Out of the funk

I came out of the funk just at the end of November. Was there a trigger?  Not that I know of. But I do recognise that it was a form of depression. Anyway, I pulled myself together to teach Ukrainian classes on Tuesdays in Newport and Thursdays in Westport. I do the laundry on Mondays in between clearing out the stuff at Ross House with Kirstin, do the food shopping on Wednesdays, and take Fridays off. 

I must say, my Ukrainian has improved in these past few months to point of fluency again. It helps as I am teaching real beginners. My students in Westport are making progress. They are at least trying to speak. When I started, a few refused to say anything. But with a little cajoling, they have started being brave. That's my class above. We had a lesson about Christmas in Ireland at the last session. They couldn't believe that the Irish don't celebrate Christmas Eve. They gave me a lovely Christmas present and wrote a poem - in English. They made me cry!

My class in Newport is fluid with new arrivals weekly. I am now helping a family who have a young son with cerebral palsy. I also placed a family of seven in a beautiful home in Fahy in the middle of nowhere. But they bought a car and are very self-sufficient. I've been sharing insights with the volunteers instructors in Newport, which is helping them. Things like dogs don't say bow-wow in Ukrainian so one of the lessons they had in mind wouldn't work. Also, Ukrainian traditions like St Nicholas brings gifts on the 19th of November, so the principal in Newport gave all the Ukrainian kids little gifts for St Nick's. 

We had our first dinner party, aside from having had family over (Chris, Marika, Aileen and Sheila) when they were here in November. We served lamb from Inishdaff on both occasions. It was actually great fun entertaining again. Clearly, I am feeling better. 

The week before Christmas, I got what I thought was a common cold, but it turned out to be a bit more. I tested negative for Covid but the symptoms indicated RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). Runny nose, low-grade fever, sneezing, wheezing and croupy cough. It's been going around. Everyone in our neighbourhood has had it. So for Christmas, I gave it to Alex. Happy Christmas, honey! We didn't do Christmas eve as we were both too miserable. But I was able to marinate the beets for Uki Christmas and managed to make chocolate chip cookies. And I recovered enough to make the Christmas dinner, with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce and carrots. Ho ho ho!

For Stephen's Day, we hung around and then had a lobster dinner -- one of Alex's Clew Bay lobsters frozen this summer. Yum. And I baked a plyatsok, so it felt a bit festive. 

It's been raining on and off so it is not tempting to be outside. At least it's a bit warmer than it was a couple of weeks ago when we suffered an arctic blast. I am ready for 2023, as 2022 was rather a bust. 

That sinking feeling

That sinking feeling

by Daria Blackwell

I feel the knots in my core. 

Twisting. Erupting. Gnawing.

My head throbs and my eyes bulge,

I am like a wild animal caught in a trap.

I hate being here. I want to run and hide.

I want the peace and solace of home.

I can’t deal with people all the time. 

I must be on my own to recharge

And that can’t be just on a different boat. 

Or on another note in time. 

It has to be out of sight to be out of mind. 

Being trapped causes my mind to spiral

Deep into abysses I can usually avoid.

I want to shed all responsibility and flee.

But I am enveloped by a sea of lost tranquility.

I want to cry. I want to slip overboard.

I want to cut the lines loose and drift out to sea. 

Where if the sinking feeling is real,

I won’t have to deal with it anymore. 

Written aboard Aleria on June 28, 2022, a day before my 68th birthday.

Lost in space

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I know there is something. I have that sinking feeling again. Perhaps a bit of PTSD?  I can't write. I don't want to travel, yet I feel like I'm missing out. I don't want to be with people. I don't want any responsibilities. I want to resign from all my volunteer activities. I am anxious all the time, and yet I have no interest in anything. 

I've lost my mojo. I've lost my confidence. I have no passion. I've lost some of my soul. In fact, I am afraid. 

I have nightmares. I am going to physio because my shoulders and neck are tied up in knots. I shouldn't be having this anxiety. I am fully vaccinated with two boosters, each of a different vaccine. I've survived Covid itself without much ado. So I shouldn't be worried about that. 

I definitely think I am an ugly old woman when I look in the mirror. I remember my mom saying the same thing around this age, although I am more mobile and active than she was. 

I don't know how to find what I want to do next. Maybe it should be just escaping into the books that I've bought for that purpose but haven't been willing to tackle? Maybe I should take that winemaking course in Burgundy or at least online. 

