Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (331)
October 5, 2026
Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 7, Day 153: The last few nights and mornings my pain did a weird reversal. Normally, pain hits me when I lay down at night and then I can’t sleep for hours with painsomnia. That’s when I do my best reading sprees. These past days, when I wake up the bones start to buzz with pain. Weird. Likely won’t last but weird.
PiC and I have been discussing sports for weeks and I think we might be starting to settle in on the idea of competitive swim for JB and swim and beginner baseball in the spring for SmolAc. The time commitment would be almost balanced between the two of them, JB would have practices 3 times a week (and we might be able to carpool with friends), SmolAc would have 1 practice and 1 game each week. The staggered start time is also helpful so that we’re not trying to juggle three sports at the same time. We can ease into it. After the cast is off.
Year 7, Day 154: All I wanted for my birthday was… Well. A lot of things. The replacement of no less than 10 key Republicans in power across all three branches of government, a billion dollars to spend on people and animals (I get to keep 2-3M to shore up our accounts, pay off the mortgage, and whatever I’ve forgotten but the rest of the cash can go into making life sustainable again for folks), to not be exhausted anymore. To be cured of my fibro and CFS. To have all the clutter and dust and dirt cleared out of the house in one fell swoop without having to Pay A Price (physically). A horse and two dogs. Two horses if we’re wishing for the stars. For the kids to stop being obnoxious.
More realistically, I got a short nap, vacuumed under furniture that usually doesn’t get moved but haunts me since I moved it two weeks ago and saw all the yuck under there, spent 3 hours organizing the donations and orders for the Red Shirt village on Pine Ridge, and decluttered a fraction of a corner of the office. Also there was a slice of cake. It worked ok for the reality we do live in.
Year 7, Day 155: I made a simplified (no herbs, no cheese) version of this chicken zucchini stirfry and other than the zucchini getting too soft too fast (note to self, next time, cook them for 30 seconds max), it was quite good. I wonder if I swap out for a veggie that doesn’t soften too much, maybe that might be better. I’ve had a huge hankering for cauliflower lately and that could hold up nicely in this recipe.
I also want to make Mediterranean cauliflower with sumac one of these days. Or is it better with za’atar? I’m not sure! I’ve seen recipes both ways.
Year 7, Day 155: The first two of four new camping lanterns arrived. I’ve charged and labeled them. The next two should arrive later this week. I don’t know how much runtime we get from the small lights but I feel better knowing we have 4 big lanterns with 12 hours each in addition to the 4 smalls. Judicious use of both sets should give us a reasonable light supply for any 2+ day power outages.
I’m pondering on how many Ilona Andrews worlds I’m emotionally invested in that I crave more of: Innkeeper, Kate Daniels (Wilmington), Iron Covenant, Blood Heir, Inheritance. Maggie is good but I’m just not as invested in that world right now. Probably a time thing? It’s new and all the others have had time to sink into my marrow. Although Inheritance is also pretty new and I very much want more of that.
I think we got really lucky with the full ten books for Kate Daniels, I keep wanting that much of everything else but trilogies are more the thing now. Sadly. Ponders brought to you by all the rereading I’ve been doing.
Year 7, Day 157: My throat has been a problem since August but it really spiked a doozy these past few days. It went from sore and hard to swallow to referred ear pain, feels like swallowing knives when I eat or drink, and even breathing hurts. No idea why it escalated so quickly when I’ve been on my maintenance meds without a break but this is the worst.
It’s not been this bad since 3 years ago when I finally got it sort of diagnosed and was prescribed antivirals that helped most of the time but not all the time.
I finally caved and called the doctor. Ultimately ended up spending 5.5 hours between the primary care and specialist to get it scoped and scraped until he got blood from the sore (frickin OW) and blood drawn for labwork but honestly the ENT isn’t sure what to do or think after he went through the whole list of types of stomatitis. That’s the drawback to asking for help, medically, I have to spend the whole damn day or three worth of energy to get maybe some of the right questions asked but more than likely no answers.
We have a plan to refer out of Kaiser if these tests come up with nothing. That’s going to be a whole new complicated mess that I very much don’t want to deal with.
Thank you very much for all the work you do for the reservation! I actually have a friend who I may have inspired to copy your end of school year lost and found clothing drive. She seemed inspired when we talked, anyway.
That throat sounds awful, and I hope you either get a fixable diagnosis soon or it just goes the hell away. And I hope your very reasonable sounding sports system works out at least close to plan 🙂
This is a tough time of year for me; I always have a bit of a depressive episode. Since October comes at the same time every year – they put it on the calendar and everything! – you would think I would be prepared. Maybe have some sort of plan. But, nope. So I added a task into my calendar to make a plan at the beginning of next September. We will see if that helps.
Anyway. To more important things: I too have the same Ilona Andrews wait list. I bought This Kingdom but refuse to read it until they finish the whole thing. Well, and Im also just not that excited about it – not really an epic fantasy fan. All I can say is: they better look both ways carefully before they cross the road, chew their food thoroughly, etc. until they get everything done, because I need those books. I want to say LOL, but honestly, Im not sure that Im not serious…
Speaking of books, I didn’t finish much last month, but here is what stands out:
*Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel. Octavia Butler, Damian Duffy. I was never able to get through all the violence in the book, but always wanted to know the story. No way I would read it right now, too heavy, but worked then.
*Hidden Pictures. Jason Rekulak. I was intrigued by the concept, but found that it had too many horror elements for me to finish. Skipped to the end, which was very good. It is really well written, and such an interesting storyline.
*Station Eleven. Emily St. John Mandel. This is my standout, really really good book from September. Highly recommend.
*EMT: Beyond the Lights and Sirens. Pat Ivey. This was research, but pretty good. Nonfiction, so has some genuinely sad things in it.
*Geoffrey the Very Strange, Edmund the Vampire Accountant (which yes sounds like a rip off of Fred, but is not). Angel Martinez. These books are gentle, cozy junk food for the ailing spirit. Can’t really recommend them, per se, but …
*Curse of the Chalion, Paladin of Souls. Lois McMaster Bujold. Re-read these old friends by my favorite author.
*Daindreth series by Elisabeth Wheatley. Meh? I read the first … three? … and then just the beginning and end of the rest to get the gist. There were a few … oh, lets call them writing tics… that annoyed me, plus a deus ex machina that annoyed me to no end. I did like the story concept, however. Probably didnt help that the author had a big old fashioned internet blowup while I was reading.
*Track of the Cat. Nevada Barr. This was an odd one for me, because I liked the writing more than the story. But the ending – oh, yeah: SAVAGE and incredibly satisfying. Tried reading the next book, but couldn’t finish it. They are odd as mysteries, is all I can say. Not bad books, just…odd mysteries.
No worries, it doesn’t look like a wall of text 🙂
I hope she is able to! It’d be great to make sure that everyone who needs one has a warm coat and sweater.
Maybe we need to remind each other that October is a hard month every year. Team up!
LOL yes I need a good solid healthy and no accidents 30 or so years for Ilona Andrews, we have too many ongoing series that must not be abandoned.
I haven’t been able to get to Parable of the Sower yet either, I don’t think I’m going to be in the right mindset for it any time soon but it needs to stay on my list. Lots of goodies here to be added to my reading list!
For the record, I did not submit a bock of text, but it looks like all my paragraphs melted into one another…
Happy belated birthday!
Thank you!