By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (275)

September 8, 2025

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 133: A while ago, I asked Darcy at I Want Guac if she would share what she knows about international banking and currency, and I’m delighted that she obliged. Her post led me to Wanderer’s Norbert’s Gambit which was new to me, and also Wanderer’s banking operational security post which is very relevant to my interests.

I’m still absorbing a lot of this information to see what we can incorporate in our emergency planning (for one of the worst case scenarios: if we have to flee this country), and our day to day online and banking security practices. Those are two very different scenarios. In the former, I have to figure out how we’d survive if we couldn’t get access to our money in US banking institutions because fascism; versus functioning as normal day to day.

The comments put Fidelity on my list for possible international ATM-friendly cards and accounts. I hadn’t thought of them before, but a couple details sounded appealing so I need to do more research to confirm these will be useful to us:

Your Fidelity Cash Management account will automatically be reimbursed for all ATM fees charged by other institutions while using the Fidelity^® Debit Card at any ATM displaying the Visa^®, Plus^®, or Star^® logos. The reimbursement will be credited to the account the same day the ATM fee is debited. Fidelity does not charge foreign transaction fees; however, if you choose to pay a foreign debit card transaction in US dollars, your transaction may be processed at a rate different than market exchange.

Year 6, Day 134: Corporeality was such a mistake.We’re now on Day 11 of this Fucking Flare.

Is it just me or are the Amazon First Reads Historical Fiction selections ALWAYS WW1 and WW2? I’ve been skipping most of their free book selections because there’s only so much WW1/2 set fiction I can take. But I now need to decide if we cancel Prime entirely. We’d been splitting the cost with a few other people for years, and they’re taking that sharing ability away October 1st, so I have to decide if we cut them loose entirely and give up access to Prime Video which has been one of my main (Leverage Redemption!) reasons for continuing the sharing arrangement. We have been using them less and less for shipping reasons. Our primary shipping use case is that sometimes there’s literally no one else who will ship to the reservations and when people need food and babies need diapers, you get that to them any way you can.

Year 6, Day 135: TWO bits of good news today. After 12 days I might finally be turning a corner on the CFS part of my flare. We may be moving into the “is just excruciating fibro pain” part. Yay! I’d sound a little sarcastic there but honestly just being in terrible pain, while not fun, is more manageable than pain and overwhelming fatigue. Fingers crossed.

And one crow friend was alerting on the neighbor’s roof today, and came over to ours for a snack so I ran to oblige. Usually I only put down two treats at a time in case they don’t spot me distributing them. This time I was pretty sure they were waiting so I put out a handful. They were flying solo so they took a few minutes to eat some before stuffing their beak with the rest and flew away. It was fun to watch.

Year 6, Day 136: Labubu dolls: I don’t get it. At least, even though the Beanie baby craze was also irrational, they were cute.

The start of a new school year is a lot. Back to school night. Fundraisers start up. Parent teacher conferences are at the end of the month. The big fundraiser culmination celebration event is this month. Start of the monthly PTA events (which JB wants to attend and PiC often feels obligated to volunteer at). PTA meetings that come with the side of guilt I can’t seem to shake about not doing more than paying for membership, attending meetings virtually and attending some of the community events. I absolutely don’t have time or energy for more. And yet the stupid guilt always bites at me. It’s worse in the first meeting because they’re asking for volunteers for committees. They do put on a lot of events that the kids love and it’s meaningful. But there’s just no wiggle room I can eke out and if I could, this wouldn’t be top of my priority list. Maybe I’ll shake it by the time SmolAc is through elementary school.

Year 6, Day 137: This year is the band year for the local districts. All kids are invited to join the band and learn an instrument this school year. The lessons are free, you have to supply the instrument. The teachers strongly encourage all the kids to try it. It’s a great way to dip a toe into music! I haven’t been able to figure out how to fit in music lessons in JB’s schedule so this is good. This is also Yet Another Thing.

I talked to JB very seriously about how challenging it’ll be at first and once they’re committed, they aren’t allowed to quit just because it’s hard sometimes. The work will pay off. It’ll get easier only with practice. We were able to borrow an instrument from a friend, and had to spend $100 on the other required supplies. Otherwise we would have had to rent one for $30-40/month.

Sadly, their nemesis, a kid I’m heartily sick of, has declared their intentions to join too because they’re going to “master the flute just like their sibling” and good God can we not catch a flipping break from this obnoxious brat? They’re in JB’s class, they’re assigned to JB’s small group in PE, now they’re joining band, they’re constantly picking fights and stirring shit and lying about JB to other kids to turn them against JB. Half my imaginary empire for this kid to move to another state.

I keep reminding myself that JB knows they’re loved. They have dozens of friends their age and trusted adults all over the country. World, even. They have a buddy in the UK who comes to visit them once or twice a year! They have multiple activities and friends at every one. It’s the very rare library visit (PiC takes them almost every weekend) that they don’t run into a friend or three to play with entirely unplanned. A couple jerkface kids, annoying though they are, shouldn’t make or break their school year. They are thoroughly over the kid, I certainly am, but they’re still enjoying life and school and they’re not miserable over school. But I would still give half that empire for that kid, the source of so much annoyance for everyone, to disappear. They’re that classic mean kid who everyone placates in hopes of delaying the target on their backs a little longer. Ugh. Anyway as long as it’s petty stupid shit, we try to focus on all the ways we can make life and school positive in spite of the misery-maker.

PiC asks me if I think the parents of the crappy kids know their kids suck. I say, no, the kids are both themselves and the products of their parents in varying degrees. Unless the parents are garbage, they probably think their kid is the normal one.