Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. [Thich Nhat Hanh]

We’re home. It’s fitting that it’s the first full day of spring, too: a new beginning in the midst of so much darkness.

Yesterday was a long day but an easy one; somehow the dread that had been building up over the eight days of awaiting a flight managed to far overshadow what actually transpired.

We left the house at 2 pm, Rob, Molly and I, driven in a cab to the airport by a lovely man named Alejandro. With no lineup at check in or in the TSA pre-checked line, we sailed through security to the outside waiting area of beautiful little Palm Springs International. It was eerily quiet.

For three hours, interrupted only by PA announcements and the sound of planes leaving and landing, we enjoyed light breezes and, contrary to the forecast we’d heard, some filtered sunshine.

There’s a pet spot for our little fur babies, and a lovely open-air waiting area where we didn’t have to crowd in with fellow travelers to await our flight. And best of all, we could see this glorious sight: our plane coming in.

The 2-hour-40-minute flight to Calgary was uneventful – surprisingly so. We weren’t screened for any illness in Palm Springs (at the gate or elsewhere) which came as a surprise. We were greeted on our plane by a flight attendant dispensing hand wipes and everyone proceeded to turn ours into the cleanest flight anywhere. We were handed a COVID-19 information sheet upon landing in Canada

Our fellow passengers seemed remarkably chill: only a few face masks, presumably being worn either by those who are ill or particularly vulnerable. Garbage was collected from passengers more frequently than usual, we were told, and that was really the only ever-so-slight difference (that we saw).

We landed in Calgary just as Molly had gotten to the end of her rope. She was grumbly for most of the trip, not enjoying being confined in her carrier one little bit.

A brief respite came as we were allowed to walk her on her leash from customs to our next gate, then back she went into her carrier. It was only her third time flying and we can only hope she’s around for another one, perhaps in November?

We landed in Calgary to a ping on my phone and a message from my BC friend Nancy (that angel I spoke of here last week) and the words, “OMG you got out just in time!” and this headline:

The governor of California has taken the huge step of locking down the state: telling people to stay home, and only essential services like gas stations, grocery and convenience stores, pharmacies, food banks and delivery restaurants will remain open.

California, with its 40 million residents – a state more populous than all of Canada, is the first in the U.S. to do so (as of this writing).

Look, our “worst case scenario” was a lot easier than many people’s: if we hadn’t been able to leave, we have a place to stay there and wouldn’t have been terribly inconvenienced. After all, I’d been self-isolating for 10 days anyway.

But here’s the thing: medical insurance could be yanked away from Canadians abroad who were told to go home and didn’t (or so we hear). Please look this up if you want more details; different companies are handling this in various ways.

One fellow Rob was playing hockey with says that some travel insurance coverage doesn’t extend to pandemics! Who reads all of that small print????

Anyway, we’re home. It only felt for a moment like we’d caught the last helicopter out of Vietnam and then I put things into perspective (which I find myself doing at a lot these days, as do we all).

We landed at around midnight, climbed into a cab with a very nice driver who was surprisingly civil to us after having waited for hours for a fare, only to find we were just a $12 ride from home. We gave him a nice tip. He told us that this was his last shift; he’s quitting. (I don’t think it was us!)

My heart goes out to him. Hard times are getting even harder.

I offered my condolences to the friendly and lovely WestJet men and women who helped us find our way around the Calgary airport last night. I could see long faces on the few Air Canada people working late into the night; the layoffs are coming fast and furious.

Our thoughts are with everyone being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Is there anyone who will not be touched by this tragedy?

We’re grateful to be home and we’ll take everything as it comes, as everyone just has to.

But a funny thing happened at Calgary Airport and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Yes, let’s do weekend journals, too. Thank you for your warm thoughts and I send you mine. Please stay well, safe and sane. We need each other.

Just a thought… If you know you’re going home, the journey is never too hard. [Angela Wood]

Oh, it’s Thursday. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I haven’t counted down to a day like this since Christmases of the past. We’re going home today and I think I may try to take some pictures of our travels – it’s going to be a long haul – and cry tears of relief once they’re up and posted. It’ll mean we’re home.

There may even be a video. I don’t know how much time at the Calgary airport we’ll have to kill, and how the internet will be. But these are small-picture things.

The fridge is as empty as it can be and our home’s caretaker (she visits regularly during the summer months) will take with her anything that we couldn’t consume. I’ve watered the plants, taken a picture of the contents of the bathroom medicine cabinets and drawers (so I remember what not to bring down in the fall), and I think we’ve got this all figured out.

The forecast calls for rain here in the Coachella Valley today and I was so looking forward to sitting outside at Palm Springs International Airport while awaiting our flight, away from our fellow travelers for as long as we can be, until we are called to board.

