Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (126)
October 31, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 220: Drat! Sera’s collar broke this morning. I’m not prepared to expend the brainpower I’ll need for picking a replacement because it’s never as easy as buying the same one we had – they never have the same one in stock when we need a replacement.
Update, yes, that took two flipping hours searching for anything like what we have now and then researching what IS available. Especially miffed because I tried PetSmart, Petco, Chewy, Target and no one had anything we needed in stock, so I ended up at Amazon after all. A, I could have saved myself a lot of time but B, I would have been annoyed at myself for not checking elsewhere first. Grump. In any case, I know it’s not realistic to swear them off entirely. My rule is we make an honest effort to buy elsewhere first, which we did.
My insides were out of sorts all day. Maybe they were set off by the (really, very minor in the grand scheme of things) routine disturbance of Sera’s collar, maybe I was already on the verge of it anyway. Couldn’t put a name to it however hard I tried, just felt like an emotionally shaken carbonated drink: agitated, anxious, unsettled, set to explode. I offered the inner simmering beast a stack of graham crackers to no avail.
Perhaps it’s the emotional kickback from being sick for two weeks and then having fun this weekend for the price of being physically wiped out. Perhaps it’s the temporary shake up at work that’ll settle down by next week. Perhaps it’s anticipating the launch of the Lakota Thanksgiving fundraising this week and hoping so hard for a positive response, and also anticipating/hoping for really good sales so we can buy the Lakota families so many needed things. Perhaps it’s anticipating another shoe will drop because when it’s been even a little quiet, I worry. Or perhaps my need to have all our holiday gifts taken care of by now; they most definitely are not.
Turns out there are plenty of reasons to feel unsettled…!
Despite my sorts being all over the place, something must be trying to place for me to wonder how to fix my chicken soups gone wrong of late (smitten kitchen to the rescue?) and even experiment with matzo ball soup. Neither the time or energy is actually available for these endeavors but it says something hopeful? delusional? that the desire sparks at all.
Year 3, Day 221: I slept like a bear hibernating for winter. Waking up in the morning felt like crawling out of a deep and cozy pit entirely against my will.
Did you know that Android phones come with a Google Quake Alert? I didn’t! So I got a mysterious ping alerting me to a pending earthquake and as I was reading that info, it hit. That was weird and unnerving.
My plate feels extra full today. I’m trying to hold down my burgeoning hope that we’ll have a gangbusters Thanksgiving giving season for our Pine Ridge / Lakota families. The polished up post goes live tomorrow, last week when you read this, tweets are scheduled in case I’m pulled into a work undertow and don’t have time to share it real time. A handful of highly popular friends will give it a wee boost, and maybe that’ll yield a few extra dollars. 🤞🤞🤞🤞
There was also the full range of work to do, and school pick up and after school class and then picking up salad and pizza for dinner which felt so stereotypically American suburban mom. But everyone was fed, and things were cleaned up, and even if I’m worried that I’ve forgotten something, anything, I’m sure it’ll keep. For now I’m hoping the pizza puts me in a solid sleep for the night and that maybe tomorrow will bring fun news.
Year 3, Day 222: We launched the wider giving initiative today! We had a handful of donations come in and that was wonderful.
The plan was to gather as much funding as we could so I could hit all the big sales, buying in bulk. The thing is, we have no clue which items of the massive wish list will be on mega sale in a month, so this has to be a two pronged approach to give us the best chance of helping the most people. I’ll shop any truly great deals that come up now that are unlikely to be beaten and reserve as much as I can for the November sales.
Then that small part of me that says that nothing I do is enough, ever, starting making little pips and peeps from the corner. It wasn’t a crisis of conscience, it was a crisis of perspective?
Halfway through this first public day, after a week or so of putting together these plans, I was wound tighter than a drum. I’m dreaming of being able to help so many families in Allen but then as I checked the Okini site to look into something else they need help with (website maintenance), it hit me that I felt like I was abandoning all these other families outside of Allen.
Maggie sometimes yells at me “You can’t help everyone!” to snap me out of it. That usually helps but today the sadness just GOT me. This wasn’t feeling at all fulfilling, it felt full of worry and anxiety and potential failure.
I had to go to PiC for a hug and a vent. That helped. I needed to push myself to recalibrate from fear and sadness that there is SO MUCH NEED to be glad of the deals that I CAN get for the people I CAN help.
