ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

You are here: Home / Blog / Computer is here

Computer is here

Blog, Just Life POST A COMMENT by

The good news is that computer is finally here!

The bad news is that it’s just now got here. I am sorry, we are looking at Monday for Ryder.

I wanted to tell you about my Mom. She has been dead for over a decade now, but I still miss her.

My grandparents had a garden and they used to let me sell apples for them. I was very cute and I sold a lot. My mom found out and put a stop to this. It was not appropriate behavior. She told me people would look down on me because I sold things. I couldn’t understand it. We had extra apples. If I sold apples, we would get money. My eight year old brain had really hard time with the peculiarities of life in Soviet Russia. šŸ™‚

Thirty some years later, behold, my empire of books which I shamelessly sell. Muhahahaha!

Since very early age, partially from selling apples, I discovered that I was a very good bargainer. I can and will haggle. My mother grew up in the planned economy of Soviet Union, where the cheese in the store by the house was $5 a kilo – I don’t remember the price of cheese, don’t hold me to it – and the price of cheese in the store on Voroshilovskii Prospect was $5, and the price of cheese at Central market on Budenovskii, 8 trolley stops away, was still $5. Someone somewhere decided that that’s what the cheese was worth in our city. End of story.

When Soviet Union collapsed, my mother would go to the market and come home green in the face, because she bought cucumbers for $1 a kilo and on the way out she saw them for 50 cents. It would cause her no end of grief. It wasn’t the fifty cents, it was that she felt like a complete failure. Can you imagine the anxiety of someone suddenly having to bargain shop after never before doing it in her entire life?

That’s when I learned that people have different pressure points.

Right now everyone is very stressed out.

We all have a reason to be stressed out. First, there is the plague. It’s killing people. In Texas, 54,509 people are sick. And that’s only those who bothered to get diagnosed. We are having basic goods shortages: toilet paper, cleaning supplies, meat. People are losing jobs. People have trouble paying their rent and mortgage. Kid 1’s boyfriend has been driving to Austin every three days looking for his unemployment check, which is not showing up. We’re not going to even go into politics right now.

This is some awful crap.

https://www.instagram.com/shencomix/

This situation affects everyone in different ways. For example, goods shortage doesn’t bother me one bit. The moment China went into lock down, a switch flipped in my brain that said, “We are going to go into lock down. We are going to have shortages. We are now in Russia.”

I can do Russia. I’ve stood in block-long lines to get sugar and toilet paper before. I have a frame of reference to handle this. My kids are the same because they grew up with me. When we couldn’t find the sensitive skin detergent for Gordon, Kid 1 made her own from ingredients. It smells nice and it’s cheap.

A friend of mine panicked. She has never dealt with shortages. She has never baked bread from scratch. I don’t think she has ever baked anything from scratch, actually. Every time she has to shop for something and the grocery store informs her that item is not available, she experiences spikes of anxiety. This is her own personal hell.

People have different pressure points.

I told you that shortages don’t bother me, right? You know what bothers me? Covid. I have enough education in biology to understand the magnitude of this and I have attacks of hypochondria. They are severe. It’s not fun. I worry about the kids, about Gordon, about friends across the country, about colleagues in New York, about Navajo Nation…

The friend I mentioned who has anxiety about food shortages? Doesn’t bother her at all. I will sit there and agonize because Kid 2 has to go to the bank in person and she is like, “I let the kids go to the neighbor’s yard to play.” I think she is crazy. But her anxiety makes her just as miserable as my anxiety makes me.

Another thing I worry about. Kid 1 is preparing to take her certification exams and she will have to look for a job. Almost everyone she knew from the previous courses who went on to get a job has been fired. They were the new hires and the first to be dumped. She worked so hard and now there are no prospects. Right now someone who is reading this might be in danger of getting evicted. Everyone has their own worries. Everyone’s worries make them miserable.

The point I am trying to make is that the times are grim. They might get grimmer for a little bit. Let’s try to cut each other a bit of extra slack. I know it’s hard because some days are pure shit and then you see a comment that was clearly written by an epic idiot.

https://xkcd.com/386/

But still, let’s try to be kind.

