Two days ago, January 25th, was the first anniversary of COVID-19. To say it’s been one hell of a year would be an understatement, having turned the world, in every possible way, upside down.

They actually traced patient zero here in Canada. How they did it is beyond me. All I know is regardless of whether Corona occurred naturally or was hatched in a lab, God or Man did a good job of it. The damn thing keeps mutating, with at least three new variants (Brazilian, South African, UK) the last time I checked. The UK version purported to be 56% more transmissible, yet airplanes keep landing in Canada, with new orders finally in place that those coming in be tested beforehand wherever they’re from or visited before coming here.

On the bright side, the number of daily cases has finally begun to drop, at least here in Ottawa and eastern Ontario, following the post-Christmas/New Year’s spike of the last three weeks and resulting lock down. Quebec is still under nighttime curfew.

The initial stages of vaccination have also begun to play a role, but now there’s talk that the source of all of Canada’s vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna in Europe, might be greatly diminished or blocked all together as the European Union (EU) moves in protectionist fashion to adopt a Europe first policy. The United States has also indicated that its own citizens would be first, so, fat chance of Canada getting anything vaccine-wise from them. This week and next, there’s little to know vaccine coming in from Europe, although Trudeau keeps promising huge amounts to start arriving in three weeks time, which is an eternity in more ways than one.

The other good news is that an Ottawa firm has developed a rapid test for COVID. There’s also word that a vaccine developed here in Canada is about to undergo trials, so there is some silver lining to all these dark clouds.

Lots of talk in the media and Facebook about mental health, and who to contact if one needs help. My own mental health of late had been like a roller coaster. Not suicidal by any means, but the pandemic and winter are taking their toll on me and Jason. I’m truly grateful…thankful he’s living with me. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this pandemic, living alone without him. The feeling is mutual.

Even writing this diary has started to become tedious. I normally have an entry written in about an hour. This one was started yesterday morning, and then I lost interest. Mind you, I also got sidetracked with my budget, as today is payday...another rollercoaster high, which means out for groceries later (old Mother Hubbard), and low with the price of food. Even better, I got an annual cost-of-living increase, which means a few extra bucks in the pocket.

Of more concern at the moment is my physical health. My left knee has been bothering me for about a year now, pretty well the whole length of the pandemic. As with a lot of ailments, it started off slow…off and on, a low-level ache here and there. Now it’s every day.

My grocery routine is to walk up to the local Metro and Produce Depot. If I have a manageable load, I walk home with it. A mistake the other day. By the time I got home, my knee was aching, so I took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

More often than not, I get a larger order, then take a cab back. It’s usually around $6-7, but i often give the driver(s) a 10-dollar bill, so they’ll remember me. Jason has offered to go up, but he already does a fair amount of grocery shopping, though preferring Walmart. Truth is, aside from moving around the house with chores, etc., it’s the only real exercise I get these days. Although J and I share the dishes and cooking, he does most of the heavy lifting. We each do our own laundry, while I take care of cleaning Eartha’s cat boxes and feeding her, though Jason does a fair amount of feeding also.

I was lucky to get in for stomach surgery back in November, in-between lockdowns, but if I’ll need knee surgery, no telling when I’d get in now. In any case, I’m going to have to contact my GP soon, to get the whole ball rolling again.

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01/27/2021

Posted on 01/27/2021
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti