Category Archives: Pandemic

Shadow Runner

The darkness is my running partner, more so now I am forced to be solitary in my stride. I do not hate it, I am very comfortable with my company, we laugh at the same jokes and run at the same pace, so it is perfection. However, it is not unusual for me to run in the unlight of the morn! I am a mother of three small boys and I need to get up and run before the kids open their sleep crusted eyelids and stretch their gangly arms towards dawns first light.

It is my ritual, it is my thing and I adore every dusky edged moment of it. As I steal through the house at 4.30 am, silently yanking on shorts, sports bra, socks, wrist band, hair band, headlamp, HR monitor and FINALLY the “piste de resistance”, my sneakers. To aid in my stealth I lay them all out the night before, clean, in order, ready! I double check what run I have and then choose the run sneaker to match, comfy Saucony ISO 2, 4mm drop for steady and easy, Saucony Kinvara, 4 mm drop , for tempo or intervals and then my Saucony type A9, 4mm for the track or a race. By the way I like Saucony incase you were not sure, well better then that, my feet and ankles really like them.

Faced scrubbed, coffee chugged, “bathroom”, teeth brushed, bed hair clipped back, I grab my hand held bottle and steal out into the gloom.

Stepping into the sepia of a fading night, the blackness and humidity envelopes my already sweating body (I am a Florida flatlander), shielding me from danger. The dim beam of my lamp fights its way through the night, scrabbling to light a safe path for my pounding feet, rhythmic body flow and steady breath as I strike out in time to the beating crickets and hiss of sprinklers.

A hushed calm floats over me, shushing jangled nerves and a busy mind in to silence. Foot plants, arm swings, breath rushes, foot plants, arm swings, breath rushes, again and again, over and over, my morning meditation propelling me deeper and deeper into the waking morning. A grey light starts to warm the sky, subtle reds, pinks, oranges and gold start to paint the sky, the tips of trees and roofs of a slumbering world.

Feet are still ticking over, perspiration running in rivulets down my back, across my face, I rub it out of my eyes, breath rushes in breath rushes out. Birds get busy, softly chirping with the breaking sky as it brightens. The moon softly, slides across the horizon to hide behind a cloud, the birds noise builds and builds, a mounting crescendo of song. Whipping around me, pushing me, driving me like a spectre from the confines of the night in to the day. Losing the phantom, joining my flesh and bone body.

Arms swing forward, arms drive back, chasing the night as she slips away. Shadows are sucked out from the base of trees and stretch to the soaring sun. She climbs higher and higher, the birds oh the birds are so loud, I run faster and faster, heart pounding as each mile passes, like a vampire I yearn for the night, sprinting home. Strike, swing, breath, the momentum, the motion is now a blur, I am almost there, muscles screaming for oxygen, but there is nothing left, depleted, spent. The front door looms, I slow, I stop, head hanging like a weeping willow tree, bowing humbly to the sunrise, my sweat glistens in its newborn glow. I lie down, hair plastered across my brow, the twilight is gone and I am stranded. Left to recover on the concrete, dragging air in and forcing it out, slowing my heart, relishing the stillness, the mild ache of my body as it rests from the pain.

I am still, I am awake, I am a shadow, I am a runner.

Minutes pass, I ease myself up off the warming side walk, drag in a slug of water and open the door, ready to hit the fray of my day.

I close it quietly and begin.

Love, Shadow runner.

Loss – Balance – Life

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery.” – A Brave New World, By Aldous Huxley

So much has been written about COVID 19. Extensive reporting, every blog, dick and Harry is about it. – Oh, in case you were terrified I am going off topic here oh don’t be silly. I’m all over this supposed disaster like Rona’s twin virus, clearing up the excess in healthy bodies.

New World

The Pandemic has pushed us in to a space of uncertainty and it is a hard place to navigate.

