I have been struggling a lot with anxiety and depression for a while now. I do take medication but the virus and the chaos in the USA last week has caused me excessive issues. I have been tearful and a bit of a hysterical mess. I go from anger to tears and back again on some days. Norm had to deal with a complete meltdown last Saturday evening.
Norm and I have been taking Vitamins D & C and gargling with Listerine twice a day as a preventative. Norm read that both are useful. Many of the patients who end up in hospital have Vitamin D deficiencies and Listerine has been proven to destroy the virus so even if neither prevents the virus, it makes us feel less defenseless mentally and a little bit more in control. I suspect that most of my mental health issues are rooted in control and trust issues and I do know this is an area that I need to work on. But this is not that time. Just staying stable is taking up all my strength.
Last Sunday I decided to treat myself to a bit of self care and so I gave myself a facial, shaved my legs, put on a mask to condition my hair and had a long shower to try and relax.
Norm was probably still reeling from the Saturday night emotional drama and when I got out of the shower he surprised me with a High Tea that he had put together all on his own. I had bought a new cake stand last week and so he went to the local shop and bought a few things from their bakery that morning and he prepared the trays and set it up on our upstairs balcony.
He made little finger sandwiches of both ham and creamed cheese and cucumber and creamed cheese. He had bought my favourite pastries – lemon meringue pie and pasteis de nata. He bought apple crumble for himself.
He even made an effort to be posh and stick his pinky out.
He was very proud of his efforts when he saw how happy it made me. He is the best husband and such a lovely man.
I felt so loved that he went to all of that effort for me. It really lifted my spirits. I am one lucky Kitten.
After we had our tea we decided to play a game of Scrabble. (And now I see I should have played ‘FREAK’ to get that K and a double word tile damnit!)
It was a change from our every day routine and was just what I needed.
Monday was a grim day as I found out that 3 more people who are very close to me have tested positive for Covid. That triggered me all over again.
President Ramaphosa then addressed the nation that evening and told us some grim statistics, ‘The number of new infections, hospital admissions and deaths is higher now than it has ever been since the first case was recorded in our country in March 2020. Since New Year’s Day, we have recorded nearly 190,000 new coronavirus infections. The country has recorded more than 4,600 COVID-19 deaths so far this year. Since the start of the pandemic, South Africa has recorded a cumulative number of more than 1.2 million COVID-19 cases. We have recorded more than 33,000 deaths and more than 148,000 people have been admitted to hospital.’
He also informed us that ‘the massive increase in infections is largely driven by a variant of the coronavirus known as 501.v2.’ This variant spreads faster and is responsible for the increase in infections, but this new variant does not appear to cause more severe illness than the original variants, so at least that is good news.
He said we must avoid the three Cs – Closed spaces, Crowded places and Close contact with others.
In light of this lockdown level 3 has been extended. The 20 land ‘ports’ / borders have been closed to stop the infection being brought in from the rest of Africa. These include the six busiest border posts, which are Beitbridge, Lebombo, Maseru Bridge, Oshoek, Ficksburg and Kopfontein.
The President said that the government has implemented a vaccination strategy to reach all of the country but with the high volume of people here it may be a while before it is rolled out to all (or at least enough of us to achieve herd immunity).
On Wednesday I had an appointment with my gynecologist for my annual check up and pap-smear but I have been having some issues which I was dreading finding out about as I was sure I was going to need a hysterectomy. I was very nervous just about having to go into a hospital with all of the deadly virus germs flying around. The Mediclinic had a great process set up, you send a WhatsApp to their automated system, it then responds with questions about any symptoms you may have had or any exposure to anyone who is positive. Once you answer the questions it gives you a tick box which you show to the security team.
They make sure you are wearing a mask, they take your temperature, then you sanitise and go on your way. There were very few people walking around in the hospital. Once I was in the waiting room they had the chairs spaced out widely and when I went into the consulting room Dr C had the patient chairs all the way across the room from her desk. If my mask slipped she pointed and told me to correct it.
I had been having some very odd symptoms and thought I might have the beginnings of a uterine prolapse. Do NOT google that, it is horrific. I had a minor issue with prolapse back in 2009 and had corrective surgery and I was convinced that I was going to need surgery again. Dr C did an internal exam and ultrasound and confirmed that everything is where it should be, there is no prolapse and my pelvic organs are intact, except she found some issues with my cervix. She sent a swab off to be cultured and I have to wait and see what comes back from that. The waiting is driving me mad!
Wednesday was also the day that the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol that left five people dead, cementing his place in history as the only president to be impeached twice in a bipartisan rebuke that was approved with unprecedented speed.
The final vote was 232 to 197, with 4 choosing to abstain. There were 10 Republicans joining the 222 Democrats in supporting a single article of impeachment charging the president with “incitement of insurrection.”
The article of impeachment will go to the Senate for a vote but the date has not been confirmed when this will happen. I hope it is delayed until after the Democrats take over the majority in the Senate as a vote to convict requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senate. I also hope that more Republicans in the Senate are willing to do the right thing for their country and ensure that this creature can never hold a public office again. There have been rumours that the human turtle Mitch McConnell is keen on supporting this move to oust Trump from the party. Minutes after the House voted to impeach Trump, McConnell said in a letter to his GOP colleagues that he’s not determined whether Trump should be convicted in the Senate’s upcoming proceedings. “I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell wrote.
