Covid-19 #Our current status

She was a carefree flower girl of 18
Selling flowers on Bourbon Street
1968
I was a street artist...

current books by Terrell Neuage

we have made it to Monday 24 May 2021 7.47 AM Adelaide, South Australia - so happy to see you have too.

In South Australia, the nanny state, we have a COVID QR-code reader on our phone. Every shop/business/building we go into has a “COVID SAfe Check-In, to enhance contact tracing and keep our community COVID safe. If someone in South Australia tests positive to COVID-19, the COVID SAfe Check-In enables SA Health to quickly contact others who may have been exposed to the virus and stop the spread of COVID-19.”
Yesterday they closed a whole shopping centre, locking everyone inside, to check that everyone had signed in; either on their phone or had handwritten their phone # and name. The fine for not doing so is $1000 to the individual and $5000 to the business. We were at the grandchildren’s netball game yesterday – outdoors – and a person came around checking that we had signed in…for an outdoor event.
Sometimes Narda and I forget to sign in but now that there are plainclothes police in places, we are much more vigilant. It is annoying but with that no one wears mask – we still try to social distance and scrub up at home and everywhere has lots of sanitization stuff to smear over various body parts so life in general is normal and good.
That is life in South Australia

With a bit of "extra" time (we have 32-hour days here in South Australia) I have been 'fixing' pages I did back in the 1990s of my "picture-poem" series. Starting here. Many links were broken over the past 20+ years. It takes time but as we are only going to aqua fittness in the morning - riding our new e-bikes for an hour and getting the caravan ready for our 3-month trip across Australia to warmer northern Queensland starting June 1st... I am getting as many of these pages done as possible. There are probably more than a thousand...I was very busy with internet stuff in the 1990s as my PhD was on that.

What we love about these e-bikes is that we peddle along as always; however, when coming to a hill we can put the e-stuff on and there is a setting 1-5, dependant on the hill, and we go up it as if we were on a straight road with the e-assistance. We live in a hilly area. In the past we would drive to the flat area of Adelaide and ride bike paths. Now every day we ride down the hill to the shops and easily ride back home. We have named our bikes Jack and Jill as they love to go up the hill.

We got our Pajero truck (Billy) back after waiting six-weeks for a part from China. Up to last week we were taking buses everywhere - to the gym, shops, grandchildren, movies... now we have a new car, new e-bikes (started riding them yesterday - what a dream... living in a hilly area - WOW, and now our truck. So many modes of transport to choose from. This means we can hook up the caravan (Holiday) to our truck (Billy) and go cross country to Northern Queensland starting first of June (2021) which was our plan months ago before Billy ended up in hospital waiting for parts from China. Yippie!

Took the 'Overland' for the day (12-hours) Melbourne - Adelaide (and back - obviously...). We have been following 'The Man in seat 61' for worldwide train travels for many years. He has a section on The Overland.

In Melbourne - bought two Jordaan+ Lekker electric bikes as they were not available in South Australia. They will be sent over in the next two weeks - very excited.

Just another American (living in Australia) in his seventies who got his first covid shot (astrazeneca vaccine) – Tuesday morning the 30th of March. No side effects - a bit of a sore spot on my arm where the needle went in - that went away soon after, but no other stuff. Joining the many millions of Yanks and the few Australians to get this process started so we can visit you soon. Narda must wait awhile – too young.

NOTE: "The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine uses an adenovirus, in this case a monkey virus that the human immune system doesn't recognize." Since getting the shot I have been eating more bananas - how about you?

Wednesday the 14th April got my flu shot and the Prevnar 13® shot - sore arm but some more protection.[for the prevention of pneumococcal pneumonia and invasive disease caused by 13 Streptococcus pneumoniae strains (1, 3, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19A, 19F, and 23F].
previous youtube channel (stories prior to 2013)
video - (ties in isolation)

life @ our home in Adelaide Australia

Our current covid-19 status (Narda and me) @ - we arrived in Adelaide after 10 weeks in the Netherlands [March 2020 - now last year] on flights back via Amsterdam and Singapore. We have been given amazing help with a home in Swan Reach along the Murray River where we did our quarantine of two weeks in Adelaide until the 8th of April 2020.

As of 24 May 2021, we feel good, but we can not visit you yet. Cheers.

The other day we went to the movies - saw Peter Rabbit with the grandchildren - almost fell to sleep: either because they wear us out or the movie was that boring. Preferred 'Nomadland' which we saw without children. Really a top flick - We consider ourselves grey-nomads travelling about Australia in our caravan - though we have a nice home to come back to and each other so not the same as the movie but still the thought of living the rest of our life on the road is thinkable.

We bought a new MG - can't come to visit you so we bought this - also, our truck is in the shop and the parts to fix it are held up in China - could be months before we get it back and take our caravan across Australia which was our plan. At least we have a car.

Sitting at my desk and watching the magpies in the backyard visiting (click to enlarge):

Always good to have my son, Sacha, come over from Melbourne to visit for a few days. What a life we have lived..."Leaving Australia, 'Again’: Book 2 ‘After’"

Book 2 tells the journey of being a male single parent in a foreign country. I tell the path that took one son all the way to being a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers to his death and the path of my other son from a difficult adolescence to a well-integrated human. My own path took me from being a high school drop out to a PhD and teaching at universities and seven years as a tofu manufacturer amongst many other attempts at finding a place in life.

1981 Honolulu, Hawaii - 'and so it began'

We are currently home in Adelaide after three weeks in Darwin. We are acting out our ususal 'living like a local' meaning we go to aqua fitness classes - see how we see the world today Planning for our next trip which will be taking the caravan over to Queensland and touring the Outback May - October. Yesterday we saw the movie 'Blackbird' with Kate Winslet. We do aqua zumba and aqua fittness three times a week and lots of weights, keeping fit.

PS...I still love you

We recently took a five-week drive to the New South Wales coast, camping in our caravan - see our blog uploaded just the other day @ https://neuage.me/.

Last year (2020) I unpacked a box of ties that I used to collect from thrift shops around the world while teaching in: New York, China, Australia between 2002 and 2018. With being stuck at home I decided to wear a different tie everyday. 183 of them. 183 days non-stop. Travels with my ties became ties in isolation.

We do have a short covid story / A cautionary tale from when my son Sacha came to Adelaide from Melbourne recently.

cheers!

Drop us a line we miss you so. Facebook / Twitter or of course email/phone/letter or just drop by one day..