Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (224)
September 16, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 152: Reminding myself as much as I legitimately hate almost everything about my job right now, I hate self inflicted injury and being poor more. So don’t quit don’t quit don’t quit. All the department heads are frustrated, and demotivated, right now, and I can’t fix it for myself or for them. I didn’t cause it and it’s not my business to fix, but it’s so EXTRA frustrating that we’re all so unhappy. (Is the strength of my quittiness correlated with my lack of dog? Very possibly.)
Some of the fruits of my shopping spree have started to come in. The Vogmask is a nice alternative mask to have on hand. I’m still primarily wearing the flo-mask but there are times that it isn’t suitable. The IKEA delivery finally arrived so I organized the utensils drawer that has been annoying me for almost a decade. It’s really quite satisfying to see it nice and neat. It led to bagging up a lot of utensils for donation too, which is a good thing to do regularly. I’ll do a more thorough sweep of the plastic utensils that accumulate over time later this week.
Trainer time: this is the start of Week Six! I haven’t been able to do more than three consecutive workouts in more than 20 years and I have missed that so much. I’m not feeling any stronger yet, it’s much too soon for that, but I’m feeling that challenged feeling of striving for something harder than I can do right now without the usual getting knocked on my fibro/CFS ass follow-up and that’s really something. Week SIX. So planks are still harder than they have any right to be, but I’m enjoying the assumption that I will keep doing this and therefore eventually get stronger. The modified pushups and the lateral raises are still very satisfying.
Year 5, Day 153: My goodness the weather has turned. It’s viciously hot in most places but firmly turning into fall here. The heater went on this morning for a spell, I’ve been bumming around in sweatpants instead of shorts. The gloom was so close in that the curtains had to be drawn around 6 pm. I don’t mind exactly, it’s just that weird feeling of living in the shift. But also weather in general is just strange these days. Just last week we rode out a heat wave.
PiC had picked up a precooked Irish stew from Costco and it was perfect for tonight. Smol Acrobat was a bit of a butt about the potatoes but otherwise everyone else was happy with mopping up thick gravy with their carb of choice and the very filling carrots, potatoes and generous meat chunks. It’s probably just cheaper to buy this than to make it from scratch. It’s certainly easier!
Year 5, Day 153: Every morning, when I realize it’s not a “kid activities at the end of the day” I heave a sigh of relief. I’m so relieved that today is one of those. I have a list of things for JB to do when they get home and that’ll buy me a few hours of peace while they tootle around the house.
About five(?) years ago I had a massive allergy attack seeming bout of ridiculously obnoxiously persistent itching. My scalp was a mess. My hands and feet would sprout rash like patterns randomly. Allergy tests revealed no answers so the allergist advised me to stay on a very low dose of antihistamine daily ongoing once all the itching calmed down from the higher dose. A few months ago, having had no flare ups in years, I idly wondered if it had finally settled down enough that I could stop taking them but waved the question away. Long story long: I unintentionally forgot my antihistamine four nights in a row last week because I refilled my pill boxes incompletely and the answer is NOPE. I cannot stop taking them! It’s now been five+ days of non-stop itching even with 20 mg of antihistamine daily. What a terrible unforced error.
The California fire season feels like it’s year round nearly. There are three major fires that I’m aware of right now and at least one of them has forced evacuations of people I know. It was touch and go for the second group / fire but they said the evac orders were cancelled.
Yipes! I forgot it was still a trainer day until 10 pm. I got out of bed to finish the second half of my exercises. I wonder what the problem is with my brain. Originally to avoid setting off the fatigue and pain, we decided on an every other day schedule. The day immediately after I do a workout, I wish it was a workout day again. But the day after that, I forget that it’s a training day. This is consistent whether it’s a weekday or weekend. Maybe I should try four days in a row, ride the momentum? Or maybe two days, skip a day, then two days.
Year 5, Day 155: My Corelle order arrived! I’m a little iffy on the larger serving bowls we bought, they’re much bigger than I envisioned and where am I going to store them? But I am delighted with the little dip bowls and appetizer plates (my picks). Our prior set of dip bowls are down to 3 survivors out of …. 8? maybe? I remember the first one I broke about 8 years ago. Then I broke two more microwaving butter in them. The other 2 were someone else’s fault. The new little bowls are both microwave and dishwasher safe they are adequately protected from me. Not if I drop them, though, RIP first bowl. Originally I’d been yearning for a set of metal dip bowls – it’d take some real doing to break those! Sadly, the only set of metal bowls I liked was out of stock. Happily, Corelle came along with a 40% off Labor Day sale and that brought the price point down to a much more palatable range.
This also got me thinking about how it must be so American to think of holidays synonymously with sales. Do other countries do that nearly as much as we do? Surely not?
Also! I finally did my passport pictures! I have no idea if it’s any good, I can only hope. While I was at it, I did pictures for the kids and printed all that out as well to get moving on their passport applications. JB’s has expired and Smol Acrobat hasn’t had one yet so it’s time if we plan to try any international travel in the next few years. The State department claims that Oct-Dec is their slow period (low volume), let’s test that claim because I know of some people’s applications taking 6-12 months in the past year.
Year 5, Day 156: Oh my stars and garters, to quote the good Doctor Hank McCoy. It’s been a WEEK.
Lots of mutual aid this week. Friends with medical problems, cash crunches of the two digit to four digit varieties, evacuating the SoCal fires, Diane Duane’s book sale, and more. Also getting called on at the last minute to help a high schooler edit some writing. Once an English major, always an English major?
Nightmares every night leave me wrung out and exhausted by morning. Complaining about it at Bluesky caught the attention of someone with similar problems and they dropped me a line letting me know about a medication they’ve used to great effect for eliminating the nightmares. I immediately scheduled an appointment to talk to my doctor about it.
At work, a few small things slowed down just enough for me to catch my breath for a second, then I was pummeled with more personnel problems. It’s of the unfortunate event variety, not a performance issue, but I am going to fight to support and keep someone through a tough personal time. It’s going to land hard on my team but I will find a way to make it work. That’s the right thing to do. There are moments, especially when I hit the 10 pm still at my desk mark, when I wish I was willing to be mediocre at my job. I can draw some lines but that one, I can’t let go.
Were you on antihistamines before the itchiness? levocetirizine aka Xyzal left me with the same effect. I was on it for about 2 months, but when I stopped, I was itchy for a few days which seems to be a side effect noticed by other users.