Tag: Covid-19

Frost & Flame

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 17 Comments

Prairie Blues

I’m feeling on the blue side this evening, owing to some changes in the air, literal and social.

For one thing, it was a really windy day and the September wind had a bite. When the sky clouded over in the afternoon it was downright cold. Reality blowing in; summer’s gone. 😦 This evening the wind has died down, but the weatherman is predicting frost tonight: -1C should finish off most of our lovely blooms. I’m not rushing out to cover anything, as they’ve been looking straggly for awhile now. They seem to know their season is over.

Here's a poem I wrote long ago about the September Wind:

Damp September wind whistles
through an early August day, chilling
our summer-browned bodies.

Ever the schoolyard bully, it cuffs us
with an almost icy hand.  "Remember!"
It mocks our shivers, our calendar

consultations.  Dismayed, we grab
for hours as they bounce away, August
days slipping out of our lives forever.

With sighs we hunt for sweaters,
check the pockets of our coats,
while we’re at it, wash our gloves.

© Christine Goodnough, August 2012

My husband tells me that, as of tomorrow, here in SK we’re back to wearing masks when we go shopping and to gatherings. THAT is disappointing! When you wear two back-of-the-ear hearing aids, as I do, the last thing you need is elastic getting tangled with the hearing aid’s plastic tubes. But so many people haven’t gotten their COVID vaccination that our province is experiencing another surge in COVID cases.

After a couple of months mask-free, this feels like a giant step backwards. There’s to be a wedding reception Saturday at our church and it just won’t be the same with everyone masked. Another rule will be that you have to provide proof of vaccination before you can dine in a restaurant.

That said, we enjoyed a nice visit with friends from Quebec who came for lunch and stayed awhile this afternoon. And tonight we have a blazing sunset, with a brilliant ring of fire in the west and southwest to brighten up our world for half an hour before dark.

I spent four hours yesterday, give or take, painting another picture; today I submitted it to the Artist’s Atelier on Malcolm Dewey’s website and got some valuable suggestions for improvement. I started doing all my pictures on canvas, but these days I like to paint a “trial run” on watercolor paper and see how it comes out. I always find some changes and improvements I want to make before committing the final picture to canvas.

Well, enough griping. Wishing you a great weekend, everyone.

The Penumbra of Covid-19

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

Ragtag Daily Prompt for today is PENUMBRA
Word of the Day Challenge: SAD

I’ll admit, I’ve never heard this word, so looked it up to discover that it refers to an area of partial shadow, either literally or figuratively.

Some of Merriam-Webster’s definitions:
– a space of partial illumination (as in an eclipse) between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light
– a surrounding or adjoining region in which something exists in a lesser degree, like a fringe
– something that covers, surrounds, or obscures, like a shroud

So it means not completely in the dark, but shadowed;
one thing or area overshadowed by another.

In that sense, we could say that 2020 was largely spent in the PENUMBRA of Covid-19. We weren’t shut down completely, but definitely our daily lives were darkened by this menace. Commerce carried on as best it could, shopping done more online now than in person.

One example given was when Europe was coming out of the Dark Ages. Columbus had proved that the Earth wasn’t flat; Galileo had invented the telescope and peered into space; superstition was slowly giving way to scientific truth. The printing press was invented and literature began to inform those who could read.

We might say “SAD” is also a sort of PENUMBRA. The shorter daylight hours in northern lands can bring on a kind of depression of spirit the medical world now calls Seasonal Affective Disorder. One wonders if Antarctic penguins are feeling sad while we here in the North are enjoying long summer days?

Glimpse Into The Future

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is the question: What next?
The Word of the Day Challenge: HOPE
Of course we all hope that what comes next will be good. 🙂 I hope better days and many joys come to you all in 2021.

WHAT NEXT?

There’s an ocean-depth of possibility in this one! What next for today? For this week? Next year? My next goal or project? Health issues? Future moves?

For today my goal is to tidy up the house and continue my shuffle through drawers and closets, ferreting out things I don’t need or want anymore. That will be my week’s goal as well, plus I have a couple of shifts at the Seniors’ Home.

Long term NEXT? My thoughts have been going to health issues lately, particularly since I read Texas Writer’s blog post: REFLECT about dealing with his mother’s dementia and his own Parkinson’s. He admits that he’s facing a gradual decline, but has a commendably upbeat attitude.

When I was twenty-seven I discovered a walnut-sized, rock-hard lump, and the diagnosis was quickly made: CANCER. My future plans evaporated. You know, when you hear the C word it usually goes with fatal. Women regularly die of breast cancer. And when I thought I was going to die, my what next looked pretty grim. But the doctors acted fast: I was in surgery within a week, followed by a heavy dose of chemo-therapy, so it wasn’t “Goodbye cruel world” after all.

