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Strange Days

Good time to start a blog? In theory, yes. COVID-19 is keeping everyone indoors, I need to start writing something as I paid for this domain name several months ago and if I ever want to earn money as a freelance writer, I need to strut my stuff.
In practice, it's a bit more difficult. My 7 year old daughter is using my laptop for distance learning, I am looking after her and my 5 year old son all day so by the evening I am pretty much worn out physically and creatively. Also, if there was a world championship for procrastinators, I would probably come in the top 10. Or maybe not, as I wouldn't be arsed to turn up.

Here's my quick quarantine round-up. I'm lucky enough to be in a great position here. Number one, yes, we have toilet paper - thank you Office Depot and Sam's Club. I am currently a stay-at-home parent anyway so no big change to my life and also no loss of possible paycheck from any imaginary job I may have had. My husband is able to work from home and is actually much happier doing this than he has ever been going to work. He'll rush downstairs at random times during the day saying "this is my window!" and head out for a walk round the neighborhood. He will also constantly refresh Instacart until he finds a same-day delivery slot. My kids are couch potatoes anyway so really don't care if we ever go out again. To this end, I've downloaded Pokemon Go and try and drag them out for an hour each day. This has been working surprisingly well. It's probably the best idea I've ever had in my life. As to location, we're based in sunny Orange County, California. I'm originally from Surrey, England. My daughter was also born there. My husband is from South Carolina but no-one really knows where that is, even other Americans (that was a hint there - it's in the United States). In fact, every time I've told an American that my husband is from South Carolina, they immediately start going on about North Carolina which, as the name suggests, is not the same place. Anyway, we were living in England, then my husband transferred to the New York office of the company he was with at the time. We moved to Manhattan where my son was born and, briefly, Brooklyn. One new job later and we now live in California.

COVID-19-wise, Orange County currently has a very low number of cases and, if my weather app is to be believed, has had no new cases for a couple of days in a row. I have no idea how "new cases" are determined. Is this people being admitted into hospital? Is it test results from however many days ago for a tiny proportion of the populace that have been tested? Come on, we all know the numbers are total bullshit but we were locked down here in mid-March and I think it's working. Personally, I have not been inside a shop since March 16th (an ENTIRE MONTH AGO) and I'm kind of scared of going back in. I've tried to keep myself and the kids in a nice little bubble and I don't want it to be for naught.

This blog was originally going to be a wry look at how average (ok, maybe I'm talking myself up here) I am as a parent, wife and human and it will still be that, but just with added masks. More on that later...in the meantime, stay home, stay safe, wash yer goddam mitts etc. etc.

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