Month: September 2020

Another day of ups and downs here in Abu Dhabi. I should be on top of the world, but I’ve contracted COVID fatigue. It’s what I’m calling the sickness that comes from being over the masks, gloves, sanitizing, testing, distancing and all the other rules that go along with this pandemic that is less fatal than driving here. (whether it’s an accident with a car or a tree, twice as many people are dying in fatal car crashes, and yet, we’re not spending millions of aed solving that problem.)

As the Brits would say, “It feels like we’ve lost the plot.” There’s mass hysteria here because cases have gone up to 700 per day (for 10 million people) but our fatalities have been almost zero for the past 2 months. Thank God, but it makes the black box house arrest wristbands for those who are returning from traveling (who have already tested negative twice, once before flying and again upon landing here) for mandatory 14 day quarantine seem like overkill. And before anyone says, “whatever it takes to be safe . . .” NO. Life is not safe. Everything we do is associated with a measurement of risk and we are prioritizing the risk of contracting a virus above many other more detrimental effects: loss of jobs, compromised mental health, delayed treatment for chronic or emergent health issues, loss of personal connections/family bonds . . . all of these things have a death toll associated with them and yet, they all are sacrificed for the sake of COVID prevention. Passing over dollars to pick up pennies.

ANYWAY, that’s my rant for today. (** this is a lie. The rant continues. lol) The latest news is that if anyone tests positive, even if they are asymptomatic, they will have to quarantine in a field hospital for 14 days and then have 2 negative results before being allowed to return home. That is obscene and nonsensical and would be the last straw for me, a mother with a household and children and pets to care for. That would be our two weeks notice and as soon as I got out of the field hospital, I’d be on a plane back home. Well I don’t have a home, so I’d be on a plane back to America where I would find a home and do God knows what, but at least I’d be free.

Let’s try this again: Anyway, that’s my rant for today. I think. Hmm, do I have any more anger brewing inside of me? I think it hit especially hard today because I was talking to my favorite oldest son and trying to figure out how we could see each other at Christmas this year. Him coming here to quarantine for 14 days makes zero sense and us going there to quarantine for 14 days upon return here is impractical. But we could go to Dubai for the 2 weeks and he wouldn’t have to quarantine and we would only have to take Covid tests to return home . . . maybe that’s a possibility. The only reason we are able to live overseas is because we’ve had the freedom to go home and be with family. If they take that away, we’ll have to change our home.

Moving on . . . to the good news. Remember the tree/car fiasco?

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These are the trees that were being cut down when one landed on Josh’s car. Yes, those very tall trees. Amazing that no one thought to worry about them falling across the multi-lane road, isn’t it?

3 days later they are still working on the trees, but they are no longer working on Josh’s car. That’s right. Someone did some wizardry and Josh’s car came back in 72 hours looking absolutely untouched. I don’t know how they did it. The paint is matched perfectly — they must have purchased a new hood, lights, front fenders, and bumper and who knows where they found the parts . . . I’m absolutely amazed. It shows how when you have money and connections here, things happen. Something that should have been a major inconvenience was barely noticed by us at all. I think on one occasion Josh had to drop me off at the gym and pick me up after. That’s it. 3 days is barely enough time for the paint to dry. They must have had people working on it 24 hours a day to get it done so quickly. VIP indeed. The last time we had an accident like this (in Oman), it took 6 weeks to get our car fixed because they couldn’t find the parts.

So I’m going to try and focus on God’s provision and his miraculous protection of us and not worry about quarantines and testing positive (oh yeah, I had to get tested again today — every two weeks school staff gets stabbed up the nose and the nurse was terrible at it today, ugh) and hope that I recover quickly from my COVID fatigue. Happy weekend.

in the middle of your car, does it make a sound? Josh can confirm that it most certainly does. If only I had a photo . . . :side eyes Josh:

He’s excused from failing to capture photographic proof of the craziest thing to happen this week as he was a bit shook up by the entire event. Josh was driving home from the gym and waiting at a stoplight. When it turned green, he turned left, saw a guy on the sidewalk with his hands up and next thing he knew, there was a bang and a crunch and a big tree fell across the entire hood and front of his car.

How does that happen? Someone was doing tree cutting on a major road and didn’t think to close off the lanes that would be affected if a branch (or in fact, an entire trunk) were to fall after it was cut. That, my friends, is exactly what I mean when I say NQR. I don’t know how someone doesn’t think to assess the 2nd and 3rd order effects of an action, but we see it often.

Josh was furious as these things usually end up going in circles and are exercises in frustration. Since our car was imported from the US we can’t get full coverage insurance (don’t ask. It’s a long story involving salvage vehicles and the shady resale market here) on it so none of the damage would be covered by our insurance.

When there are property damage issues here or other grievances such as would show up in Judge Judy’s court, it doesn’t work the way we would expect it to. There’s no mechanism for suing someone. I mean, there might be, but I’ve heard it costs more to file a case than most could afford and is probably a waste of money, effort, and energy. If you pursue it with management of a company you suspect (or find out) that it’s actually the minimum wage worker who will be paying the price, which isn’t something you want on your conscience. Often it ends with a “sorry” and there is nothing to be done but move on and take care of it yourself.

Anyway, Josh called me while waiting for the police to come and we prayed that he would handle it peacefully and not be angry, since it’s just a car. Thank God he wasn’t a few seconds later or it could have hit his windshield and hurt him! To ease his stress I suggested that maybe the mechanic could pop out the dent in the hood and we could drive it all scratched up and he laughed at me and said, “the car is crushed. I don’t even know if it’s mechanically sound anymore” (it is, thankfully).

Now for the good news. The person cutting down the trees works for a VIP, who agreed to take care of the damage. The police saw the scene, the tree (and was shocked by the amount of damage), and wrote the police report: Car damaged on hood, bumper, front, right and left sides. XXX has agreed to pay for the damage. Amazing.

A minion took Josh’s car directly from the police station to the mechanic where we assume they will have much difficulty sourcing body parts for a Subaru Forrester, but that’s on them. The police told Josh that he could come back to them if there were any issues and commented how lucky he was that the person was accepting responsibility for the damage without any pushback. (Yes, we know!)

So we’re down to 1 car these days, and may be for many days, but since Josh works from home and I ride my bike to school that’s not exactly a hardship. #thanksCovid

In other news . . .

Camille at school! This is in her library/technology class where they are learning about coding and creating podcasts this week. (Photo snagged from Instagram)

First full day of school with her entire class (minus the ones that are choosing remote learning for now). Follow those dots!