I had the same experience about six years ago when the doctor told me I had leukemia. Bam! Right out of the water. Leukemia is a killer! I didn’t know there were different kinds, so was hoping I still had a few months to put things in order.

When my mom turned seventy, she died of a massive heart attack. My younger sister had a heart attack a dozen years ago – and thankfully survived. My sister Rose, five years younger, died of cancer a year ago. Far too young!

And reading Texas Writer’s post reminded me of my birth father’s last years. Dad was an incredibly healthy little fellow. Worked hard all his life; even into his seventies he could easily walk the seventeen miles between Moose Jaw and his sister’s home at Belle Plaine. But his arm started to shake – I remember how, in time, it twitched uncontrollably. Parkinson’s. I remember holding his hand just to keep it from shaking for a few minutes — and wondering if this genetic flaw would someday affect me, too.

What’s next? I think COVID has tossed this question into most of our lives. Not that we expected to die, but it’s brought home to each one of us how suddenly everything can head south. Not just our own life, but humanity as a whole can almost come to a screeching halt.

From personal experience I can say this reality check is at the same time a horrible and a wonderful experience. We’re stopped in our tracks and reminded how precious – and how fragile – life is. How quickly living can turn to dying.

And Stats Mean ZIP

According to the Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Stats, in 2018 there were 1,922 Canadians killed in traffic accidents. In a population of 37.06 million, this was a very small per-centage. However, statistics are small comfort if your loved one was one of them. You have been made brutally aware that all our plans for the future can end in a second. Likewise with people who’ve lost family members to COVID. The fact that, of the 560,000 diagnosed cases in Canada so far, 470,00 recovered isn’t worth much, if you’re one of the 15,264 who didn’t.

So… What waits down the road? For me, maybe a heart attack? Or cancer? Another round of leukemia? Parkinson’s? A car accident? My 100th birthday celebration? I have many hopes and expectations, but who can know? Here comes my kitten. I’ll cuddle with him and enjoy today. 🙂

What next for us ALL? Here are my own goals, including concepts the dreaded Virus has taught humanity so far:

Enjoy today. Look around. See whatever beauty there is.
Enjoy the fresh air. And let’s do whatever we can to keep it fresh for others.
Love life – but don’t over-plan.
Visit a nursing home. Check out that “the last door of life” for most folks.
Get rid of the things that clutter your world. (Well, I’m trying. 😉 )
Try harder to forgive, make friends, smile more, get out for that walk.
Love your people – but know that you can’t hold them when they have to go.
As much as you can, set your house in order. We’ll all be moving on someday.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Galatians 6:7

A Swath of Speculations

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 8 Comments

Good morning one and all! Our prompt words today are STALK, SWATH, MERCHANDISE, REPINE and SPECULATION. So here goes…

There’s a lot of speculation these days about how long the pandemic will last and who will win the next election. But there’s no speculation about the harvest here on the prairies.

Not a swath remains in the field. Corn stalks are all chomped up and in the silos for winter milkers’ munching. Bushels-per-acre stats have been gleaned from all across the province and bean-counters in some government office have converted them into kilos per hectare for the official record. No matter how it’s relayed it, the news is good: in spite of the dry summer, our harvest this year was better than last.

While many of us are repining for the good old pre-Covid, pre-mask days, I’m not sad about some changes, though. Other years we avoided Value Village in October because of all the gross and ghoulish Halloween displays that took up at least a third of the retail space. Shopping there last week I noticed that the Halloween merchandise only filled one large aisle at one side of the store. Pardon me but, good riddance to the ghastlies! At Walmart, lots of candy to hand out, but only one rack of costumes – on sale at this point. I hadn’t given it any thought before, but Covid has probably made a big impact on the idea of going door to door.

It may also restrict our Canadian snow-birds who normally head south for the winter. They’re likely wondering whether the travel restrictions and social distancing will ease up in time for them to enjoy their winter siesta or fiesta or whatever they do down there. My brother and his wife like to spend the coldest part of winter at a resort or village in Mexico. (Playa del Mar?)

Meanwhile, this afternoon the temp is above freezing. Looking outside I saw sparrows clustered around the frozen water dish, looking hopeful. So I went out, dumped the ice and set out fresh water. I looked out awhile later and half a dozen were around or in it, splashing to their hearts’ content. An hour later the whole flock had come and all but emptied it, so I filled it up again. They almost emptied it; I filled it up again. Silly me – but it’s rather fun to watch their antics and there aren’t going to be any days yet when they can take a dip and not freeze.

Anyway, I’ve used the prompt words and will end this ramble, wishing you all a great week.

Image by suju-foto — Pixabay