All around the limbo clock

I tried to keep myself busy yesterday. I walked the dogs to the coffee shop. I had a shower. I checked the eldest was awake and ready for their first trial HSC exam.

I wrote a few stories for Drinks Digest. I wrote a press release about aerosol can emissions being worse for the environment than car emissions.

I made lasagne. I made chicken stock from scratch. I watched the 11am NSW Health press conference and felt sad. I made the eldest a bacon and egg toastie when his exam finished. I heated up some leftovers for my lunch.

I took the dogs for another walk. I snapped a photo of some pretty azaleas.

I published a story about Asahi and Coca-Cola building a recycling plant together in Albury and shared it on social media. Someone mansplained to me that I was reporting old news from last year.

He was wrong – he’d just looked at the headline and not read the article. It’s Asahi’s second recycling plant in the area and their first with Coca-Cola.

I rolled my eyes. Seriously, I will never understand people who comment on articles without reading them.

I had dinner with the eldest. I went for a night walk with my lovely friend Mel. I watched another episode of Ozark. I went to bed.

Doing all that stuff didn’t ease the blah-ness that living in limbo brings. I like having purpose, direction and certainty in my life and COVID-19 has taken it away.

I felt so bored and angry and trapped all day.

The youngest amazes me with her positivity. She’s encouraged her school friends to join her in creating a list of “bucket list” things they will do when lockdown ends, like jumping off rocks together into the water. They currently can’t even see each other, as they live more than 5km apart – the perils of relocating to an out-of-LGA sports high school.

I hope I am mistaken in my fear that the Delta strain has beaten us. I watch various Premiers put their heads in the sand and I wonder if they are teaching people to believe in a fantasy.

I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with the PM and his disappointment with West Australian Premier Mark McGowan for saying that he will continue with border restrictions and lockdowns even when 80% of the population have been vaccinated.

Scott Morrison told the Today Show that McGowan‘s plans to pursue a zero COVID policy was “running down the (national COVID-19) plan” and ”discouraging people to get vaccinated.”

Speaking on the ABC, the PM said McGowan’s plan “wasn’t what was agreed in national cabinet” and that his claims contradicted modelling by the Doherty Institute on when it was safe to phase out lockdowns and restrictions”.

“Once you get to 80% vaccination, it is against the county‘s interests not to open up,” he said.

I understand the desperate desire WA has to remain COVID free – I want that too – but is it realistic or possible?

I wonder the same about New Zealand. Can it keep COVID out indefinitely, in an economically viable way?

I can’t imagine deciding to open borders and let COVID in. But I also can’t imagine living in isolation forever.

I worry about our tourism industry, hospitality, shop owners, universities …

I worry about families separated from loved ones. I worry about kids cooped up for too long.

I want to wake up and discover the pandemic was a bad dream.

On the other hand, at least I’m not living in Afghanistan. Fark, that Taliban takeover looks terrifying. What more can 2021 throw at the world?

Pass me the alcoholic Mountain Dew … joke … well, it’s a joke that I want you to pass me that stuff, ewwww, but it’s not a joke that it exists. Pepsico just released it in the US.

Actually, pass me some Dubliner Whiskey & Honeycomb Liqueur. I was sent a bottle last week and took it to DD’s on Sunday night for him to try. One word: wow. OK, a few more words: it smells and tastes like heaven in a bottle.

I shouldn’t be blogging that I want you to pass me alcohol. I’m anti those “reasons mummy drinks” memes for promoting drinking as a cure for your problems. So I will valiantly attempt to not pass myself anything alcoholic today.

WHAT. AM. I. SAYING?

I have a Zoom wine tasting for Drinks Digest this afternoon and I completely forgot until I wrote those words.

The days are blurring together in lockdown land.

Song of the day: UB40 “Red, red wine”