NEVER MISS A BOOK RELEASE

Join 30,000 Subscribers

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
PUBLISHING NEWS

New book releases, give-aways, and appearances.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
BLOG UPDATES

Free fiction, snippets, and funny stories.

Read our Privacy Policy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I read an article about how we’re all in this storm, but each in a different boat. Reading all these posts has really brought this home to me. I’m one of those high risk people, but for me, working from home has been great, and the cats are only mildly obnoxious at times. I know I have a really different boat from most and kind of feel like I’m in a very unrealistic bubble. Thanks, House Andrews, for creating a safe space for all of us to just be. This blog helps keep things in perspective for me, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to get a more realistic picture of this storm. ????????

  3. I am high risk. I am considered essential at work. I go to work everyday. Shortages started Early March. Toilet paper hand soap anti bacterial stuff and food. Unemployment skyrocketed at the same time. Northern California

    I have not been to a store since end of January. I wear a mask. I hope you, the reader, will do so as well. So you do not jeopardize my life. Shortages have, for the most part, gone away. Everything is available. The reported Cases have declined because people wore masks and social distanced. One church in Rancho Cordova decided not to abide by it and 71 members were infected. Three of their ministers have died. Unemployment is on the decline. The only issue is some people are making enough unemployment and are not going back to their jobs. I think the point and purpose of unemployment has been missed these persons. In closing: things are getting better. I myself have picked up two part time and at home jobs I can do on the weekends. Two. Proofreading and editing is one; the other is accounting based. Again, I want to reiterate that it gets better. Help your fellow man if you can, buck up and go back to work, wear a mask, and go shopping for what you need.

  4. Glad that you finally got the new computer! Yay! I’m going to need to get one soon, but who knows when supply chains will return to anything like pre-COVID.

    I understand where you’re coming from about the pressure points. I am only mildly bothered by shortages after decades of being too poor to afford most things and definitely not able to stock up on anything. COVID terrifies me. Both Me and Kid 1 of mine share a house. Both are immuno-compromised for various reasons. Kid 1 works in retail. I did too, until I was terminated at the very start of March after complaining about lack of precautions being taken at the retail store I worked at.

    I’m in the same neighborhood in Everett, Washington, as the FIRST Identified US Patient. The big box store I worked at was about a 3 blocks from the walk-in clinic with the same name as the one he went to. I had a customer who was quarantined and tested due to contact with that first case (and I worked in a field where we had a lot of extended contact with customers). The store was next door to the first identified community transmission case here–same day as the “first” community transmission identified in the US. I had customers cough ON my face, spit and all, during the last week of February. I was having anxiety & panic attacks constantly. My management and corporate overlords mocked me, then fired me. It likely saved my life one way or another.

    I’m lucky that, even though my unemployment took about 6-8 weeks to be processed, I am getting it now. And, given the CARES Act, I’m actually getting my full former salary amount until July. No jobs around sucks, but I’m able to get state medical coverage. I’m also fortunate in that I’m at the end of an accident claim from last year and will be getting a settlement soon that may be as much as an entire year’s salary for me. So, by the time my unemployment runs low or steps down in income level, I should have settlement money. AND, I’m an introvert that is happy staying home alone with books, sewing masks, and re-attempting to learn to quilt after dropping the first attempt almost 30 years ago.

    But COVID still terrifies me. I know how viruses spread so easily given my own background and previous work in the nuclear industry. I understand cross-contamination at a level that I was told is absurd by doctors, who now are likely regretting the fact that they didn’t consider that level of control necessary at the start of this.

    My county is trying to get an exception to the rules to reopen businesses even though it hasn’t met the criteria and there are so many crazy people out there not wearing masks or giving me space when I have to go out. Every trip to a store is a panic attack. And, knowing the reality of how long it takes to develop vaccines and therapeutics for something like this, and adding in all the information about re-infection, no durable immunity shown, and the cytokine storm immune responses people are dying from, and…well, I realize that we are likely going to be living with SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 for several years at a minimum. It isn’t comforting.

    What *IS* comforting in a very strange way is Kate Daniels and Ryder. They have survived apocalyptic change in the world and have adapted to it, in some ways for the better. I guess the post-apocalyptic, tribalist conflict, overcoming stacked odds theme gives hope no mater that it is in a magic and mayhem world.

