without air flow. I went out to the hardware stores and got an industrial sized fan to help and that worked well until temperatures dropped later in the day. Also there was a fire reported in our suburb that day and it was quite worrying until I later learned it was a garbage truck that had caught fire. That was handled quickly and the danger was passed easily.
I went out walking last night for the first time in ages. The winds have been gusting so I decided not to try my bicycle. I’d taken it out on Monday and there were a few places where I felt really unsteady. Not to mention I didn’t want to go too far from home and that’s easy to do on bike. My walk was okay aside from the wind slamming into my face. I didn’t walk all that fast but I think that was okay because most of my exercise has been on bike lately and I needed lower impact this time. I had to stop as parcel lockers to pick up the second order of masks along the way and just managed to get home a few minutes before my hour was up.
While all this has been going on, the northern part of the state has been dealing with a cyclone for a few days. There’s been rain and flooding in some areas, which I think is connected. Those rains should be moving into our area this weekend and hopefully the rains will help with containing the fires nearby. We also have cooler temperatures right now, so I hope that will improve the ability to get things under control.
And so our new year carries on, with all sorts of news to keep us on our toes.
-
Phew!
Like much of the world, the election has caused a lot of anxiety and stress, particularly over the past week. First of all, my ballot never arrived so my vote won’t be counted. My thoughts about this are that the post office didn’t process the mail properly the second time due to there already being a postmark on it. I could be wrong about it and perhaps my ballot is still somewhere in the postal pathways. Or maybe it’s also gone into the ether. LOL
My heart sank when I saw that Biden didn’t get a landslide win. This causes me more despair than before because the president still isn’t seen for what he is: an ugly person who has used the office to sow discord and hate amongst the public and to line his pockets. Among many things. Most of my family still voted for him and still overwhelmingly support him. After all, the MSM is all fake news and all…sigh.
But early Sunday morning, before I went to bed, I heard that it was official that Biden won. I was elated and days later I am still feeling elated. I still have that anxiety about the rest but at the least the current president is going to be out. I just hope any investigations/lawsuits don’t go all that far.
I will never say Biden would have been my first choice for President. But overall he’s a decent man and I trust him to consider all the people not just those that bow down to him.
I am now thinking about what I will use for my profile image on Facebook on inauguration day. It’s been nearly four years using a black background and I want to come back with a bit of a splash. These next couple of months are going to be slow for me.
Already I have heard Biden speak and it is so refreshing to have someone who isn’t all about himself. He spoke of handling the covid-19 crisis and implored people to take safe measures because it’s the right thing to do as an American, no matter who a person has voted for. I only caught the end of his speech so I’m not sure what came before. But he’s taking action in a way that hasn’t happened at the executive level as yet.
I haven’t heard Harris’ speech(es) yet but from all I’ve heard, she’s going to prove an active and useful VP. It’s so cool to have someone with such a diverse background in such a high level position.
And how about Stacy Abrahms in Georgia? I can see she is going to go places and her work right now is so important.
I am still worried about the state of the country but now I am encouraged and a bit hopeful.
-
Trouble with family
It’s a story very familiar but family on Facebook has been a big issue again. A couple nights ago I finally decided to block posts from my feed from a close family member. I’ve had to see posts for years and years about dislike, fear and hatred of Obama. Now it’s similar for other Democrats and then there’s the undying devotion to the current president.
This time it was a post that was mean and nasty to those of us who are against Trump and I tried to call this person out on it. Unfortunately it was turned into more moaning about how terribly this person has been treated when the focus of my comment was on the nastiness of the post. I finally decided I had to block posts for my own mental well-being. It makes me sad but I just can’t keep reading all the stuff that’s posted. So I responded to the post and said I was blocking this person’s posts. Last night I had responses not so much to that but to my taking personal offense at the post…which led to more ongoing discussion. And then somehow posts from almost two years ago were being resurrected in an attempt to show how I was being mean to the followers of the president. Which it wasn’t since I was only targeting the president and fellow politicians.
I really had to ponder that someone would have to go back two years to find something even remotely close to being the same. But it wasn’t. Two posts from two years ago came up, one of which related to the confirmation of Kavannaugh to the Supreme Court…it was actually more related to sexual assault and reasons people don’t come forward. But that had also been turned political and it was claimed the allegations were false when in fact that wasn’t proven. Sigh…
I can’t wait for the election to be over even though that really won’t be the end of it. I can only hope the current holder of the office of President leaves if he is voted out.
-
Half a year gone
Hard to believe but half the year has gone by and it seems like just yesterday I was having a birthday. During lockdown it seemed time went quite slowly sometimes and other times it was just speeding past.
Here in Western Australia we are still quite fortunate and have reached stage 4 restrictions. We still have limits on numbers to stadiums and such but life is certainly close to being normal here. Our borders are still in hard lockdown and it looks like it might be some time for that change. It was due to move to stage 5 on the 18th but that has been put back to due to spikes in cases in Victoria and to a lesser extent in New South Wales. Now the plan is to move to stage 5 on the 1st of August. So we continue in our rather large-ish bubble in WA. International travel is likely some time off although it’s possible we will extend the bubble to New Zealand which has been mostly covid-19 free for a while now.
My swimming lessons restarted a few weeks ago. The first lesson back was quite a mess for me. I felt like I couldn’t do anything I had learned. But I was doing much better the following classes and I’m even improving on my breast stroke kick.
My exercise has been up and down. This past week I’ve done limited exercise but the couple weeks before I did much better. Overall, I think I’m doing far better than last winter but I could be better. I’ve got plans to do some swimming this evening along with tomorrow’s lesson and some swimming on Wednesday when I go to the pool with my client.