We have had to face extensive change, restrictions, enforced restrictions. The ease of life has been reduced and we as mere Homo Sapiens can get fixated on how my life ISNT rather than what it has become. I have written a few posts on the hilarity of loss and change and so have millions of others.

THE GOOD that grows from nothingness.

However, I do want to talk about the “good” we have achieved, but from the perspective of myself as a lowly human bean (Love the BFG), at home with her 3 children, nutjob cat who thinks he is a dog and a hard working but highly amusing husband.

Believe me, when I say, this is a narrow focus. Hummm, should take like 2 minutes, so I am sure you are about to pee your pants in excitement with bated breath.

TIME

This is the single most important gift that the pandemic has bequeathed to me. Life has sloooweeedd right down and I am grateful. I am not longer living at top speed, where my world is a blur and the details are lost. Instead I have stalled, and my surroundings are crystal sharp, in focus, the SD is now HD and my eyes hurt from the clarity they now must process. Life halted and nature came back in to view as my eyes grazed up from the floor, past my phone and looked out to all that is around. Oh, and I picked up a book again and started to read.

On a very personal level, time has hit back against the restless energy that possesses my every waking moment. It drives me to perpetually keep moving, but now I am forced to be still. This works against every fiber of my being. But who said therapy was easy? I am always running (literally) from myself, the demons planted there at a very young age, by an unknown assailant. The self-hatred and fears, they crept in and now reside in every cell, festering. Memories locked in my secret “brain never remember that again compartment”. It’s a dark and bleak world in there, lost but not really forgotten. Time, the pandemic, the “lock me up”, has allowed me to watch these youth formulated self-perceptions, unwanted memories and start to accept them. Allowing the light to start trickling in, illuminating the snuff dark of a disillusioned child.

SINGLE UNIT in motion

Time has enabled me to cease the intense screaming that is required to get the kids to school. There is no rush, flurry or elevated stress levels. With “crisis” school as I have now called it, because, I am certainly not homeschooling at any level of intelligence or knowledge. We are now able to wake, eat, dress, brush teeth, sit and LOG ON in a mere 60 minutes. We are learning to work together as a family. All of us are solitary but are learning to be together, a single unit. Moving forward in masse and between us we are less frequently looking back at what it once was, but accepting instead the what it has now become.

BALANCE

In life we need balance, it is an intrinsic part of our being. There has not been balance in the world for a very long time. We scrabble at home to create equilibrium, with yoga, meditation, time alone, limited screen time, but life gets in the way. We are urged to be better, work longer, faster, keep up with all that is thrown at us and if we cannot keep up we have failed, we are unwanted.

Yet, Coronavirus is bringing back that balance, in its weird body humbling way. It is reminding us we are not invincible and that our life was skewed. The world is heavy with, people, industry, war, hate, dictatorship, greed, it is dragging us down and squishing our hopeful faces into the mud and standing on them. Equilibrium has to be restored, stitched back into the fabric of our day. Coronavirus is leveling the playing field, stripping off the weight and enabling us to all see we are equal, and no one is exempt from its infiltration and grip. Everything has its direct opposite and without it, the light will feel dark, the good becomes evil, the left will become right, and the action will also become a reaction, never ending in its totality. A circle will never become whole, but always an eternal straight line, leading us in a never ending, forward motion, full speed, no time to complete the cycle and sit back to reflect – EXHAUSTING, Fucking Exhausting.

REMEMBER

We are all sitting in that same boat (all be it, 6 ft. apart) floating in an unknown sea of uncertainty, alone, solitary but united.

Re learning to collaborate, harvest empathy, see again the beauty of mother earth and being given a moment to breathe again. w

We are being released from the suffocation of our excesses. Which means she (earth) too can breathe again and begin to nurture her inhabitants in their time of need.

