Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (233)
November 18, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 208: We had a long tough weekend so this Monday was the opposite of last Monday (which was a fluke but I appreciated it deeply). I woke up with the brain of an orange kitty: maybe 1.5 brain cells to rub together. Maybe not even that much. The rain was dumping buckets, we were running late, it’s a school holiday. Actually, the school holiday part works in my favor. We didn’t have to rush to get JB out the door by 8 am. I dragged myself out, got the laundry going, got to my desk with a snack sized breakfast, and desperately tried to keep up with what felt like hyperspeed Pong: catch up on emails, catch up on missed tasks, figure out what tasks are on board for this day and week, compose the very overdue email update to the Lakota contributors to let them know what I’ve been doing with the money since July (lots, actually!), figure out what I screwed up last week and fix it, mentor a staffer to build better skills, check in on friends I didn’t get to last week. Had a therapy session, vented about how terrible everything is going to be very soon and how it feels hopeless. Even if we have to carry on with day to day responsibilities, even though we are going to fight to keep our community safe, it feels awful to see this train coming down the track right at us.
JB was also home so I had to semi-mind them and their friend, and then deal with a parenting situation where I had to take them to task for making a crappy choice (trying to manipulate me). We had a Very Long Talk about that.
I took a long break for dinner and bed and then hit the desk again to winnow the stacks of work. Called it at 1030 which is really too late, I ought to be getting to bed around 8. I suppose the extreme multitasking today served a purpose.
Year 5, Day 209: One of those mornings where I ran into so many neighbors. Had to stop to catch up with one elderly neighbor. He told me that his wife was waiting outside and urged me to stop and say hi. This is the neighbor I check on periodically. On my way to do that, then ran into another neighbor who’d been MIA for a couple days. I was right, it’s because something was wrong! She had an injury. I reminded her to let me know if she needed any assistance. I gave elderly wife neighbor a hug and ran on my way.
I wonder how often the toothbrush heads on electric toothbrushes need to be replaced.
First Gen American had a bit of an answer for us regarding roofing materials over at Nicole and Maggie’s so I feel a little more ok about putting off the roof a bit longer.
Target.com keeps hacking up hairballs when I try to submit the orders for the November Lakota Family #2. This is annoying! It took, no exaggeration, seven tries just to get the Target circle coupons applied.
I contacted our House rep to thank them for voting against Bill Number: H. R. 9495.
Year 5, Day 210: The list of things I forgot to do feels much longer than the list of things I DID do. I know that’s inaccurate, it just feels like that but my time has been swallowed up but all the things I DID do: work, school related stuff, everyone’s birthdays (so many birthdays), the two November Lakota families, and the straggler October Lakota family.
It just feels like I’ve bitten off more than I could chew these two weeks. Adding the kids’ craft fair this Friday where the only booth time they could get is at dinnertime, and helping them prep for that has tipped me over into dropping things left, right, center.
I forgot to reschedule a call, I forgot to send out recruiting materials to four people, haven’t yet sent a new package to our Lakota sponsee…!
But I did set up shipping for one of the three packages we’ll need to ship to the Lakota November Family and finally got the Target orders in order.
Year 5, Day 211: My back was hurting quite a bit today, so I did a ton of stretching. Instead of alleviating the pain, it just distributed the aches all over! Rude.
A running around like !!! day: not my favorite kind. But I got the two remaining shipping labels out to each respective person doing the shipping of their lot of donations, recorded most of the Target order tracking numbers, stayed up extra late to finish a load of work – which I really shouldn’t have done because I was so run down. After packing up the bags of supplies for the craft fair tomorrow, I snuggled down under the beautiful new quilt filled with wool batting that a longtime online friend made for me where I reflected on the fact that things in the outside world are legitimately horrible but inside our little sphere, we’re hanging together and caring for each other. People are coming together to contribute to helping folks who have been systematically failed in every way and that’s meaningful.
The kids are already creative and enjoy doing crafts. Now, they’re testing the waters of entrepreneurship. Even if it is extra work for me, it’s a lesson I’m glad they can learn now with a lot of support. The standing household rule is that JB has to save half their allowance and they can spend the other half. They would spend every penny they had in their possession if we didn’t have this rule, so we need to help them build this habit. We also established ahead of time that they had to bring a set amount of spending money to the fair. They’re not allowed to dip into the till during the event to go spend at other booths. I’m thinking that for this one-off event, the lesson is in the experience of creating inventory and the selling. This time they will be allowed to split their gross proceeds in half with their art/business partner, instead of taking only the net, and that’ll go in their spending wallet for the school year.
Year 5, Day 212: Staying up as late as I did really was a mistake. I was dizzy and nauseated at 730, and could barely get myself together in time to take JB to school. PiC ended up taking them while I got Smol Acrobat ready, petted the neighborhood puppy, and crawled back into bed for the morning to try to recover equilibrium. The rest helped, and I tested negative for COVID so this must be exhaustion.
Managed to get some work done, while PiC managed the roofing estimate folks. Turns out, even though I thought maybe we had 3 more years before we really needed to get this done, they’re seeing enough wear and tear on the shingles that we may not make it through the next big rain without a leak. I’m wondering if we should preemptively put down the plastic sheeting we have left over from something a while back under those weak spots. Meanwhile I think he’s got one more estimate lined up.
The local Big Business roofers offer an 18-month 0% financing plan that I’ll look into – it’d be nice to make debt work for us and save the cash gradually over the next 18 months instead of taking it out of our cash. We can, if we have to, but with this election I’m even more motivated to strengthen our protective financial shell. We’ll see how competitive the other local shops are. The ballpark they gave PiC was, unfortunately, what I was mentally earmarking: $30-50k.
We were initially considering whether we needed to get on this pre-47 administration due to tariffs and anticipated shortage of labor but that’s now a lesser concern compared to the roofing just plain being tuckered out.
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HR 9495 is scheduled to go back to the floor again. This is the bill that gives the Sec. Treasury powers to strip non-profits of their C3 status. PLEASE call your House members and your Senators. Scripts and explanations from Celeste Pewter.
Having to get a new roof STINKS. š We did that two summers ago, after paying for 3 rounds of roof repairs that STILL hadn’t fixed the problem. Hope you get some good quotes! You can also ask if they offer a discount for paying by check instead of credit/debit card; that knocked a bit off our brick chimney rebuild last month.
I don’t understand why three of the four companies require a second visit to actually give us the quotes, the fourth one sent over a quote immediately but also didn’t answer any of PiC’s questions so we are a bit skeptical of them.
I will definitely ask about a cash/check discount once the quotes come in, thanks for the suggestion!
Re: toothbrush head: I was just at a gathering that included a dental hygienist. It sounds like every 3 months is nice for replacing a toothbrush head, but she didn’t seem concerned that only one person followed that schedule. She says as long as the brush gets dry, the bacteria dies. She did not say this but I would think you can see if it’s falling apart/significantly used-looking.
Oh that’s nice to know! I usually go by the 4-6 month rule on manual toothbrushes but you can also see the wear and tear on those. Hopefully these last longer since they’re quite a bit more expensive.