It was insanely hot here all week and then on Thursday night the wind picked up and went a bit insane. We were relaxing watching telly and at 10pm the power went off. Eskom, the South African electrical supply company has warned of load shedding all weekend. They explained that two generation units at the Kusile power station tripped after the main coal feed conveyor belts feeding these generators failed. A generator unit at 2 other power plants also broke down. It was so hot it was difficult to sleep without a fan. We also had load shedding from 6:30am to 8am on Friday and Saturday mornings.
We woke on Friday to a lovely gentle rain and much cooler temperatures. Lola and Pixie both settled down on the stoep and watched the world go by and Navajo kept an eye on the gate for any marauding rubbish trucks or delivery men.
Last night the rain poured down so hard that it must have flooded something or other somewhere as our downstairs lights would not stay on, they kept tripping the switch so we spent an evening eating dinner and watching telly by lantern. This morning the water must have dried out as we were able to get the switch to stop tripping and turn the lights back on. Bizarre.
This morning it is again quite overcast and cool. I sat on the balcony upstairs to have my morning coffee.
Today is my beautiful daughter Lily’s 30th birthday. As I was not there to spoil her I arranged with a local bakery near her to make up a box of treats for her. The Prince of Tarts bakery in George were so brilliant, they gave me such great service and their goodies are amazing. They sent through a pic of their bakery items to choose from.
My DIL Amber picked the order up for me and dropped it off at Lily’s to surprise her. I ordered 6 chocolate brownies, 6 cheesecakes and 6 milk tarts. The cheesecakes have various flavoured toppings such as chocolate, almonds or cranberries. They looked delicious.
We are having a family zoom call this evening to celebrate with her since we are all on lockdown. Hopefully we can have a big party to celebrate once the world goes back to normal.
Speaking of which, my Mom has just received her appointment to get her vaccine next week and I am so relieved! I hope she still keeps her cute little derriere at home, but at least I won’t panic about her every time she goes to buy milk or get her hair done.
The Covid virus continues to ravage the world. In South Africa there have been 7,498,780 people tested for the virus. The overall stats from the Worldometers site are:
On a global scale, South Africa is managing to hold at 16th place for total number of infections. This is the 3rd week at 16th so that is good we have not moved up.
SA is now 43rd in the count of deaths per 1 million population. SA was 42nd last week and prior to that had held onto 45th place for total deaths for 1 million population for a few weeks. We are showing a slight improvement on that count.
The USA is below the UK on the death count per million but they have 401,856 people who have died from this virus. The UK has had 87,295 deaths. The UK appears to be soldiering through the vaccination process however so I hope their counts will start to slow now. Most of my friends in the US say they are struggling to get an appointment for the vaccine and the roll out process appears to be a bit chaotic when viewed from outside, I hope it improves with the Biden administration.
I still have no idea when we can get the vaccine here, so until then I will stay at home where possible.
I just finished binging a very interesting series on Netflix called ‘Surviving Death‘. It explores what happens after we die. Each episode covers different areas of this topic and they include personal stories and research on near-death experiences (NDE), reincarnation and paranormal phenomena.
I am fascinated with the paranormal and reincarnation and I believe every aspect the show covered to be true to some degree. Do not get me wrong, there are plenty of shysters out there who have no shame about exploiting people who are struggling with the death of a loved one and play upon that grief, but there are also those who are able to communicate with the spirit world. I know this because I have experienced it myself, both in having mediums give me a reading that provided feedback that the medium could never have known as well as having interactions myself with friends and family who have passed over.
I know reincarnation to be true as I know have experienced my own past incarnations as well as how some of my loved ones in this life were connected to me in those lives. I had past life regression and it was as if I was there in those lives, you know it is ‘you’ even if you can see that your outer shell differs (is a different age, a different race etc.). If you ever have a chance to have this therapy I suggest you definitely give it a try.
I enjoyed this series and I give ‘Surviving Death’ 4 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.
I also just finished watching ‘Pretend It’s A City‘. It was produced by Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz and pretty much just follows Fran around New York City, filming some of her shows. If you are not familiar with Fran, she is a sardonic, easily irritated, grumpy, hilarious woman. I think she is my spirit animal. I laughed so much at this series, she tells so many great stories and educates us on little bits of New York history. I love New York and I love sarcasm so I give this series 5 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Norm and I just finished several of the series we watch together so we are exploring various options, if you have any recommendations let me know.
We started watching ‘Lupin‘ this week and we are both enjoying it. I was hesitant at first because it is in French and I detest watching the mouths moving out of synch with their words but for some reason this is not bothering me with this series. We watch it in English as I can’t see well enough to read the tiny captions if we watch it in French.
The summary reads: Inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family. Assane is played by Omar Sy, a tall dark and handsome French actor of West African descent who has a saucy twinkle in his eye. I recommend this series and give it 4.5 Kitten Stars (the missing half a star is completely selfish as it is due to not being in English for this near-sighted viewer). ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
For my musical section, I found this song on a random Spotify playlist and I loved it. It is called ‘Free yourself up’ and is by Lake Street Dive and Rachael Price is the lead singer and she has an amazing soulful voice. I just loved this song so much.
I hope you enjoy it.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading and I hope that you keep safe. If you can stay home, please do. If you must go out please wear a mask and keep your distance from others.
Until next time, socially distant Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxoxox
Kitten in the City 