The virus has smashed our technological cocoon and exposed us to the rawness of our internal crux and basic needs. Because, that is what we are, basic! With all our intelligence (with some people I do beg to differ on this point) our sophistication, our needs are still basic, so very basic. When the world is stripped back, all we need to survive, is food, water, air to breathe, sunlight, a home, income to support the essentials, the ability to feel, cherish the rain on you skin and the sun on your back, smell the earth, lie down in the grass with a breeze fluttering across our face. That is life! That is what we are having to remember! It is not about how many toilet rolls you own. That is what the pandemic is revealing, in small tiny fragments. Generating hope for a future we can be proud of, that we can thrive in and a world we are happy to die in.  Eventually, giving back our bodies to nurture a future generation of hope.

And that my friends, is what the pandemic has given me, I have little fear, only hope we will and can do better.

I would like to sign off with another quote from a Brave New World – as so apt and seriously one of my favorite books.

“I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then,” he added in a lower tone, “I ate my own wickedness.” ― Aldous Huxley

Peace out and now in the words of Samuel L Jackson

“Stay the Fuck at Home!”

Love Kelly

Grocery Washing Vs Grocery Cattle Run

The COVID CHRONICLES – from a deranged mother of 3. – everyone is at it.

Holy Macaroly (see mum I am trying to reign in my profanities) grocery shopping just became (thanks to our friendly little Corona Light beer virus) a little more hellish! Now please correct me if I am wrong?

Although, when I seriously think about it, nothing physically or mentally annihilates a person, like pushing a cart, carrying enough food to feed a small British village, while having to navigate groups of bored gossipers and precarious displays of tiny glass herb bottles, that clutter every aisle. Now mix in the fact I have to also lion tame three boy dragons, as they roar up and down the shiny, bright corridors of food, whooping like cowboys chasing whatever they dream up. Those damn lights jack them up every time, like moths to a flame.. AHHHHHH see the lights, see the pretty lights mummy, bam bam bam and off they shoot, diving head first in to a kaleidoscope of chip packets, whirling like demented spinning tops.

With my head down, I chase them, pushing my “baby elephant” sized cart, which is vomiting food all over the floor. Whipping around the corner at full throttle I finally land at the check out, red faced, gasping and trying not to head butt the handle of the cart. It is at this precise moment, when I can see the gaping door of freedom, that the dragons all decide to kick the crap out of each other. At the precise moment I am trying to pay.

I stand there like a dummy, fake smiling so hard at the cashier my jaw hurts. I glare at the three mini Tysons, with a look I hope is drilling in to their brains and shouting silently at those baby brain synapses JUST YOU BLOODY WAIT UNTIL I GET YOU IN CAR , you little gits.

Let me just caveat, I have serendipitously avoided the “said” above scenario for almost 2 years, thanks to the advent of “home delivery” and “pick up” grocery shopping. I am now unashamedly in bed, naked with Costco, Amazon and Publix, drinking a cup of Starbucks just to seal the deal. Those inflated prices, driver tips and delivery fees, are worth every penny, well dollar, well maybe about $30 extra. I don’t care, it saves the few brain cells I still posses in my advancing years and to be honest those herb displays.

NOW, Rona (COVID 19) has turned up to the party and she has decided to lick everyone and everything she can find. Depositing those nasty little cough bugs and chest squeezing droplets everywhere, this is royally, screwing up my home delivery system. Firstly, I cannot buy my favorites – OUT OF STOCK, Rona nabbed it. Next let me find a delivery date – NO SLOTS AVAILABLE FOR LIKE FOREVER , damn it Rona took it, that greedy cow and then obviously licked it. Now if by some weird chance I do get a delivery in like ummmm 25 goddam days, Rona must have caught “the rona” , and now we enter into a whole other performance.

Here we go……..

1) Delivery driver turns up, with wildly reduced order, Greedy Rona stole it.

2) I stand 6ft back, a terrified lunatic and feel so terrible that I do not help unpack. Instead I watch like a wide eyed lemming, as some brave person (probably licked all over by sweet Rona) has to lug my delivery to my front door and deposit it there.

