Whoever thought that a global pandemic like the plague or Scarlet fever would be a thing we would live through in our lifetimes? Well, whoever thought Donald Trump would be president? Twice. Some days here in 2025 it feels like we are just surviving through a Stephen King movie. I mean, seriously, drones the size of Teslas flying over homes at night. Is this all supposed to be normal? But at least it’s no longer 2019 and I’m allowed to hug grandma again.
I remember 2019, buying toilet paper birthday cakes, making my cats their cat food because I couldn’t buy it in the grocery store and buying gallons of hand sanitizer. I was actually thrilled to never shake some ones hand again or eat birthday cake that someone had just blown out the candles on and also sprayed their cigarette breathe germs everywhere.
April 2019~Rural mountains of southern California
Flashback to April of 2020 and a month of COVID-19 side effects had wrecked my healthy hiker’s body. How could I hike up mountains when I could barely breathe? I was coughing like I might go to Jesus soon. It pissed me off that none of my pants fit but the only thing that calmed my long-term COVID cough was swigging cough syrup like it was water and constantly chomping on cough drops. I remembered when I used to hike up mountains and live that keto lifestyle as I sat on my couch under a blanket of cuddly Norwegian Forest Cats, each of us getting chunkier by the day. My keto days seemed so long ago when it was impossible to stay away from sugar and also battle the COVID cough from hell.
I thought I would lose weight when I caught Covid-19. I mean I was coughing so consistently all day and night. Shouldn’t I have amazing six-pack abs by the end of it?
A month prior I was practically running up mountain trails in the eastern Sierras in four feet of snow with snowshoes strapped to my snow boots. What the hell happened to my healthy hiker’s body in just a month of being violated by this global pandemic, I had to wonder.
Naked Korean P90X Health Spa
By October and the early approach of autumn in this seven thousand-foot ski town, I was ready to start celebrating this pandemic almost being in the rearview mirror by nakedly sweating in the sauna next to a Korean woman who might be doing naked burpees. I tried not to stare. I mean who wants to stare at all the naked in the sauna? Do you remember during the end of the pandemic, wearing a face mask in a wet sauna as your paper mask stuck to your face and dripped everywhere? It was almost as ridiculous as the wiry Korean hippie doing burpees through the mist next to my fat ass.
It had been a whole year since I visited my favorite naked Korean Day Spa. After I recovered from the COVID-19 the first time, then six months later I came down with the COVID rash from hell. I literally dealt with the COVID rash for a long and itchy six months that summer. It was just terrible.
Hopefully, in our lifetime we will never have to live through another global pandemic but if you do, how can you be more prepared next time?
- Escape from the city if you can
- But don’t trash the mountains.
- It’s not if you will catch COVID-2026 but when. Have your life in order if another global pandemic ever strikes your life. Yes, this is the time you should not be out of pet food and have leftovers stored in the freezer just in case. I was so grateful we had a freezer full of homemade chicken stock that one time I came down with the COVID. And more grateful we had helpful neighbors checking on us and offering to run to the store for supplies for us.
- Know your neighbors. Okay, okay in a ski town that is full of short-term rentals that is easier said than done. But in 2019 we made due.
- We can survive without toilet paper. We learned back in 2019 it is doable.
- Stock up on miso soup, ginger ale, sugar-free cough drops, Nyquil.
- Learn to be self-sufficient. Make your own bread. Learn how to do your own car repairs. Don’t count on services for everything.
- Even without masks, people are still assholes.
Welcome to the pandemic, asshole
Assholes will leave their face masks everywhere. I mean what is a hiking trail without at least twenty discarded face masks? The first two months of the pandemic millions of Americans decided they loved hiking. They also did not love picking up their trash and their discarded bright blue dog poo bags.
You would think surviving a global pandemic would bring us together as human beings. Nope. People are sti
ll assholes. Now there are just more of them clogging up the trails of our national forest, building illegal campfires and cussing me out and chasing me uphill after their ferocious pit bull attacked my dog this morning.
I never lost my sense of smell and I think of that every time I smell nasty dog farts. Some people were lucky enough not to smell the old dog farts for a week.
I remember back in the spring of 2020 thinking, If I ever stop coughing I look forward to the day I can go out in public without a face mask again. I looked forward to not feeling like everyone was staring at me because I couldn’t stop coughing. I took two weeks of work when I had COVID. I stayed away from everyone, friends, and family, and clients for two whole weeks of my life when I was infectious with COVID-19. I coughed for a whole month straight the first time I had COVID. I was so ready to go back to the healthy hiker I once was. I missed our healthy sugar-free keto diet. I was ready to stop having constant stomach upsets from all the sugar I ingested every day in cough syrups, cough drops, honey for my aching throat and sweet hot beverages.
One thing I learned from that damned global pandemic was don’t let science fuck with your body Because of all the absolutely terrible female problems I had since getting vaccinated, I actually needed a blood transfusion at one point.
Vaccine nonsense
The pandemic really taught me that when the government tells you there’s a new fancy smoothie vaccine out, wait till they have at least tested it on some monkeys and rabbits and maybe given it to a few humans before rolling in it. The pandemic also taught me to not give a fuck what other people think I should do with my body. All these liberals say my body my choice. Well. I should have the choice not to fill up my body with God knows what and then suffer three years of consequences. All because I feel like I gave in to the peer pressure to get vaccinated.
God bless America
The global pandemic made this conservative woman much more leary about our government and all the lies they spread. The way our armed forces were treated during the pandemic and ever since makes me so angry to discuss I see red.
Our government doesn’t give a hot damn about our armed forces anymore. Thanks, Joe Biden. When I was younger I thought going into the Air Force would have been an exceptional career to stand for our country. Now I look at young people that I know that are going into the armed forces and I just feel bad for them because our government doesn’t give a hot damn about them. Our liberally led government just wants everyone to be vaccinated, compliant and shut the fuck up. Thank God for Donald Trump coming into office and stirring stuff up. This trainwreck of a country needs that here in 2025. I came across this quote from an Air Force veteran after the pandemic.
“Most of us who serve did so because we came from military families. Patriotism and American values are no longer appreciated or expected,” one service member said. “Troops themselves are largely treated as expendable and they don’t even pretend otherwise. Spending 15+ years in the military during wartime with multiple deployments risking their lives only to be tossed out like garbage. Losing the retirement they have worked years to earn because they didn’t want to take an experimental vaccine for an illness that was mild for fit and healthy people.”
I have so many friends who enlisted after 9/11. Does anyone remember after 9/11 when our country felt patriotic? Hopefully, Donald Trump can bring some patriotism and sense back for this once amazing country.
