Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (12)
August 10, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 19 and 20 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 19, Day 129: The thought of keeping an actual physical non-for-public consumption / blogging Covid-19 journal came to me this weekend. I don’t know whether I find the time but maybe …??
Week 19, Day 130: JB pushed all the boundaries during an unsupervised lesson today and we had A Very Firm Talk. I was incredibly disappointed in their choice to do that when they knew I wasn’t going to be able to oversee.
After a couple conversations with their teacher, I realized that that was in fact the most logical time for it to happen. Still not happy about it.
We also found out that our favorite Thai restaurant will be temporarily closing and they don’t have a firm reopening date, and I had a minor flip-out because A) I am a Virgo and I HATE CHANGE and B) WHAT IF THEY NEVER REOPEN.
My day was jam-packed with work-related things that were not getting my own work done and that was tough, mentally. I also hate interrupting my regular work routine so much! It had to get done though, it was a long-term thing that needed my attention.
We did get our good news about Seamus though, and that was a real shot in the arm mood-booster. The alternative of his not getting better was a fairly dire one.
Week 19, Day 131: In Normal Times, we’d be in San Diego realizing on the sofa, catching up with Grandma and hanging out with the SDCC family. We’d be having pasta for dinner and JB would be soaking up all the fun of hanging out with Aunties and Uncles and we’d be soaking up the fun of being in San Diego with my beloved family.
Instead we worked, took care of the dogs, picked up Thai takeout and they had a bike ride, and I trimmed some dog nails before dinner. I definitely have feelings about missing out on a week that I haven’t missed since 2002.
Week 19, Day 132: The SHOULDS are getting to me a little. Not a social-pressure thing or even the parenting expectations thing related to school, though the latter has been a real hot issue for the past two weeks.
It’s because I recently shelved one giving project and don’t have the emotional capacity to tend to the other two, but the planner side of me that always picks up something new to mull over is itching over not having that much to do. I can’t make real concrete decisions about anything for the future right now. I can’t plan travel, I can’t plan holiday stuff, I can’t plan … well, anything. And it’s hard sitting with the silence.
Week 19, Day 133: Mid-Friday afternoon I was mentally fried. I always know that if I push through the gigantic pile of work still left, my Monday would be marginally less terrible. And pushing through on a Friday is less painful because the pressure of too much OTHER work not getting done isn’t as present but I’m still resentful by 4 pm.
I’m probably also extra peeved because I should be at Comic Con. And I’m not. I am missing out on precious family time. I’m missing out on the once a year ebullient joy of being on the Con floor in July and breathing in the geekery and breathing out the nerdery. My heart is heavy and feel bereft of the one gift I’ve carved out for myself every year since college. This was my one annual escape that outweighs my birthday and Christmas and any other holiday combined.
Week 20, Day 136: I’ve been on tenterhooks waiting for answers about our school, our county, our … everything.
I might be able to have massage therapy this week. I desperately need it since my body’s reaction to all the stress has been exacerbating my fibro pain to the point where I’m losing half a night’s sleep every night. I don’t know if I will be able to but we’ll do it as safely as we can with staying masked, an air purifier, touching absolutely nothing unnecessarily.
I don’t know why the texting app and the corresponding Messages on Web are so crappy on Monday mornings but they always are. The messages app has been a problem, generally, for the past week. I only have 1-2 GBs of storage left on my phone though, and that might be part of the reason for this tech tetchiness.
JB had a great lesson today, though, and PiC’s work week looks remarkably light versus my extra heavy week so my fingers are crossed that this week is less fraught than the last two were.
Annnnnnd then PiC twisted his ankle. I’m really hoping he didn’t damage it too badly and that it’ll be better after a good night’s sleep and two solid rounds of ice.
Week 20, Day 137: This week was already looking rough because I had an extra distraction on the calendar from Wed-Fri which cuts down on my available work time and then I had an extra large distraction related to the rental property lobbed into my lap in the morning. I muscled through: running numbers, sending inquiries to people, evaluating our options. But talk about derailment! I’ll chronicle that when we get some final decisions in the pipeline.
We’ve finished Season 2 of Kipo and the Wonderbeasts on Netflix and I adore Wolf. She’s my favorite because I strongly identify with her.
Dave: Why are you saying “help” so weird?
Wolf: Because I’ve never said it before!!
PiC proposed takeout because we were both having a DAY. After Monday’s DAY. We ended up with partly a mystery meal because the person taking the order was Really Bad but luckily we were ordering from a restaurant where even if they got the order wrong, I was confident that I would like it.
I was right, they got the order very wrong.
I was also right, it was still delicious.
Things work out sometimes.
It’s such strange cognitive dissonance to have So Much Going On and feel crushed by the weight of it all. At the same time, I am ALSO still feeling like we need to be grateful because we are a hundred times over lucky in so many ways. We are both. But it’s very strange. They don’t feel like they can be companion feelings. And yet they are.
Week 20, Day 138: Holy wow what a day. I finally got to see my massage therapist for the first time about five months? It feels like a year. My back pain has reached a level of constant excruciating pain that no amount of medication and other aids were touching and I was on the verge of crying.
This was the one time I could get in to see her between a confusing welter of shut down ordinances and I’m beyond grateful that we made it happen. It did seriously impact my work load but I knew and accepted that for the sake of prioritizing my health. So so grateful.
Week 20, Day 139: This day started waaaaay too early with a Seamus needing to go out at 5:30, and a congested snuffling JB coming to our bed at 6, asking for a tissue every three minutes for what felt like a year but was probably 25 minutes. My body was NOT moving so PiC fielded them all. At some point he shooed them off to bed and they went peacefully to sleep again. He and they both got another solid round of sleep, while I laid there awake and immobile from aches, until 8:10. JB and I got up together and quietly and quickly got dressed to get through the morning routine at double time.
I figured he never gets to sleep in so this was his chance to get as much shut-eye as possible on round two.
We managed to whip through our dog walk, dog breakfast, human breakfast, and clean up just before their morning lessons. Pretty good for a not morning mama!
The rest of the day was weird. I was off task for about 45 minutes or so midday but the effect was like I’d goofed off all day. I was still hunched over my keyboard at 6:15 trying to wrap up until I gave up realizing I’d just have to work late. I logged another couple of hours after bath and bedtime routine, in hopes of squaring away enough that my Friday would only be half as fraught as anticipated. It’s a heavy meeting day which is sad for a Friday.
Week 20, Day 140: Why are we still here, chronicling day to dayness in a pandemic?? Why has our federal government failed us so seriously that we have had over 100,000 deaths and who knows how many longtail survivors and rates are only increasing? *Endless scream*
Hi there -this is all awful and weird, and when I look around at I it, I get the same angry confused feeling I remember from reading Romeo and Juliet in 10th grade: it didn’t have to be this way! Why didn’t people just Do Better?
Anyway, I hope things are less bad soon for all of us, and I am (as always) grateful for your writing.
Best wishes – Abe
I would hope people would start acting responsibly before we hit the winter but I don’t actually HAVE hope left for that :/
I so feel that last one. <3 Hang in there!
Likewise!
Problems are problems, even when it’s a privilege to have them. I hope you’re able to successfully slog through to Friday so you can rest during a well-deserved weekend. 🙂