TheBanyanTree: Past the one month mark

[Robin Tennant-Wood]

Hello, fellow humans. Here we are, almost one third of the way through 2020
and so far this year is shaping up to be memorable for all the wrong
reasons. We got through the Summer From Hell here, only to be flooded in
when the rains finally came and put the fires out, and then, with no time
to pause and take a breath, we were told to lock ourselves in to avoid
contracting some disease named after a beer. Mother Nature is trying her
damnedest to get rid of us, and one can hardly blame her.

I have no family close by - they all live in Brisbane. My 88-year old mum
put herself in total lockdown weeks ago and is occupying herself with
gardening, knitting and quilting. She's naming her new quilts Corona 1,
Corona 2 and so forth and assures me she'll stop at 19. I was supposed to
be going up to Brisbane to visit just after Easter, but obviously that
hasn't happened and won't until we can all venture out of our caves again.

I've been doing shopping once a week for an elderly lady who lives between
me and town and who is in total lockdown. She calls me 'Little One'. I
don't think anyone has ever called me that, but there's a first time for
everything I suppose. There's only one supermarket in town, and it's not
very big. Under the government's one-person-per-square-metre rule (except,
apparently, in schools where you can cram as many as you like into a
classroom) there's only 10 people allowed in the supermarket at a time, so
there's usually a queue down the road. The LOL (that's Little Old Lady)
phones her order through to the supermarket and pays over the phone with
her credit card, the wonderful supermarket staff get the order ready, boxed
and bagged, and I pick it up from the storeroom door. Last week the LOL
made me a carrot cake. With icing.

We can still play golf, albeit with a whole lot of social distancing
restrictions and other rules to keep us all safe. Social distancing on a
golf course tends to be the norm anyway, unless one has a hankering for
being hit in the head with a swiftly moving club.There's no hanging around
after the game for drinks and presentation, it's now a matter of play and
piss off. At least we can play, though. There's not too many sporting
activities still happening.

Things I have not done (that everyone else seems to be doing): house
cleaning; decluttering; sorting out the kitchen cupboards; started a craft
project; attended a zoom dance party.

Things I have done: started a local newspaper (to provide local media while
the usual local paper which I used to run but don't any longer is in
shutdown because the printing facility has stood down most of its staff for
the duration of the health crisis); read several books; attended numerous
zoom meetings; written several articles for Independent Australia (online
current affairs journal); kept chipping away at a book draft; wondered why
no one has arrived to clean my house and sort out my kitchen cupboards.

Things I miss that I'm looking forward to doing again: meeting friends for
coffee; shopping without gloves;

So there you have it. I keep looking at the stats and reports and hoping
friends in the US and the UK are keeping safe, well and appropriately
socially distanced. I also keep looking at the stars and the moon and the
mountains and try to remember that, just like the bushfires, this will pass
but will also leave devastation and heartbreak in its wake.

