Isolation Station

We are now in week 5 of Isolation in California. Parks, beaches and trails are all closed and only stores seen as essential are open. As we are in America there are of course weird definitions of essential – liquor stores, cannabis dispensaries and gun shops are of course essential. There have been massive queues at the gun stores for ammo – only in America! Shutting down the beaches for all Californians seemed to apply to everyone but those living in Santa Monica or any student on Spring Break as they continued to flock to the beach for a week after the ban came into place - some people just think they are immune. To be fair to the Mayor of LA every time I have heard him speak, you cannot help but warm to the humanity of the guy - even giving ventilators to NY because their need was greater than ours……. no wonder our tanorexic friend hates him so much!

The tantrum rich tangerine continues to give almost comedic like briefings every day. They include blaming the media, blaming WHO, saying he has the highest ratings, saying certain drugs will be the cure when there is no proof and overall saying he’s doing a fantastic job.

Some Republican governors were reticent to pass the $2.2 trillion economic coronavirus relief bill because they felt it would mean that people may become lazy and that Democrats would continue to want to support the poor – yes that was actually reported.

Many people won’t admit to being sick as they don’t have medical insurance and therefore won’t get tested – not that there appears to be tests for the common man. The New York times reported that certain doctors here were stockpiling the Covid 19 tests and were selling them to their rich clients – some people are even getting a number of tests over time, despite not even having symptoms of Covid! Certainly the news reports that celebrities appear to have access to the tests. Trumps administration insists that anyone coming into contact with Trump has to be tested.

Trump of course after saying a scarf is as good as a mask says he won’t wear one himself.

Today he shared a tweet calling for sacking of the main expert Dr Anthony Fauci (the calm and dependable voice in all this), because Fauci failed to say what a wonderful job Trump did at the beginning of this crisis.

I have stopped watching the news, as knowing that his approval rating has gone up (According to that bastion of independent news – Fox news !) …….it makes me sick to my stomach.

Of course, like many people I read and reread the news on my phone, looking at the numbers rising not only here but all over the world. We read about all the symptoms and there are additions over the days. I’m sure I’m not alone is feeling blue some days and thinking I’m becoming ill with it – I’m becoming a bit of a hypochondriac to be honest – although nowhere near some of the reactions that you can witness here on a daily basis !

My schedule of activity worked well for the first 2 weeks, but I have to confess to feeling a bit low and lethargic recently and haven’t stuck to any routine, especially not with exercise. It’s so hard not to reach for biscuits and snacks when you are at home isn’t it? I have put on 7lbs-yikes!!!!....... Having said that we do have some routines; we have completed one puzzle despite my inability to find all the edges and I decided to take one of the pieces for a swim (it got ‘caught’ in my swimming cosie!!! We are eating everything in the house, in that there is no waste anymore – careful planning and new recipes etc. but apart from that its nice being together. Neither of us like being so far away from family and friends in the UK, but we do have some nice friends here too …… one (Jade) keeps dropping things around to us, homemade soup , muffins ….. Lovely!! 😊

So, this week, I’ve had a strong word with myself and am tracking food and exercise again.

I have been doing some work for the Animal Shelter on Mondays and Wednesdays. I pick up the kongs, clean them, fill them up and deliver them back to the shelter 20 mins away. It’s good to feel you are able to help. One of the days I was waiting outside to collect the buckets and someone was adopting one of the dogs. No one is allowed in the shelter, so the dog gets delivered to the front door. We are all gloved and masked up of course. Anyway, the young couple could not get the dog into the car and it was being very jittery moving all over the place. Of course, none of us could really help. Suddenly the dog struggled free of it’s collar and ran off down the road with all of us running after it but all at a social distance from each other….ridiculous! One of the of the animal technicians ran out and luckily leashed it while it stopped to have the longest pee ever….I wonder if that’s why he ran off in the first place. There is an added complication as the previous week the shelter decided they cant help the public in any way after the adopted dog has left the building, because the shelter is being sued by an adopter. This is because the adopter was nipped by their dog as the shelter technician lifted the dog into their boot – again only in the USA!

We had an issue with toilet paper in that over the weeks there are none in the supermarkets, so we ordered them from amazon - it was the classic issue that the picture looked way bigger than they actually were!

Other than that, I make pottery pieces each day, Lulu and Daisy get very long walks every day and the house is cleaner than its ever been. We are heating the pool which Lulu loves – Daisy hates it but we are persevering 😊 …We are in our 5th week, and I am feeling very homesick and missing family and especially Arthur of course, though Dani and Max send the most wonderful videos of him and we are on zoom every few days.

I have started a book club with my Dad and sister, though I read far slower than he does. Any of you are welcome to join in – we are reading The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, which is good so far….

It’s funny how this has made me (and many others I’m sure) learn new online programmes. I use Zoom a lot for Chorus rehearsal meetings on a Tuesday evening (it's lovely to keep in contact with these lovely ladies), for my virtual guitar lesson on Thursdays (Andre is very patient with me) and for the Friday quiz I have written named Isolation Station by the chorus, which I started last week. I have tried to recreate a pub quiz feeling with Guess the Song and Heads and Tails (stolen from the school quiz) and a round which is called the ‘What Cocktail am I Drinking?’ round. Mark made the 6 strong cocktails up and even with only a few sips I was feeling pretty happy by the end, especially when some of the chorus wanted to repeat view me sip each cocktail - tee hee! 😂

I have also been gaming with my kids and learning how to use the PS4 we have had here for the last year with very little use. I started Minecraft with great skepticism, but the day I decided to learn how to do it, I was hooked and ‘wasted 6 hours in Minecraft world – outrageous!!!

We have had mostly rain, rain and more rain here, so couldn’t believe how wonderful the weather is in the UK – I’m very jealous!

Overall we are happy , safe and looking after ourselves – it makes you realise how many wonderful friends around the world that we have and how when this current challenge has moved on, we have to make sure that we continue to engage with everybody. Without the internet and our friends and family, this would have been a very lonely time, but we look forward to the next hug!.......next party… the next dinner party… the next outing … the next holiday and the next trip home.

Overall we are only on this planet a very short time and the best thing we can do is laugh and talk to and be with the people we love….. thank you for reading …… and I send love to you all………

In the next episode I will be mostly discussing the Tangerine Tornado.. aka the Worlds greatest Troll …..aka The Screaming Carrot Demon …aka….Rome Burning in Man Form….aka…. Captain Chaos….. aka ….. F**kface Von Clownstick ……or Rumple ThinSkin….. or POTUS …… these are genuine names the media and comedy programmes here have called him 😂😂😂😂😂