By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (305)

April 6, 2026

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 339: Taking a minute to be oh so very grateful that I’m not sick right now. I spent so many weeks of this year flattened like a pancake from the sick and fatigue that I get flashbacks sometimes. I am so so grateful that I’ve managed to stay at my rough baseline of yuck, uncomplicated by some virus or another, for three whole weeks.

We took the kids to see Mychal Threets talk and then to explore a new-to-us park that PiC’s noticed several times. It was huge and there were friendly dogs there too so I got a really good dog fix and they got to play at a pretty neat playground. It was soul-cleansing.

Money: Ah ha! Costco gas receipts are valid for the ibotta “any receipt” redemption thing. $0.25 in our pocket.

Year 6, Day 340: I’ve been thinking about things I’d rather do/enjoy doing. I love working around and taking care of animals. I like cleaning and bandaging up wounds (also for humans, not just critters). I don’t enjoy the constant needs of human infants or baby animals, that’s a bit too much. I don’t want to go back to school and I have never gotten past my antipathy for math and my brain doesn’t hold on to new information as well as it used to so probably medical training isn’t in the cards but I would like to take that 3 day wilderness survival care training class. I wish it weren’t 3 days, though.

Put all together, this means I’d like to be a part time basic injuries only Night Nurse / pet bather (not groomer, I can bathe dogs, clean ears, and trim nails but I can’t clip and make them pretty) / pet less intensive care treater. The last time I did a flight of fancy for my future career was when I was 17, working full time, saying I’d like to be paid to do X. After months of applications, I got a very low paying job to do X, and built my entire career up from that by acquiring a whole lot more similar skills. Maybe it’s time to see if putting that out in the universe will work again. *Patient hat on*

Year 6, Day 341: Text I received: “Territorial Seed Company: Growing basil at home is a game-changer for flavor!” Not if it just DIES ON YOU. Harumph. I bought both sweet basil and Thai basil plants last year, planted them in the garden, and two weeks later they were all dead. #bitter Every time someone says that it’s so frugal to grow your own herbs I silently demand to know exactly how they’re being kept alive because I missed that class.

Year 6, Day 342: I was reading this article from Kiplingers, How to Protect Yourself and Others From a Troubled Adult Child: A Lesson from Real Life, and this line struck me: “Alex made clear that his parents refused to have Gabe arrested — and he could still be, for assault, vandalism, terrorist threats — and taken to a mental facility. I spoke about this with two clinical psychologists, who asked not to be identified because they are not involved in Gabe’s case. They both indicated that the fact that he has not been arrested is evidence of the parents being caught in a spiral of enabling.”

It reminded me of something my biodad said to me when I was a kid. “Even if a parent knew of a kid’s wrongdoing (or vice versa), I still have to protect that family member from outsiders if the police showed up.” 8 year old me felt like that was off somehow but couldn’t put the reason into words. It occurs to me now that even if he wasn’t laying groundwork, he absolutely believed he deserved to be bailed out of all his problems by his parents, then his sibling(s), and later, me and there’s definitely a corollary to that early belief.

Year 6, Day 340: Well. That was short-lived. JB came home with a sore throat and a cough and since they have insisted on bunking with me since my last depressive/suicidal cycle, I now have some version of what they have. I’m starting to think that it’s unwise to express gratitude for health because the universe takes that as an invitation.

Money: This headline made me snort “Gas in US hits $4 a gallon”. It’s been over $5 here for so long I can’t remember when it hit that amount, but just two days ago I saw a few stations charging well over $6. PiC was wondering why Americans are so obsessed with gas prices. I don’t really know the answer to that but I speculate it’s to do with our national culture of driving over public transit and ever-larger cars. Especially in California, we tend to also drive incredibly long distances regularly in addition to the trend to large cars. (Collective us, not us-us because he bike commutes as much as he can and I don’t commute at all.) Mind, this isn’t about deeper impacts of gas on the economy like the cost of delivering groceries which is actually a big problem. The reactions we’re thinking of are all people who are primarily concerned with their personal price at the pump.