I feel like I'm running out of time, but then I wonder what's the point. If I see everything on earth, will it help me in eternity, if that exists? 

I know I should be grateful for everything I have: a wonderful husband, a wonderful home in a beautiful place, my health. So many in the world are suffering. Floods in Pakistan, famine in Somalia, fires in California and France and elsewhere, war in Ukraine. And then there's Trump and Liz Truss. 

Why can't I just be happy, or at least content? Why am I so sad?  Maybe because of the state of the world? It all seems so pointless. 

Farewell to Meike

 

Cars I have owned

My first car was a Pontiac LeMans (dirty gold) 350 HP V8 muscle car which my sister gave me when she went to Brazil. I hated it but it was all American powerful. When I had to park in garages, they'd always ask what color it was. It was a dirty gold or dark mustard color. Ugly. I sold it during the fuel crisis when the cost of gasoline went through the roof and we had huge backups at the pump where we could only fuel up on alternate days. I did not buy this car, but I traded it for a fuel-efficient Honda Accord. 

Cars I bought:

Honda Accord (gold) - hatchback -- wrecked 

Honda Accord (silver) - sedan -- good performer

Triumph TR7 (green) -- piece of junk

Nissan 300ZX (red) -- hot stuff

Nissan Altima (black) -- 4-door sports car

Lexus LS400 (gold) Sammy (Samurai) -- old man's car

Mercedes SLK320 (burgundy)  Maxie (Maximilian) -- fabulous car

Mini One (black) Mickey (Micky Mouse) -- fun car (Sold)

Ford Focus (gunmetal grey) Finn (Finn McCool) -- great to drive

What I have always wanted but will never have is a Jaguar XKE. 

The US records surpass 1 million deaths due to Covid

San Francisco 2019 

It is hard to fathom that more than 1 million people in the United States alone are confirmed to have died due to Covid, more than the population of San Francisco. Globally, the figure of confirmed victims is 6.7 million but the WHO estimates more like 15 million. 

The last couple of months has been pretty wild for Alex and me and our families. On 24 February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I started helping settle Ukrainian families in Ireland. Ireland opened its doors to Ukrainians without visas or connections here and more than 30,000 have now arrived. The communities in Newport, Westport and Rosmoney got behind the effort and people offered their homes, clothing, food and moral support. I was, and am, very grateful to the Irish for their kindness and generosity. 

Then Alex's mom, Meike, who had just moved to Kirstin's house a month before, had a second stroke -- a massive one from which she did not recover. But she lingered fighting for a week. It was awful to see her spirit slowly depart from the body. We had a funeral service in the Protestant Church with a packed crowd, followed by a Cremation in Cavan. That night we all stayed at Miriam's house in Monaghan and spent the night telling stories about Meike. She will be sorely missed. 

Alex and I then made the decision to stick with our planned US trip for the first week of April. We had the OCC AGM and Awards weekend in Annapolis to take part in, and then we were to visit Alexis and Andrew. We hadn't seen their family in 3 years and Alex had never met baby Miles. We looked forward to that immensely. I also had to renew my driving license, and we had bank accounts to straighten out, so it was rather an important mission. We bit the bullet and made the trip. I left my car to the Kisorets family out in Rosmoney while we were gone, but I figured they would end up keeping it longer term, and they have. 

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that travel has taken on a new dimension post-Covid. It was a really enjoyable trip. The day we got home, we started experiencing clear symptoms of Covid. Fever and chills alternating with sweats, cough, etc. Two days later, we tested very positive by lateral flow test. Exactly ten days later was Meike's burial on the island. Alex had organised Peter's boat to take all who wanted to come over to Inishdaff. Fortunately, Alex tested negative though he still had symptoms -- cough, shortness of breath and exhaustion. I still tested positive for 2 more days. Masked and distanced, I attended both the service and the reception at Ross House afterwards which was crammed with people. I have not heard of any cases as a result, so I remain hopeful that I was no longer infectious.

I continue helping my Ukrainians. We had lunch with about 40 of them in Newport the day of the re-enactment of Newport 300. It was amazing to finally meet Anna and Julia and so many others who all wanted to talk to me. 

It's been a whirlwind. This week, Alex and I went to look at cars. I wanted electric (originally the Tesla) and we tested and liked the Hyundai Kona, but it won't be available until July at the earliest and the cost of electricity has skyrocketed. I was worried about buying that at this time. And I can't take Mickey away from the Kisorets. It has changed their lives. 