    So, I’m glad to wait for whatever you produce. Thanks for doing so. Stay as safe as you can. Let us all know what we can do to support you during this trauma drama that is our current state of the world. Because you are certainly supporting us by providing us with the hope that we can come through to the “after” no matter how brutal that world might be.

    Le’

  5. Hahahahaha! Thank you for the post – I needed to read this tonight! My family members have been exposed to Covid-19 and I fell extremely stressed about it. We will hear more about it tomorrow. In the meantime, I cooked an awesome dinner and my mom, who has Alzeimer’s, made a snarky comment to my niece, and there was a blowup. My sister and I are just thinking – oh gosh, isn’t all this Covid-19 stuff enough? DO we have to have all this drama and nastiness! I agree, – be kind! And the flirting was just the ticket – funny and sweet! thank you!

  6. Same thing happened to me on the image search šŸ™
    You made a good point, I should have been more thorough, so I went hunting!
    It turns out this particular meme is an edit of a webcomic by Shen Comix (https://www.instagram.com/shencomix/), according to https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/amateurs. This website, as far as I’ve used it, has been accurate.
    The webcomic became a meme format, so I don’t know if this particular meme is really attributable, but if you wanted to, linking Shen’s instagram with a note or the KnowYourMeme page would work…
    Thank you for also putting in the work to attribute the art!!! It’s really nice to see ????ā€“every time I really like someone’s work, I’m terrified of every interaction with them! šŸ˜€

  7. Mardee, my thoughts and fervent prayers for your family and all those who are struggling with so much more than covid! Know that all of us are thinking of you and sending all the good thoughts we can find! Come to Perry, Florida, and settle in with all of us here! We have our heads down and are just helping each other to survive.

  8. No one in my town, wears masks ..just us , this is stressful…itā€™s as if the have no clue…
    My husbands Dad and Brother are M.Ds specializing in infectious diseases
    They refer to Cloro/ whatever Quinine…as imbecile-n
    I , like many are into the science and Covid 19 is very scary….
    I have lived in Europe as a child and walked a mile to buy 3 rubber bands…so I am also ok with the limit of things ,although I bake more than I should…

    My concern at present is my joint replacements in my hands ,they have failed ,Iā€™m in pain…I need a hip replacement too, and this is not a good time…To go have major surgery…
    Well hell,I am going to take some prednisone and go ride my horse…..

  9. I’m from Singapore. We’ve went on lockdown late-March, so it’s been just over 2 months.

    I’ve spent a birthday alone for the first time in 7 years. My fiance has an elderly father and a stepmother who recently went into remission from breast cancer, so they’ve been holing up as much as possible.

    We were set to be married in July, on our 8th year anniversary. I’ve had to try on my wedding dress for the first time all alone, with no one to pull up the zipper for me, or take pictures, or cry bittersweet tears with me.

    I have not stopped working ever since the lockdown began. My teammate quit right before that, and with a hiring freeze right now, I have sole responsibility of 500+ students under my programme (I’m an admin/customer relations staff at a major literacy enrichment centre), spanning from 3 to 10 years old. As I’m from HQ, we also have franchisees to take under our wing as we shifted to online classes. This amounts to about 700 students, which means that I have not stopped getting yelled at, insulted by, or condescended to by 700 frustrated, pent-up parents for 2 months.

    I’ve also had to get through fasting month alone, which did honestly help with the food shortages, but that also meant 3 hours of sleep a day, 2 half-assed daily meals, and having to smile and apologize and forgive 700 parents as they vent at me for things beyond my control. My single day of peace was on Ramadan, when there were no online classes and miraculously no emails or phone calls coming in. Even then, I still had to sit at the computer and prep for the next wave of lessons.

    I am blessed in many ways. I have a stable job, a roof over my head, a loving fiance, and a wonderful team and a boss who I’ve known and worked with for 4 years. My country is fairly supportive of its citizens and have done so much to keep the food and medical supply lines stable. I’m not a front-liner nor an essential worker, who have to risk their lives every single day serving the community and maintaining our civilized world at its barest bones. But this lockdown has amped up my depression and anxiety, and lately this has me entertaining suicidal thoughts more and more often.

    This is mostly a venting comment, I guess. But when I realized you started posting a new story again, for the first time in weeks, it made me genuinely smile, and gave me 10 minutes of just forgetting that anything else existed in this world.