My therapist frequently reminds me that in her line of work, she’s been told that if she helps one person out of a hundred, that is doing well. Every time she says that, part of me rebels angrily. I can’t accept that. But I can try to be happy about the ability to send bigger lots of good in bulk where it will all do some good.
With that in mind, I tackled the Fruit of the Loom deal again. They had both a BOGO offer (so, 50% off) and 20% off promo that could be stacked. It took several tries over an hour and a half to figure out how to maximize that deal – their site is weird and some items would be 50% off while the same item in a different size or color would only be 20% so I jiggled the choices until the entire cart was finally 70% off. I was trying to get a good bunch of plus size clothes since those are hard to get at a good price: XL and 2 XL are commonly requested sizes for the adults.
We got 24 packs of Girls Underwear in 4 sizes; 6 packs of Boys’ Boxer Briefs, Size XL; 12 sweatshirts/hoodies in XL and 2XL; 8 pairs of sweatpants in 2XL and XL. 42 items total, cost: $294.86
It led to a pretty late night but I finally felt positive about this project.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving update
I intend to shop the holiday sales BUT since we don’t know what’ll be on sale next month, if I see a great deal now, I’ll buy as much as I can without depleting the funds before Nov 23-27 and share as I go. The wish list is LONG so EVERYTHING will be put to use.
The need for medications is urgent, esp with COVID, so I started with an order of ibuprofen (6 bottles of 300 ct) and acetaminophen (2 bottles of 500 ct). Cost: $114.68
At Best Buy, I caught a Targus backpacks deal: 15 for a total of $187.94.
Also, I found size 7 girl’s snow boots on clearance at Lands End for $10 each, and I snapped up 10 pairs. Cost: $104.30
At Fruit of the Loom, we got 24 packs of girls underwear in 4 sizes; 6 packs of boys’ boxer briefs, Size XL; 12 adult sweatshirts/hoodies in XL and 2XL; 8 pairs of adult sweatpants in 2XL and XL. 42 items total, cost: $294.86
Day 1 spent: $701.78
Day 1 remaining balance: $582.83
Year 3, Day 223: I’m having a really hard time parenting with patience this week. This fourth day of being unnecessarily short with JB started a guilt spiral. Why can’t I be more patient, more calm, more giving? I griped on Twitter about it. A few friends, also moms, chimed in with the same and one of them mentioned self care and grace for oneself. That stopped me short. It didn’t make sense at first, why should I get self care when I’m the one being WRONG? But after sitting with it, I started to realize that just maybe my chronic inability to take it a little easier on myself is part of why I am wound so tightly all the time. It’s not clear why I’m so short-tempered but in the absence of any specific reason for it, maybe taking a step back and letting myself off this self inflicted hook is probably a better way forward than punishing myself and then passing along that punishment in mood and word.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving update
That order was pretty excellent, so I tried to have another go at the Fruit of the Loom deal but couldn’t use that fantastic BOGO code again. I’ve let that go and stepped back to view the landscape for other sales. I’ve experimentally put together several carts of jackets, gloves, medicine, shoes, socks, snow boots, and so on to get a sense of how much money would get us halfway through the wishlist or more. I’m guessing that we could put $5000 to really good use.
Day 2 spent: $0
Day 2 balance: $732.83
Year 3, Day 224:Â All week’s FELT like Friday but now that Friday’s landed, I don’t know! Smol Acrobat was home with us today so we could make a video appointment. We needed to assess their speech since they seem a bit behind their age milestone in terms of vocabulary and articulation. They’ve been assessed as a Late Talker, which the Speech Language Pathologist says isn’t a concern, and got set up for some support classes to help them communicate better. I was a bit relieved but mildly concerned that all the medical assessment will be concerned with is medical deficits. We may still have to set them up with some private speech therapy if their lack of spoken communication starts to hinder them socially.
The kids have a lot of fun things scheduled today and this weekend but we’re still not prepared for them all. We needed to make a grocery run today but I just didn’t have the energy after corralling a grouchy Smol for a couple hours and working for a few more.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving update
Lots of admin and bookkeeping today! Orders are shipping out and I’m notifying the Center coordinator of each as they get tracking numbers. I do wish we could specify single shipments for all these orders but since we usually can’t, one big order can generate several shipments and tracking numbers. Very excited to see more donations have come in.
Day 3 spent: $0
Day 3 balance:Â $1,038.83