Our tai chi classes are back to meeting in person again and it’s so much better now. We got going again the last week of term and now it’s term break. However we are doing workshops during the break so we’re still attending and for longer hours.
One of the things I missed out on earlier this year was the opportunity to get my Animal Crossing Switch when it was released. I had no idea it would sell out so quickly and there weren’t restocks happening in Australia. But that changed late last month when new stock was announced for Australia and I managed to pre-order one for release on the 10 of July. Happily my order worked out and was deliver on the day and I am quite pleased. It’s rather expensive but I’m a long time lover of the Animal Crossing franchise and if ever I would buy one of these, this is the one to get. Even the box is quite lovely and it likely will be the only one in this how to be kept in the long term. Now we have consoles available for each family member and can play against each other. Lego Lover has the lite version of the console and the rest of us have the regular one which can be used with the tv. I had just about given up hope of getting one when the new stock was announced so I guess I was quite lucky in that.
Another thing that we are back to is organised games nights with our friends. At first we were taking a lot of precautions but since community transmission here has been zero, we have relaxed quite a bit. On the 4th, we had a special 4th of July day with special food and decorations for the day. It was more than our family normally does and we had such a good time together. It really helped to improve moods among us to be close with people we care about.
I am so frustrated to see the situation back home and to see people I care about about carrying on about wearing masks and the whole hoax conspiracy stuff. So far nobody close to me has got this but I worry that it’s a matter of time.
And who knows when I will get back to see my family. I imagine it might be still another year and a half before chances of getting back to the US is possible. And that’s only if the leadership actually changes since the current leadership is so lacking.
Well, I guess I have rambled on enough for this post. I am going to try to update on a few more things in the next week or so.
-
Freedom
We are currently in stage three of lockdown. What this means is most businesses are now open and we are that bit closer to normal life. Except it will likely still be a while until we have to stop physically distancing.
Our state currently has 21 cases of covid-19 still ongoing with none in the hospital. None of these were community transmissions so I am feeling safer to be out in the community now. The current cases mostly came from a ship that came into port a couple of weeks ago. The others are people who came back to WA from overseas. All the current cases have been quarantined in a hotel while they recover.
My swimming lessons will be back in session the week after next. I haven’t tried to swim yet even though the pools opened a couple of weeks ago. Once I got notice the lessons were about to restart, I decided to hold off on getting one of the special temporary memberships. At the moment you have to book in to the pool and there are limits on how many people can be at the pool at the same time. I did go to the pool with my client through work but only got in to do walking in the water and didn’t get my head wet. At the time the change rooms weren’t available so it wasn’t ideal. But the weather has been unusually warm for the start of winter so it wasn’t too bad. Now the change rooms are available so it is far more useful even though the weather is still rather warm. (We still have windows open here as it’s not been cold enough long enough to close them.)
I haven’t felt confident enough to even consider going to any of the protests in the city though. I’m not sure how well they did the distancing at the previous ones but I feel it’s just too risky at the moment. I heard today there was a man at the Melbourne protest who was just diagnosed. I hope it hasn’t spread to others who were there. I guess we will find out more in the next week or two.
I forgot to add that the Scientist and I went out to eat at a restaurant on our anniversary (May 22) for the first time since before my birthday. It was a lovely evening and it was good to see restaurants more properly open again.
-
Despondency
It was another night with not much sleep. I stayed up until I was so tired I was sure I would fall asleep. And I did sleep for a couple hours but woke up and had to force myself back to sleep. It still wasn’t enough but I think it will get me through the day.
While I am incredibly angry that Trump was elected, that’s not really the source of my despondency. When I made the decision to cut off all conversation about politics with much of my family was when it became obvious that the problem for us is a fundamental difference in our views. There’s just no way I can bring someone else around to my thinking because I see the world so differently and I always have. I’ve been made to feel a traitor to family and country because I don’t agree with what most of them think. I have never been all that great at persuasion so it’s not even like I made any real attempt to change minds within this group. My main goal had always been to call out lies and misinformation but it didn’t make any difference and just increased the gulf between them and me. The funny thing is I ran across two articles in the past couple of weeks with more reasonable arguments against Hilary as president. Sadly I never saw anything like this from those trying to sway my opinion.
The worst part of all, though, is the meanness that comes along with these differences. It was bad enough to see all the name-calling of anyone with any association with liberals or liberal views. Some of these posts on social media were directed at me specifically and at me within a tiny group of family members who didn’t see things the same. But the worst thing I saw was after the result was announced and there was much mockery of those supporting Hilary. It was uncalled for. If Hilary had won and the conservatives had done this I would have been equally upset. It just made me feel that we are at a low point in humanity when there is so little regard for other humans, especially those different from us. I say this from a point of considerable privilege as a white person living in a western country.
On top of this I was also very dismayed to see reports of non-peaceful protests occurring. If these reports are true then I am truly disappointed. At the same time I do imagine that had Hilary won, there would have been not just protests but widespread riots throughout the country. This was a big source of anxiety for me even if she had won. Sigh…
Meanwhile, it’s a matter of moving on in some way at this point. I can’t change what’s happened so it’s important to brace myself to deal with the fallout. For the time being I plan to keep some distance from most of my family. That said, this was made a bit difficult because one of those people just happened to have a birthday yesterday. I really wanted to stay silent at this time but I wasn’t going to be ignore a birthday just because I was feeling angry…it’s not like it’s this person fault to have a birthday…of course, this person was really happy so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Sigh!