Poddish note: The Daily

13th September 2023, 26 minutes. Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, global health reporter for the New York Times

A New Covid Shot for a New Covid Era

“as cases rise, and as so many people are not taking these precautions”, “it’s pretty hard to be a cautious person right now”

“so few other people are doing these things, and so, you know, there’s a lot of judgement” “more people with cancer died during Omicron, when the cases were mild, than during the previous winter’s surge, partly because so many fewer people around them were taking precautions, and so the risks to them were higher” “it’s also lonelier for them, because everyone around them is doing something entirely different”

Being driven to …

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite time of day?

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I drive a lot these days. I drive to spend time with Mum, and I drive to spend time with my partner. I drive to my mobile office to collaborate with my colleagues, and I drive meals and snacks on their last mile delivery leg, driving big data collection along the way.

I don’t think of myself as a driving force (not now and not yet, anyway). And I don’t think of myself as driven. I’m not driven to succeed, to distraction, to drink, to school, to excess. I’m not being driven round the bend, up the wall, over the edge.

Just like Mum

Daily writing prompt

Create an emergency preparedness plan.

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I’ve been jumping into these WordPress writing prompts, trying to get past the internal censor. I’ve been enjoying the discipline(ish) of – just get it down, and send it out, imperfections and accidental implications be damned. Really, I’ve been enjoying this. Recently, I’ve been thinking about various exercises people undertake which introduce the idea that getting things wrong, or being embarrassed, or being unprepared, or annoying people is actually okay to do. I read about this exercise where a person was instructed to go to a busy trian station, ask for an unreasonably large favour, and keep asking different people. So, this person was embodying the learning that terrible things don’t happen when they ask for a big thing, people just say no and everyone moves on with their life. I can still feel the aha of when I condsidered embracing that idea; people will consider, respond, and we will all move on to the next step, whether that be convergent or divergent, we will do the next thing.

To know she is loved.

Daily writing prompt

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

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The most, you ask? The most what, I wonder. I imagine the most of myself I spent for a meal would have been my first meal, the first time I had to digest food to last me a few hours.

I don’t remember that time, nor do I have anything in the way of stories telling of that meal. I’ve been told I was born at home, and that one of my brothers was the third person to see me, after my parents.

My imagination says that it must have been a costly meal. Everyone would have been a little or a lot tired, my earlier food would have been on constant supply, not meal based (is that right?), and instinct or not, I know these things don’t always go to plan.

But, it was worth it. Yes. I got to continue to hang around my noisy siblings, who I must’ve known already from their boisterous presence. I got to continue hanging around my parents, who just like all their kids (I’ve been told, convincingly). I got to meet my own fiery kids, my gorgeous partner, and so many other people.

And, I got to see Mum grow into old age. When I hang out with Mum now, there’s almost always a smile of recognition, of welcome. We’ve spent a long time hanging out, quantity time, and it’s showing now. She’s not always clear on why people want her to walk to the dining room when there’s a lovely warm bed with a convenient overbed tray right in front of her, but she does know that I want only good things for her.

Yes. I’m glad to have paid that effort for my first meal. I get to hang out with Mum, and she gets to know that she is loved.

It’s a lot, this megachurch of mine

detail of Martini and Memmi’s The Assumption and Two Saints

Well, it’s been a lot lately, hasn’t it?

My particular version of a lot has been a lot for me. I am trying not to sink. Don’t get me wrong. There are parts of my life which are simply gorgeous! My daughters are adorable and adored. I’m adored by my adorable partner (I still can’t find the right word here!). I have a spirituality which comforts and challenges me. I found my moral compass didn’t allow me to stay in my most recent place of employment, so I left – on good terms. I am reasonably healthy. My city is coping with COVID-19 pretty well. All in all, I’m doin’ okay.

Chillin’ on Taco Tuesday

In Australia, not in lockdown.

Taco Tuesday ingredients sittin’ on my freezer.

I love my star moulded ice tray and my angelic, decorative, sacramental and devotional magnet.

P+F strikes again!

One way or another …

This year has been a tough year for me. It has been a year of renegotiating some of my  important relationships; a time to be more

Foolishness, awe + joy

The time between conception and birth

I have had reason of late to consider the personality and inclinations of people during that mysterious time between conception and birth. As I read and hear the thoughts and hopes of a father who dares to share the simplicities and complexities of his relationship with his not-yet-born child, I can’t help but talk with my 3 gone-too-soon younguns, and their far-too-many cousins with them. I ask them, with the presumptions of a mother and auntie, to befriend this child who will soon join them.

Saints alive…

Saints have been a part of my story forever. When I and my siblings were named, we were named with a saint’s name. We were named with two saints’ names, actually, and then as we reached the age of confirming our faith, we each adopted another saint’s name. That’s three saints that we carry with us each and every moment.

Then there are the stories of the saints. There are saints whose stories are told in the bible, and those whose stories come to us in other ways.

My ‘favourite’ saints are patron saints. St Jerome is patron saint of libraries.