3) Stranded at the front door I just look and stare. UMMMMMM what do I do now? Surely Rona has been salivating and gyrating all over that, leaving a trillion little virus particles to lurk in amongst the eggs (gold dust food) and cereal packets. All ready to get me, strike me down and pull out my lungs, so she can stamp all over them…

Thwack, thwack on go the gloves, slup, slup off come the gloves, I should just wash my hands. Bleach solution out, cloths as long as my body piled up and a clean basket by my side. I sit on the door step. HUMPH

Squirt – goes the spray

Leave – it a minute or 2

Rub – rub again (secretly panic I have COVID 19 all over my hands – run to wash hands)

In the clean box you go, Rona free food (I hope)

Repeat

No licking allowed people.

60 MINUTES LATER……

I have finished. My hands are sore, bleeding at the knuckles, like a skinny member of “Married to the Mob” and then I start on bleaching the door handles and floor, AGAIN!

So, my thought is! Which is worse? Chasing down my kids in the store like a lunatic or cleaning groceries outside in 85F heat, wearing a pinny like an complete lunatic.

I truly cannot decide.

Thanks Rona

Yours bleeding, Kelly the paranoid android.

Coronavirus Skills

With the unfolding doom swirling around us, as the universe locks up shop and secretly sinks into an oblivion of nothingness. As we start descending in to a dank basement of darkness and gloom, a blinding light breaks through and shatters the night…. The glare of super social media stands strong, as our hero of the piece.

The World Wide Web has exploded. We are now pleasantly subjected to the talents of enthusiastic, slightly out of shape, gin drinking, gorgeously, gyrating mothers in leotards singing “I will survive”. We have been delighted by serenading Italians on their balconies (sadly I am not that talented). There are muffin topped, naked stoners, swinging their dicks in time to a pendulum and not one hair from that saggy scrotum is flashed, as they “expertly” keep in time to the pendulum. All the while, continuously smoking and seriously not a single one of those curly pubes are displayed. WOW, I bow down to his genius!?! Gulp maybe not, that is closer than 6ft and I will then be eye level with a pair of aging, drooping ball bags; I salute you sir I salute you. The stream of videos is endless… We have the, run around the house naked video – POST! Teach fractions with large glasses of wine (loved) video – POST! Juggle small cats video POST! Exploding brain cells BOOM BOOM BOOM video – POST! ARGGHHHH INSANITY VIDEO, POST POST POST! Lets just lay ourselves down in front of the camera and completely lose our shit video… POST the goddam life out of it people. Keep going people, keep at it ALWAYS, because the struggle is real and we are with you on this ride.

Having said all that, I am completely, utterly and deeply in love with the raw exposed talent of all of this. No one gives a crap. It is all, “here I am”, see me jack around and I hope I can make you laugh. I have officially, cracked up, lay on the floor dying with side hurting laughter so much in the last 2 weeks, that I secretly love Corona (light beer) virus for the gifts it just keeps giving, aside from a persisitent cough, potential lung destruction and a small side plate of death.

I am also in awe of the radically new, totally unhelpful skills I too am learning. From staying indoors for what seems like an eternity, dudes I have gained serious SKILLZ and yes the Z means these are awesome. Let me list them and I am sure you will be impressed with my new found prowess across a wealth of topics.

1) Washing hands like a surgeon – man I have that hands up, elbow action down, like seriously down, maybe a video, why the hell not – POST.

2) Opening doors with my feet, yes I can lift my leg that high, impressed? You should be, I am nearly 43 years old. I am practically a grandma (eeekkk and in the high risk category)

3) Making a bleach solution and the ability to speed clean my groceries with said homemade bleach solution in 3 minutes. Just call me Americas top Ninja warrior.

4) I have re learnt the art of the flax egg, you egg hoarders will not destroy my baking, you will not destroy my ability to eat CAKE. We must eat cake.