Robin





On Wed, 22 Apr 2020 at 09:02, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I have no idea what a family is like, though I've guessed at it for years.
> Doesn't matter, it's the three of us who live here, and our family is fine.
> Andrew works, I work when I can, and Ash keeps me busy. I've been sick for
> months with undefined things and so what.matters is that no one ask me
> about it, because I have nothing to say. Tomorrow I have a zoom meeting
> with a specialist. I need to take my own temp first, and my BP. And if I
> can manage it, my own pulse ox and something else. They may also want me to
> pee in a bottle, which I will then insert into the zoom for instant
> analysis. I have pain, sometimes not much at all, not even worth
> mentioning, and other times narcotics are called for. I have night sweats
> most every night and I'm exhausted most of the time now. Fortunately I'm
> not allowed to leave the house.
>
> I am very well fed and have a in -house chef, which certainly helps.
>
> People I do not know well keep calling or texting me, but I'm too tired to
> talk to anyone who doesn't get me. And the people who do get me get me so
> well they don't want to talk to me, so Ash and I have lengthy conversations
> because HE GETS ME. And Andrew of course, but he's working full time.
>
> I have a comfortable life though I'm too awkward to do much with it, or
> exhausted, and I can't make anything, or be crafty, nor can I do a lot of
> this, but I'd rather do this than that so it all works out.
>
> Ash is 14 now so we watch him carefully, but he runs around with great
> enthusiasm, apparently not realizing how old he is. When the weather is
> nice we drive him out past beyond and let him run around where there are no
> people. Perhaps we'll drive him up Murder Mountain next time. The only
> people around there are the ones who are murdered, so it should be safe
> enough. and they're generally underground.
>
> While I know many smart people I'm avoiding them, because I've turned
> stupid, and speaking is problematic because I forget what I'm saying. There
> are people who look down upon the brain damaged, and sometimes they point
> and stare, human nature being what it is. I have a happy life and can
> freely ignore people during this time, we still have work, so really
> there's not much different from the usual for us, though Andrew gave up his
> second job, which good, because now he's here more.
>
> I worked today, and advised a client on whether to rent or lease a car,
> and talked to another, so now I am exhausted.
>
> Monique
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Apr 21, 2020, at 2:50 PM, tobie at shpilchas.net wrote:
> >
> > Friday, April 21th, 2020
> >
> > Hello fellow shut-ins!
> >
> >    How is everyone doing out there in the pandemisphere? Is everyone
> whole and healthy? Could we keep each other company, check in with us from
> time to time  — act like a family, since many of us are separated from ours?
> >
> >    I will tell you what’s going on here.  We are past the five week
> marker of sheltering in place. The furthest I have strayed from the inside
> of the house was twice to trot out to my car, about ten feet from the
> garage door, so I could run the engine for a bit and keep the battery from
> being drained. A certain amount of applied paranoia (or should I call it a
> phobia) directed my now practiced hand. The sanitation wipes came out to
> the car with me, as well as a book and my cell phone in case an emergency
> required my immediate return to our shelter. I wiped the car door handle
> and the area around it, all parts of the outside of the door that any WOBR
> might have touched with his or her disease ridden hands (or gloves) when
> trying to break into my car.  (WOBRS is the acronym mnemonic I invented to
> remember the grains we cannot eat during Passover week: Wheat, Oats,
> Barley, Rye and Spelt. There are other ways to put those letters in sporty
> sequence, but I liked WOBRS. WOBRS is what Wobbin Hood’s men are when they
> catch that wotten wich willain, Elmer Fudd, and steal all his woot. So WOBR
> is how that acronym mnemonic appears when it is not Spelt right.)
> >
> >    Let us take a brief hiatus from the train of thought to consider that
> theoretical WOBR. Anyone either desperate, opportunistic or rakingly stupid
> enough to choose this particular time to break into parked cars has to have
> a distinct and diagnosable psychological profile. Now. When venturing forth
> from his or her house, leaving the rest of the family safely sheltering in
> place, does our anti-hero suit up with mask and gloves, carrying a supply
> of sanitary wipes along in a handy pocket? Or does the psychology of such a
> WOBR go along with recklessness, a delusion of immunity or worse?  "Worse,"
> would be the WOBR has tested positive for Covid-19, or has not been tested
> however, is showing symptoms and ambulatory, knowingly sets out
> purposefully to smear his or her actively viral imprimatur on the target
> population. In that case, our anti-hero would go out unmasked (and
> interesting twist for a WOBR) and ungloved. But otherwise — barring such
> malicious behavior, there is something ironic or amusing about a WOBR being
> fastidious, careful to disinfect the car door handle — perhaps the steering
> wheel, the glove compartment which gets completely sifted for valuables.
> Then what does our WOBR do with whatever booty he or she collects from all
> us persons who are sheltering in place while being WOBBED? Hot soapy water,
> disinfectant, bringing home the valuables, but conscientiously leaving it
> all outside the house for a few days to ensure that any pathogens have long
> since croaked. And during that time, while the proceeds are
> de-contaminating themselves, it would be only fair that the kind of person
> whose M.O. is stealing Christmas presents from front porches and trunks of
> cars, swipes our anti-hero WOBR’s hard earned loot. So it goes. No one ever
> gets to bring the stolen property inside and certainly it’s hard nowadays,
> with the social distancing and all, to sell it to a fence or a pawn shop.
> Not a lot of room for organized or disorganized crime during the Covid-19
> anti-festival.
> >
> >    So it is that I realize I didn’t really tell you what was going on
> here.  Brief briefing: My mom had her 100th birthday in March. We were
> going to have an open house, had sent out the invitations, but then we had
> to send out uninvitations shortly afterwards. I sent home my mom’s
> housekeeper, the house organizer who spells me a few hours a week so I can
> rush out and do shopping then come dashing back. I don’t leave my mom
> alone, just in case there is an emergency. There have been enough of them
> in the past to train me. I know what you’re thinking when you hear she’s
> 100:  shriveled person in a wheelchair.  Not so.  She forgets her cane. She
> still does her own taxes. She’s not lost one marble in that sharp brain of
> hers. Her sense of humor is intact. She reads, argues (a whole lot),
> disagrees with the newspaper and is very much present. But she has lost
> about 5 inches and has some underlying health issues that put us in the
> highest risk group you might imagine.  I do all the cooking and actually
> should be making her lunch soon.
> >
> >    The thing is: I’m IT.  It’s terrifying really.  If anything should
> happen to me, the whole house of cards tumbles down. Then who would take
> care of my mother, and who would talk Meyshe down from a ledge when he
> reads the latest headline, or takes the latest poll a bit too teeth
> grindingly serious?
> >
> >    So we’re here, the three of us, my mom, Meyshe and I, sheltering in
> this place.  I’m trying to take care of myself. That’s what everyone tells
> me to do.  But every time someone tells me that, all I can think is: WHAT?
> One more person to take care of???!!!  It’s been so long since we had
> outside contact that I feel us isolated in our little island floating off
> on our own, loosed from the mainland, free to invent our shaky truths.
> >
> >    Folks, write in, if only to check the box that you’re okay.  We want
> to know how everyone is doing.
> >
> >
> > Love,
> >
> >
> > Tobie
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Variety is the spice of life.  Lack of variety is the spouse of life.
>  THS
> >
> >
> > Tobie Shapiro
> > mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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