PSP is one of those rare airports (in our experience) where we can be outdoors in an enclosed area after going through security, to enjoy the last bits of fine weather and fresh-ish air. We’ll figure it out, but I know Molly won’t want to be in her carrier one minute longer than she has to be, poor old gal.

We’ve already mapped out where the doggie relief area is for her at Calgary airport; when we get there tonight we have almost two hours to catch our connector to Victoria. Hopefully, with customs, screening and whatever awaits us, it won’t be cutting things too close. But hey – if we have to sleep in an airport or find a hotel to take the three of us, we’ll live. That’s all big picture.

To that end, as we dig out our coats, zip up and lock our suitcases and point ourselves back to our home and native land, I thought I’d share this with you. Kathy B. sent it to me and this piece really puts everything into the right focus. May it bring you peace.

I’ll be back with you either tomorrow or on the weekend – if not here, then definitely on Facebook. Thank you for your kind wishes through all of this.

Here we go.

Just a thought… Fear is temporary. Regret is forever. [Author Unknown]

Another day, another journal. Yay! Glad you’re here. Glad we all are, for that matter.

A friend sent me this on Monday and I want to share this link. In case you or someone you know is struggling with addiction – especially, in this case, to alcohol – here’s a link that may come in handy. It’s for people who aren’t going to meetings, but still want to stay connected.

As I’ve followed the developments of the past week or so, my anxiety has been ramping up – and I’m not usually even prone to it. But hearing about border closures and so forth, and the uncertainty of our times, certainly can up-end anyone’s psyche. So here you go.

Another way to take our mind off things is to escape into some good TV. If you’ve been catching up or bingeing, please do share your recommendations at my Facebook page.

For Rob and me, it’s been a chance to clear off all of those Jeopardy episodes that piled up while we had company. We compete with (okay, yell at) each other, pause the PVR when I’m struggling to come up with a question like: “Who is Dalton Trumbo?” and just keep our wits sharp.

As a sidebar, Jeopardy helped me to get my brain functioning properly again after getting sober. My mind was one thing I didn’t want to waste (along with everything else) and this game has been an incredible aid. I highly recommend it!

We’ve also enjoyed tremendously the new CNN series The Windsors. It’s a little bit of The Crown but it’s a documentary with commentary from historians, acquaintances and former employees of the royal family, accompanied by scads of TV and film footage. Well worth your time.

And if you’ve got a lot of it, as so many do these days, find yourself some Ken Burns, why don’t you? The most famous name on a team that has brought us mine-deep dives into baseball, jazz, US National Parks, the Civil War and more, the latest offering from Burns and co. is about country music.

It starts by digging into the roots of the genre and the first few episodes may be a little tough going (particularly if you get your fill of the Carter Family early on) but it’s fascinating, well-told and overflowing with facts that pop back into my head day after day.

If you get the sense we appreciate a good documentary or true story, you’d be right. The loudly and rightfully-lauded story of the Central Park Five – now the Exonerated Five – is worth looking up. Titled When They See Us, it’s exasperating, horrifying, inspiring and a crystal clear reminder of how hysteria can turn people into monsters.

(You may recall that one Donald J. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for their execution, something which he has never recanted and for which he’s not apologized. I guess Obama made him do it.)

As for good ol’ dramas, Succession is one I can’t get out of my head. It’s about the inner machinations of a super-rich media family (the father seems to be a combination of Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump) and is taut, well-written and, yes, profane at times.

As we watched the first few episodes, Rob and I struggled with the fact that we couldn’t root for any of these despicable characters! But believe me, they grow on you. We blazed through seasons one and two and anxiously await a third, which we’re hearing there will be.

Of course, this pandemic is shutting down all production. I’m already missing my late night laughs, plus the acerbic Bill Maher and the brilliant John Oliver (whose final show – for now – is on HBO and is must-see).

There are far more important things than people providing us with entertainment right now, so the best thing we can do is find our own. Watch those shows you promised you’d get to “one day” and indulge in a little guilty pleasure.

We are all just trying to get through this safely, with our health and our sanity intact.

And so, on that note, thanks for coming by. And again, feel free to share your recommendations on my Facebook page. Talk to you here tomorrow!

Just a thought…

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

[St. Patrick]

Just breathe.

Yes – I don’t usually post journals on Tuesdays. But these are incredibly challenging times, and I find that I have to write, post, communicate somehow, so here we are.

Details are emerging and news is changing every few minutes and there’s no way to keep up with it all, so I’m going to give you a few things to help you take your mind off it – if even for a moment or two.