5) The ability to make dinner from quinoa, my last egg (damn you hoarders) and dead looking veg (truly it was entering the annihilated, limp, manky, death stage) – TA DAAAAAA – Chinese stir fry ala the Rona. No one died eating it, so score on that front.

6) I can do a headstand for a long time, legs straight up and everything – OOHH VIDEO opportunity right there. POST – If naked, I am sure I’ll get at least 5 likes.

7) I can shout really loudly above the “taking off jumbo jet” din of 3 boys trying to kill each other with plastic Lightsabers. Believe me that is loud, like immense.

There are also a million and one completely mind numbing, un-useful skills I can add. Like expert timewasting, plucking my eyebrows for almost 30 minutes, staring at the ceiling for 20 minutes and thinking of nothing. Cleaning door handles everyday, not folding washing and making copious amounts of grill cheese sandwiches; we always have bread and cheese.

I know you are jealous, I am so cool, NOT!! Shit, I may even start dressing up and wearing makeup. So, on that sad note I’ll go back online and indulge in all those other caged, wildly talented folk. I particularly enjoy dancing, gin drinking, lycra clad videos, surely there is a site for that? (PS for you locked up men, the Pornhub is now free for quarantine, you are welcome.)

Please please Send me your SKILLZ (clean) with a Z and make me laugh, or seriously I may just cry when I have run out of eyebrows to pluck.

No one is going to save you Kelly, remember that.

Signed

My name is Kelly and I am addicted to 1980s, lycra injected social media.

Where did all the “normal” go?

Where did all the normal go? Yes that boring old, Dullsville regular, normalcy of life? What is normal I am sure you ask?  You know that well worn lovey that smells all cozy and is soft on your cheek – GONE. The well worn rug under your feet, RIPPED AWAY and you are left alone, loveyless and standing, barefoot, alone on a cold, concrete floor shivering… brrrr . Lets add naked to make this sink in and really morbific. (I learnt that word today, so had to use it.) PS. please do not imagine me naked, as enough to put anyone off their cereal.

COVID 19 came in disguised as a “chest cold” originating in China (please watch how Trump says this word, it is clearly the pandemics greatest gift, oh and apart from the social media explosion, that kindly fills up 1/2 my day with belly laughs).  It snuck in and BAM took over the world and decided to kill a few for good measure, just to make sure we took notice. So, began COVID’s assault and eye opening ride of world domination. “Outta ma way bitches”, it screams.

Side note –  humor is how I deal with change and impending doom (I can also be very dramatic). I do not make light of the situation, but I will point out all the “funny” in it. Because, there is a whole fucking lot, otherwise I may as well cry at the complete mismanagement of the situation and utter shit show we are in.

In life, in the space of one tiny month, a mere 30 ish days, everything went from “regular” to a dramatic, head spinning change to the way we live, socialize, work, educate, shop, wash ourselves, communicate. Shit, I even have to clean my own home now. Yes, I had to formally reintroduce my self to Mop and Bucket and Mr Dyson. Plus, the check I normally give to the cleaners, went into my drastically low, alcohol fund.

Essentially, we used to be “free” to roam (I am not sure that should necessarily be allowed for some members of society) and now we are not. LOCK DOWN PEOPLE, the aliens are coming (yup dramatic), Stay at home orders and chained to a 6ft bubble of safety (but not really, but we kinda of are). I went from stay at home / PT working mum to homeschool teacher Mrs Joy, who essentially my kids do not see as any type of educator. More snack bitch and Band-Aid distributor. I hear the calls from the social media do gooders, “now you know how hard those underpaid teachers work”. YES I do know, I have always known, I have always admired their love and hard work they put into my children, as all three can be compliant on a good day and ass holes the rest. But can I just point out, dear do gooder (non teacher, social media smack down person) these beautiful souls chose to be teachers, they knew the score and they have a special, innate ability to teach. I on the other hand NEVER chose to teach, should NOT teach and I am now thrust in to the glare of 3 pairs of beady, baby dragon eyes, smoke spilling from their nostrils. ALL WAITING for me to step up to the plate and get BURNED by their total lack of interest in me as a teacher. I was not trained, I do not have the enthusiasm or patience to guide my middle child through reams of cursive, I did my time of that when I was 8 years old (my cursive is something I am proud of today, you really should check it out, if I actually ever write again with a fountain pen). I also have to guide three children through a wealth of online schooling, I am but one, humble parent, running like a decapitated chicken through three different sets of educating. It is not a pleasant sight, believe me.

