Last year our friend Sally found herself out of work . . .
This year she finds herself . . .
Last Year
Explain To Me
Tell me how countries that pre-covid times professed to not have enough money for health care, education, pollution, the homeless, now suddenly have trillions of dollars to bail out corporations?
How is it there is no money for PPE and ventilators and beds and hospitals and . . .?
How is it they can barely give the people who work, who risk their lives daily to keep everything going, a few measly dollars a month?
How is it we could not have basic income and avoided all this mess, when clearly, clearly the money has always been there.
Explain to me.
Lockdown
We’ve been in ‘isolation’ and social distancing for only a month, and people are whining like crazy about it.
I’d bet a month ago, most were complaining about having to go to work!
What if you were really a prisoner, doomed to solitary confinement for life?
This ‘lockdown’ is only for a few months out of your whole entire life. AND it is for your and others safety.
Hello? This virus is quick and causes immense suffering and death. Is it worth going out for a get together, a concert, a meal, a rally, a protest, something social that lasts a few hours which you can’t wait to get back home and be alone again?
Here you are in the comfort of your own home. You can have most of what you need delivered. Computers enable us to chat and see our loved ones, do our work, be creative or just waste a whole lot of time on.
We have books and articles to read. Courses to take. Hobbies to start or dust off and rediscover. Instruments to play. Movies to watch. You could completely reinvent yourself!
This is a gift of time few of us ever get. Every day is ours!
I know there are difficulties. Children mostly I have heard. Normally when you don’t see or hear from your children for 10 minutes you freak out.
I get it. Being stuck with others 24/7 is definitely a challenge.
So this is a time of zen. Accept what is happening and deal with it! What a rare opportunity for personal and professional growth!
To clean the house.
Play with our pets.
Do nothing!
Grow up. Be responsible. Change your habits and perspective. Get your creative mind to work. We all need new ideas. Maybe change the world.
If you do have to go out, and many of us do, please wear a mask and gloves. Protect yourself and keep a safe distance from others. This is no time for vanity about how you look (though some people have been mask fashionistas!).
This is not forever.
Oh, So Much!
There is so much I could rant about today.
But then there is this:
There is oh SO much to be grateful for, despite the times we are in.
Our animal companions.
The people on the front lines.
Our home comforts. Food. Computers. Technology. Good friends.
Look at the thousands upon thousands of good deeds being done every single day due to this pandemic. It is bringing out our true nature – LOVE!
Oh, yeah, there are some stupid shits, but they are a very tiny fraction of the population and not representative of most of the human race.
We are not the corruption of politicians. We are not the dirty laundry of big corporations. We are bigger and better than all of these self serving rats! We are good people.
My biggest hope is we emerge from this with a new framework on how to conduct business – with love, not to fatten bank accounts of grossly overcompensated shareholders and CEO’s. Our education system is improved so that people understand geography, environment, politics, humanity, how to think, and solve problems, and our teachers are well compensated. Our health care is just that, health care, not survival of the richest, it is for everyone and it is FREE. We finally stop talking and take action. We clean up all the pollution we’ve created and pass very strict laws to prevent contamination of our planet. No one should suffer any issue in any country.
We finally come to our senses. We are a global community. We need to celebrate our diversity and embrace it, because there are so many great ideas, art, music, technology, you name it, that we can share and create and make this world an Eden. Together!
Mansions
Okay, I’m on a rant.
I am fed up of celebrities posting pictures of their mansions and whining about self isolation.
Madonna in her rose petal bath telling us the virus is the great equalizer. Ellen telling us it’s like prison to be stuck in her 15 million dollar mansion. Or David Geffen afloat in his boat hotel (way beyond the normal definition of yacht) in the warm sunny tropics, really suffering it. Oh, boo f’in hoo.
Even just seeing Drake showing off his place makes me want to puke.
Stop it.
It doesn’t make me feel better to see how well you live. It doesn’t make me feel better to be patronized. I never cared in the first place what opulence and splendor you live in.
I guess I’m getting cabin fever. Maybe just a little.
So I invite people to post either their favorite place in their REAL homes, or the messiest, because we don’t have a staff of 20 to clean up our messes.
Here is where I do my creative stuff.
Yeah, it really is that tiny. It is space stolen from a small area in my apartment the building says is a dining room.
This is the real world.
Okay, I’ve vented now.
Hope your enjoying your little space and making lots of messes.
PS someone told me to use a hashtag for people to post their own rooms. I have not much idea what that is, but I will put it here and hope for the best. #OutbacktheCatRealRooms
Home Alone
I go through phases when I’m at home any length of time. Right now I’ve reached the dreamy phase.
When I’m first confined to barracks, I feel a bit lost and it is hard to establish a new routine.
Then I go through periods of neglect, laziness and generally being a bitch to be around. When I can’t stand myself anymore I immediately leap into strip the apartment to the bones housecleaning, scrub myself till I’m raw, and up and at ’em with living room aerobics 1-2-3, stretch that body, you can do 20 more reps! There, done!
And in between all my moods, I do my creative stuff and the hours and days fly by. I am in bliss!
Admiring everything sparkling and clean, my projects all up to speed and running, my body toning up, I can now relax and start to dream. Dream about what I would have liked the past to have been, what I might like the future to be. The present I can’t do a whole heck of a lot about.
I recreate the past into fanciful stories. Not that my past was bad, in fact, my childhood was idyllic! It is the adult part that sucked. Let’s see that adds up to 40+ years of it. I can do a lot of recreating with that!
The future awaits!
Sell everything and buy a mobile home and explore the land with Sam my cat. I almost did that once. My friend and I had a beautiful little van and we took many trips . . . those were better days.
Maybe go and work at a farm this summer as they are predicting a shortage of workers this year because of the corona virus. Fresh air, sunshine, dreadfully hard labour. Could this old body take the punishment? My mind likes to thinks so, but I’ve had experience with this kind of wishful thinking. It doesn’t end well, for body or mind.
Oh, well, who am I kidding. I’ll just go back to the office once it is opened and begin where it ended, like nothing ever happened.
I don’t have the courage, but mostly, I don’t have the money.
But I can dream!