First off, I watched with anxiety and interest yesterday’s news conference from Ottawa. I’d heard that perhaps the number of airports accepting international flights was going to be changed, and indeed that happened.

With a great sigh of relief, we heard that Calgary – WestJet’s hub – is going to be open to us when we come home day-after-tomorrow.  We’ll fly from Palm Springs to Calgary, get our screening done before and after that flight, and then catch another plane for the shorter leg to Victoria.

When we will finally enter our house and get into our flannel sheets at home, I have no idea. It will be a long travel day, but one for which we are extremely grateful.

I’m not ranting today, just biding my time. The irony of trying to get through the food in our freezer, when we know we’ll have to stock up (via online ordering) when we get home, is not lost on us. We’re turning off the fridge and leaving it open while we’re gone, so as to try to save on the exorbitant power bills, and to try and do our part to lessen the strain on the California grid. 

Our pool heater died on the weekend, too – God’s way of saying it’s time to go home. We were anyway, but I can take a big ol’ cosmic hint! (And yes, I know that in the big picture it’s a smaller concern than a leaf in a tornado. It’s just a little levity.)

Thank goodness you get me. I anxiety tweeted yesterday about the lateness of the PM’s address, and there it was again – a big ol’ pile-on. So I deleted it. Lesson learned. The fact that a major radio host retweeted it got me into a lot of strangers’ feeds and they just had at me. I hate to have such PMS (poor me syndrome in my case) but I really am not used to such hostility. As I say, I’m gaining wisdom with each passing hour.

So let me bring you a little zen, shall I? A couple of weeks back, before the severity and gravity of our current situation began to set it, I had a lovely talk with two terrific women: my good friend (and wife of The General, Ian) Anita MacArthur and broadcaster & instructor Sheila Walsh. They have now done six episodes of the “Moms Sipping Sangria” podcast and invited me to be their guest.   

If you’d like to be introduced to these ladies, I will pass on this invitation to you to click here and enjoy some laughs, some information and a chance to listen in on some good friends. No one says we have to lose all of our connections, right?  

Enjoy this – and I’ll be back with you tomorrow. Anita writes the rest of today’s journal:

And Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Erin Go Home.

Be sure to check out our website, momssippingsangria.com, where we share quick and easy sangria recipes and host Giveaways.

Follow Moms Sipping Sangria on your favourite social media outlet(s) …

Facebook: Moms Sipping Sangria (https://www.facebook.com/MomsSippingSangria/)

Instagram: @momssippingsangria  (https://www.instagram.com/momssippingsangria/)

Twitter: @SippingSangria

Please be sure to SUBSCRIBE/FOLLOW the Moms Sipping Sangria podcast on your fave podcast app so you don’t miss an episode (each monthly episode will be automatically downloaded to your device) – every download makes a difference!  

Don’t have a podcast app? You can download one of the following to your smartphone and search Moms Sipping Sangria, or click one of these links: 

1. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/moms-sipping-sangria/id1483881725

2. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/283DlQCtvLQ1kBfDuwwR42

3. iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-moms-sipping-sangria-51807420/

You can also search the Moms Sipping Sangria podcast on Google Play Music, the Podcast App or SoundCloud.

Thanks for giving us a listen – we’re ever grateful (no pun intended) that Erin shared her advice on how to grow with gratitude. Gratitude and giggles … a perfect little escape during these trying times.   

Stay safe,  

~ Anita & Sheila  

Just a thought… When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” [Fred Rogers]

I had put my rant pants in the laundry as we get set to close up the house and come back to BC. But, if you’ll forgive me, I dug them out again, and all thanks to one tweet. One tweet. And if you’d like to rant, too, my Facebook page is wide open.

I already had one person say everyone’s going “overboard.” If she meant crazy, shopping for the apocalypse and adding bodies to crowds when we’re not supposed to gather together, she’s right. But if she’s talking about taking precautions so that the vulnerable among us don’t catch a virus that is ten times more deadly than the flu to which it’s so often compared, she’s wrong. Dead wrong.

Open a news link and read about Italy. Spain. The other European hotspots. 

Yes, the virus began elsewhere, but history will be clear: the horrific handling of the situation lies solely in the lap of the man who said to the whole world, “I take no responsibility.” The person in charge, who basically said, “The Buck Stops….way over there. Next question!” The one spreading lies about how the Obama administration handled H1N1 because everything is Obama’s fault. The one who only worried about how this pandemic was going to affect his chances at re-election and did NOTHING.

I almost deleted and re-wrote today’s journal because I thought no one needs more angst. It’s like I felt in the early days of losing Lauren: I awaken feeling just fine and then the memories of what we’re going through come and sit on my chest like a baby grand piano and I remember. This is actually happening.

