Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (306)
April 13, 2026
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 345: I want the job of giving away a billionaire’s assets in the vein of Mackenzie Scott’s giving: MacKenzie Scott Makes Another Blockbuster Gift To An HBCU. She’s making a real difference to institutions that are usually not prioritized. I’d like to do that. Preferably money from billionaires who are doing nothing but harm to the ecosystem, socially, environmentally, etc. though, that would feel much more right.
Related: My W-2 job sent around a shockingly tone-deaf gross note to colleagues stationed in the Middle East encouraging them to take time off now (and max out their vacation allotments) so that they can have a productive last half of the year. So you want them to use up their PTO because you can’t be bothered to extend the courtesy of PTO because of WAR? And then when that’s all used up and the latter half of this year continues to be a crazed rabid barrel of monkeys, you’ll what, fire them for needing more leave? Are all CEOs required to turn in half their brains when they get into the C-suite? FFS!
Paying bills! I was shocked to see our near-$4000 credit card bill. I’d totally forgotten that 75% of the summer camps were paid in this month, along with the payments for Spring Break that included one nice dinner, along with a lot of contributions to struggling folks.
Year 6, Day 346: It’s been six weeks and my cucumber seeds still aren’t germinating. I’m guessing our soil temperature just isn’t warm enough, though I could swear that it’s roughly the same weather we always have. So disappointing. My lettuce and onion seeds have never germinated, so I’m starting to think the real problem here is me. Oh but cutting back the blackberry bush last year was the right move! It’s put out several new branches covered in leaves now so I need to come up with a way to tag the branches as primocane or floricane as we get into the growing seasons.
We’ve been slowly filling up our Got Sneakers? bag since January 2024. They ask you not to send their giant FedEx bag until it’s full, and we don’t give up our shoes til they are worn through so it’s taken us a while but I think it’s nearly full enough to ship out. They used to pay $0.25 for the recyclable condition shoes but they don’t anymore so we just send these to keep them out of the landfill. I hope it does, anyway, they say: “All heavily used and damaged footwear is recycled to reuse materials or to convert waste into new energy.” Looks like our assessment of what was worn all the way through didn’t match theirs and we made a couple dollars from the last bag. Who knows, maybe we’ll make a buck or two off this bag.
Year 6, Day 347: Nicole and Maggie got me thinking about my sibling and the last time I saw a picture of him, he was basically like a feral hermit. Despite our always rocky relationship, thinking of that image of him hurts my heart.
Commenting on an older Nicole and Maggie post, they also got me thinking about how I’m most productive when I have something specific to avoid. I procrastinate when I don’t feel like doing That Thing but because there’s no end to the amount of work I have to do, it doesn’t feel like procrastination. It’s now redefined it as re-prioritizing. But if I know I need to do something I’ve been putting off, tattling on myself works pretty well. Telling a friend that it needs doing is often enough to make me do it. Maybe that IS a function of guilt.
$50 and one smog check later, my 24 year old car is good for another year on the road. I’m hoping we can hit 30 years and 250K miles before we have to replace it.
Year 6, Day 348: A friend shared amazing news that enabled them to retire early and I’m thrilled to my toes for them. So glad that a genuinely good thing has happened for a genuinely good person that I care about.
$$$. I found a set of cute sweaters for Christmas gifts. I DID considered off-brand types but they weren’t significantly cheaper than the brand name on clearance so I went with the original brand, picking from only the clearance bin designs.
Year 6, Day 349: Kaiser is finally starting to be affected by all the anti-vaccine bullshit from this administration. We used to be able to get 6 month boosters for the COVID vaccine under our own decision making. This year, we can’t. I did talk directly with one of the pediatricians who shared that Kaiser has been keeping their own data on COVID and it’s lower than previous years, though admitted that some of that is self reporting (or lack thereof) to go along with the officially reported diagnostics and hospitalizations. I’m trying to decide what this means for our year and how we protect ourselves. I was thrashed by a “mere cold” more than once this year.
Money: I made a second sale on Poshmark, that’s another $7 we can put away.