Sod this, any one up for a cookie baking session? Lets count those damn cookies and subtract as we eat, or throw in a little fraction work. MATH – check, Kid 2 read the instructions – ENGLISH – check. Baking is a science ooohhh SCIENCE – check – Job done.

Then we have the fact I cannot really leave my house, don’t get me wrong, I love my house, but I also love a good coffee shop and not being with my family 24 fucking 7 . I truly cannot hold my breath long enough at the bottom of the pool. The kids are wild, I am wild, that cat is getting into fights, the kids are pretty much re enacting the Hunger Games and Daddy is locked in his office working more hours than if he were at actually work. But instead I now have to feed him and shush the kids when he is on a work call. I spend a lot of my time shhhh shhhhhing SHHHHHH SHHHHHHINg like a train pulling into a station SHHHHHHHHHHHHH. SHHHHHH the F up PLEASE!!!

Now we come to shopping, what is the deal people? Apparently, toilet paper, eggs and meat are survival essentials. They are nowhere to be found, unless you dig deep into the recesses of the nut jobs back yard self made bunker, who think this is Armegeddon. Newsflash, paper to wipe your arse will not save you, neither will the eggs for that matter, a hospital just might. – Now that is a combo for the Chopped kitchen.

Just don’t get me started on the hoarders, as that is a whole another 1000 words right there. I mean who are these people? Where are these people? They are clearly the same over 65 year old ass holes (UHUM you are high risk) hanging out with their mates in groups over 6. Well if you want to get sick and potentially die I’ll bagsey your bog roll thank you very much. Jesus people! (and no he will not fucking save you, he doesn’t give a crap about you, but he may just want your toilet paper). We are staying inside to keep you safe and out you are trying to get on the damn beach, to watch a sunset with your buddies. You do realize this is just the tip of the iceberg, its gonna get BIG and you may just need that non existent hospital bed.

My head feels like it may just combust into a cloud of tiny pieces, with the wealth of miscellaneous thoughts I would like to share and amuse you with. But dear people, this is humungous and I could be here for days, I’ll surely be locked at home with my “sweet,” “dearsome,” kiddiewinkis FOR MONTHS and this blog may be my only savior. Because, hell I know and as I said God will not be doing any of that save you stuff, and I certainly will not be knocking on the doors of his big pearly gates.

Well, until my next brain dump, keep well. keep apart, wash those filthy hands AGAIN and don’t cough or you may just be hunted and killed.

Love an insane, not drunk enough, locked up mother of three boys, who has no Xanax.

Peace out

Mrs. Home “not” fooling anyone!

I would like to introduce you to Mrs. I have No Bloody Idea, a shit show of an educator, a human thrust in to the limelight to teach her children for the foreseeable future.

Her skills lie in baking, science, writing amusing self depreciation blogs, headstands and running long distances. She knows her multiplication facts and is pretty good at percentages. Her laundry skills are shite, but her cooking is pretty good.oh and she knows all the words to the opening scene in Macbeth and all of the Sound of Music.

Which is pretty apt in the current climate

“When shall we three meet again?

In thunder lightening or in rain?

When the hurly burleys done,

When the battles lost and won, that ere will be the set of sun…….. ”

From this very small base she now has to teach a 5 / 8 and 10 year old (who is already way smarter than she)

I would like to apologize to all my children’s teachers for the fuck ups I will make. But know they are loved, safe, brushing their teeth and can cook a mean banana bread 😂