As – one by one – major sports, music and family events were cancelled, I turned my thoughts to children late last week when theme parks closed down and slammed shut the dreams they’d been making for months. Then I found out just how even the most innocent statement of compassion can be a jumping-on point.

I thought of the families in those TV commercials, whose kids lost their minds when they opened their Christmas gifts to find they were going to the Happiest Place on Earth in the spring. I remembered much more modest outings with my own parents – they were few – when we counted the days before heading off to a little adventure.

I imagined, as a grandparent myself, having the fantasies of a few days of unfettered fun with Colin and Jane at a special place – a water park hotel, a magical theme park, a tropical resort with a crazy fun kids’ program – and felt my own broken heart. It’s called empathy. You probably know it, but not everyone does.

Because then, to my immense surprise, came the pile on. One came from a media person (who later tweeted that his response was “his bad” so I won’t show you his tweet), and the other from a few random tweeters who saw his and dove in.

Basically, their responses suggested we imagine, instead, trying to tell those kids their grandpa had died because of the virus and the trip they took. Others said there were much bigger concerns; Disney trips can be rebooked and it’s not like the park won’t reopen.

Did someone call Captain Obvious? I’m pretty sure I haven’t booked anything recently through him….

SHAME ON ME! I took one aspect of the coronavirus and told a small tale of what I pictured was happening in families at that moment. Children too young to understand what even a US president didn’t seem able or willing to comprehend – the deadliness of a pandemic and its consequences, big and small – who would be left without the March Break of their little dreams. That includes camps, parks, skates and other events. All totally inconsequential things to us big, mature, circumspect adults, but almost impossible to explain to a child.

I was reminded, not only of what a cesspool Twitter can be, but of how the “whatabout-isms” never, ever end. Justin Trudeau’s wife is diagnosed with COVID-19? Let’s pile on and tell her to give him a big hug so he’s sure to catch it. Let’s say we hope he dies. Let’s use social media to show who we really are – without, of course, actually using a real name or photo. Let’s just be the garbage people that a pandemic calls for. Roll up!

The ones loading up pick-up trucks with hand sanitizer to sell at exorbitant rates (and have now been prohibited by Amazon from selling them). The store managers who jack up the price of toilet paper or hand sani just to make a profit on people’s fears. The people peddling panic.

Side bar: just where did the story about needing toilet paper so desperately emanate from, you ask? My friend @lisambrandt posted that @YahooNews claims the TP panic began with a story about a shortage of material to make masks overseas. She says, “Some twits on social media decided incorrectly that it’s the same material needed for TP. It is not.” Ah. There it is.

We are, most of us, sentient beings. We are capable of caring for more than one group of people, one issue at a time. I can feel sad about children’s disappointment, and desperately sorry about people losing their grandparents because of this illness.

I can feel compassion for our prime minister and loathing for another “world leader” at the same time.

You can worry about how you’re going to go to work while your children’s daycare is shut down, while contemplating the horrific life-and-death decisions being made daily by doctors in Italy.

We can do all of these things. We can have all of these thoughts simultaneously. And we don’t need to be called out by the higher thinkers with no names and 7 digits following their twitter handle, who feel we’re monsters for not encompassing every single person, every cause, every disaster in each individual tweet.

But let’s be positive. We’re going into self-isolation when we get home this Thursday for two weeks. Rob’s going to miss playing hockey BUT WE KNOW HE’S NOT IN ICU. (His BC hockey’s been cancelled anyway, but you get the point.)

The NHL and NBA seasons are postponed BUT MOST PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD THEIR RENT, NEVER MIND PRO SPORTS TICKETS.

Restaurants are asking people to buy gift certificates to keep them afloat and pay their employees during the pandemic BUT WHO HAS MONEY TO EAT OUT WHEN WE’RE PAYING FOR DAYCARE?

I won’t see my aunt and uncle in the days after our return BUT WE’RE NOT VISITING THEM IN A CEMETERY.

You see how stupid that all sounds? Perspective, please.

Me? I’m going to chill, continue to lie low here trying to distance myself from social media just a bit until we fly out Thursday and wonder on occasion why I don’t self-isolate from it (despite how much life it gives me to get ranty now and then).

I can’t quit you. I may even start writing more. Thanks for being here and thanks for being sane, like Steven Braverman, aka @Brittlestar, a fun follow on Twitter.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some happier news – a bit of fun you’ll want to listen to, to take your mind off the headlines, the headaches and head-scratching posts on social media.

Be well. Self-distance. Be kind. Call a neighbour or someone who’s not going out, and may need milk or just a kind voice. We can all be “the helpers” that Mister Rogers advised us to seek.

We Can Do This.