    Just, very simply, thank you. I remember there are things worth waiting for and living for every single time I visit your blog.

  10. I just want to say I love getting your blog posts! I don’t know how it actually worked out that I signed up to get them in my email, but they make me so happy. You guys write the best books I have every read, that I can reread over and over and they just fill me with joy, thank you!

  11. Thanks for addressing this Ilona. Anxiety is like torture you do to yourself. I worry about the future, the impact this disease is having on the way we interact with each other, the economy, my son, who just graduated ,job prospects and my daughter’s mental health, and on and on and on and on. Reading good books is the best therapy. If I can lose myself in a good story it gives me the chance to better deal with my stress when I have to take my head out of the book. I’m so genuinely grateful for authors like yourself. Thanks as always.

  12. You are correct. We must stick together & stay positive. This is my 1st blog post at age 44 thatā€™s saying a lot. I donā€™t usually have time since I am a Nurse Practitioner & work at an urgent care/now covid clinic, the 1st positive SARS Covid-19 patient I saw was on March 27, but who knows how many had it before then since we couldnā€™t test., I want to take a moment to say how much I appreciate all of your comments. I am fascinate about your history of growing up in Russia; Oklahoma can be quite boring. I have run the gambit of patients who say this is the end of days, the virus isnā€™t real, to my favorite, ā€œit only kills old peopleā€.
    Yeah…. all of us will one day be ā€œoldā€, your talking about your parents & grandparents! Many time I read your books just to rest my mind & escape the craziness. I truly appreciate the time & effort you put into your works of literary art. This is a time a change, we now have a garden, buy beef directly from a rancher, & make our own pickles/bread/etc…. I am ready for 2021, but I hope we can all look back & remember what we learned & we did survive this time. As I tell graduates of this year, ā€œthink of the stories you can tell your grandkids, when you had to do a drive-by graduation!ā€
    Sincerely,
    K.

  14. I grew up poor and in the country. As soon as this hit, I started planning my garden. We installed a bidet. I buy toilet paper anytime I see it, and I bought yeast by the pound, and extra bags of flour. Even with some shortages being resolved, I am still buying an extra bag of flour any time I can find it. I am not buying a lot at once, but I am trying to stay stocked up for a month. It is ingrained, and not all that stressful.

    The disease gives me nightmares. My husband and mother and grandparents (who still live at home, sprightly octogenarians they are) are ALL high risk. I get everything delivered, no one comes in the house, we donā€™t go anywhere. My husband goes back into the office this week and I feel scared. We shall see how things go.

  16. Thanks for sharing your insights about the Russian experience. I suspect that we’re going to see food distribution shortages unless the supply chain heals pretty quickly. Like Soviet era Russia? Probably not. But a lot of Americans, particularly in urban areas, might be eating more beans and rice.

    As for Kid 1, it’s not just the first hires. Hospital IT is being decimated because, paradoxically, the partial closure of hospitals routine admissions to brace for COVID-19 admissions (which, other than the well publicized hot spots, never came close to stretching capacity) severely reduced income. Costs are being cut and support roles are bearing the brunt.
    That said remote support is booming. It might be below her qualifications, but it would pay the bills and give her experience in working from home and using remote tools, which is becoming an increasingly valuable skillset.

  17. 2020 couldnā€™t be worse than 2019 for me because my husband and partner of over 50 years died last October. In a way Iā€™m grateful now that it was last October and not now because I was able to be with him every day in the hospital and the last two days in the ICU. That wouldnā€™t have been possible now since our hospitals (Canada) arenā€™t allowing visitors during the pandemic.
    Shortages of supplies arenā€™t really a problem for me. Weā€™ve lived on a farm for over 40 years and I always have shopped ahead since the closest town is 30 km away. Isolating isnā€™t a problem because weā€™ve always been isolated out here so I havenā€™t noticed much of a difference. I am grateful for our neighbours and friends who are always prepared to help me, even if I donā€™t ask. FaceTime allows me to be in regular contact with my family, which helps.
    Iā€™m a quilter and have been making masks as fast as I can and giving them away to whoever wants them. Keeping busy is key to my mental health, along with lots of reading!

Skip to content