Then we stopped in at Cosgraves in Castlebar and looked at two sedans, a Mercedes and a BMW. Both were nice but not 'right'. But at Cosgraves in Westport we spotted a 2019 Ford Focus. We liked the test drive and I bought it on the spot. €22K. I have never done anything so radical in my life. It felt weird, I second-guessed, but I think I made the right decision. Between Brexit and the war in Ukraine, buying good cars has become a challenge. New ones are not available because the chips are made in Ukraine. Used cars are not available because Brexit has made import difficult. I was concerned this one would not last, it was that clean with 34K miles. We can always trade it in when EVs become more widely available.

Meet Finn McCool...Ford Focus Finn. The first American car (built in Germany for the UK market with right-hand drive) I have ever bought. And Finn has Dublin plates...pshaw!

 

How America Lost One Million People NYT 15 May 2022

More than 400M confirmed cases

The US has surpassed 900k deaths, while the world has recorded 5.8M deaths. Even though Omicron is less severe, its transmissibility means so many more are infected at any one time that the daily number of hospitalisations and deaths is much higher than in any previous wave. The majority of those dying are over 75 years of age and the unvaccinated or medically vulnerable. Even mild cases are showing substantial CVD risk. There's a new link to Type I diabetes and other chronic conditions, so the long-term consequences of infection will continue to burden the HC system. I am back to double masking. 

We have made reservations to travel to the US in April. I am not looking forward to it at all. 

The Pew Research Center did a summary of 2021 in the US and it was not hopeful or joyful. It was bleak. 

Tsunami not wave

The fourth wave turned out to be a tsunami not a wave, taking the world by tidal waves. Omicron being more infectious but less deadly is doing what I had hoped -- infecting enough people quickly enough without overwhelming the health care system to spread widely without allowing new variants to emerge. Although it's scary to see the numbers, it's incredibly hopeful to see the restrictions easing even though we still have a long way go on the way down. 

As the world rapidly approaches 400M confirmed cases and 6M dead, the reality is that the truth is probably way ahead of these figures. And we still have billions to go. 

Coronavirus Cases:

367,423,717

view by country

Deaths:

5,658,763

Recovered:

290,556,684

Pandemic resurgence

The world has surpassed 305M confirmed coronavirus cases and 5.5M confirmed deaths, although the death total is likely much greater. But it has become quite clear, that the surge in cases caused by the Omicron variant is different from the Delta wave and other previous waves. It is like a tsunami of Covid-19 cases, but the hospitalisations and deaths remain relatively low. Yet, if cases are three-fold higher, then the absolute number of hospitalizations and deaths will still overwhelm the healthcare systems. The majority of the people hospitalised and dying are unvaccinated. We've had the two-dose series plus a booster -- Astra Zeneca (viral vector vaccine) followed by Pfizer/BioNtech (mRNA vaccine). 

Even more astonishing is that 9,405,751,450 doses of vaccines have been administered worldwide as of Jan 9 with almost a billion delivered in the last 28 days. So with 300,000,000 recovered and more than 9 billion vaccine doses administered (so about 4.5 billion people vaccinated), that would suggest that more than half the world population of 7.9 billion has some degree of immunity. We are not at herd yet, but we may be getting there rapidly. 

It is thought that because Omicron is much milder and more highly transmissible, the actual rate of infection is much higher than diagnosed. PCR tests and even antigen tests have been hard to come by in the last few weeks as Omicron surged and holiday revelry gave it its ticket to ride. The indications from GB and SA are that the Omicron wave has crested there and the transmission rate is slowing. I expect us to hit peak this week. Almost everyone we know has had it or been a close contact of someone who has. 

My greatest hope is that Omicron will create a stable environment where we can coexist with Covid. As long as Omicron can infect enough people to suppress the development of new variants that are more severe, we will enter a new relationship with this virus in which we share the world and accept the degree of risk, just as we do with the flu. 

I have not been writing much, but perhaps now I can begin anew. I polished our silver for the first time in two years today. It felt cathartic to wipe away two years of tarnish. For your information, I worked with vaccines in the biologicals industry for most of my career and helped launch the first rDNA vaccine (for hepatitis B) and many others. I used to think vaccines were my life. Now I know they are.