Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (228)
October 14, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 176: Recovery from the weekend: The kids and I got our flu and COVID vax this weekend. Wow did the body aches get me. I had to push my Sunday workout to today but then today was so busy and stressful I just couldn’t handle one more thing so pushed it again. I hate that but remind myself that the workouts are supposed to improve my life, not make it worse when I’m already struggling. I’ll still get them all done in the week. It’s a good thing PiC will get his COVID at a separate time so we weren’t both down.
Also my brain was wading through hip-deep mud all day and I only just figured out at the end of the day that maybe this is a type of brain fog. Post vax type? Maybe? Or heat related? I don’t like it. I forced myself through a lot of work but it felt terrible the whole time. It was nothing like hyperfocusing feels.
On the one hand, I’m deeply grateful to have benefits. On the other hand, I’ve come to find Open Enrollment weirdly stressful. No idea why, getting to pick things that provide our care is a good thing. Also overall benefits like healthcare and retirement just shouldn’t be tied to employment and I’ve always hated that it was and still is. It’s as ridiculous as dental and vision being separate from medical coverage.
Year 5, Day 177: At 2 mg a night, I’m still occasionally waking up sweating some nights but the nightmares do seem blunted a little. They’re not completely waking me up the way they were 3 weeks ago. It’s not doing the trick yet though, as evidenced by my utter inability to handle JB’s attitude with patience and forbearance. They were rude to me and I snapped: “don’t talk to me anymore” and walked away.
The amount of things to do is overwhelming. I’ve actually done A LOT but the number of things that have multiplied when I wasn’t looking is ARGH. The passports are done! I have pants that fit! Our Yeti has been replaced! I’ve chased down our FSA payments and they’ve been deposited! We have limited access to cheap COVID kits through an employer so I’ve been collecting our limited allotment each month to send to our family of five friends who can’t get any for a reasonable price and to our other family of five friends who are immunocompromised and need a steady supply. I stress packed a box for the Lakota reservation and that helped a little (close to checking that box).
But there are a million other little things that keep popping up.
Also I could just cry. My beautiful snap pea plants may all have powdery mildew. The weather has been really weird and I’ve been really tired so I’ve been watering them late in the day instead of in the morning like usual and didn’t think it would be a problem. I think I kind of did this to them and now have to remove them all even though they were producing so well?
Year 5, Day 178: Bookshop.org has free shipping today. I missed it last year and resolved not to be caught unprepared again. I’d be prepared to buy Christmas gifts from them this year! But no. Fail. The list of books to buy for niblings is blank. I knew this was coming up and yet still don’t have my list. Dammit! Stress!
This is par for the bumpy, gopher-hole-filled course. I’ve been sluggish from the post-vax recovery, and off my game all week as a result. It upsets my equilibrium when I don’t have any balance between work and housework like running the laundry on the right days or making progress in little tidying up ways. I DID gather all my colorful pens and markers into a plastic bin at least.
PiC heroically did the Costco run today so while he took the kids to go biking, I could quickly throw together a hearty meal so easily. We had the savory and filling Irish stew ($22, premade), a loaf of rustic bread ($6), and salad ($4) for dinner. I feel very lucky on this point.
Currently overthinking: packing toiletries for travel. We have to do a weekend trip in a few weeks and I want this organized well before. Right now we have a large communal bag for all things: many mini shampoos, conditioners and body washes; hairbrush/comb, lotion, razors, etc. Everyone has their own little pouch for dental supplies and they all go into the communal bag. It’s convenient to have everything in one place, mostly, but sometimes it would be more helpful to have individual supplies. When the kids are big enough to have their own suitcases, maybe it’d be easier and better for their sense of responsibility to have their own pouch. I really like this one I found at Michaels and am trying to think through the separation of things. How do/did you pack these sorts of things when you were traveling with family? At what age did the kids (you as a kid or your kids, all experiences valid!) in your family have their own packing list and case and all that?
Year 5, Day 179: Rush rush rush today. Some management meetings ate up a quarter of my day *dramatic groan*. It was actually for a good reason but still, those two hours are huge. I ended up working until nearly midnight catching up. Le sigh.
I put Good Girls on for background noise while working this week almost entirely because I like Christina Hendricks but the show just slightly annoyed me the whole way through. Going back to Leverage Redemption is very soothing.
Parker in Leverage:Redemption is more me than ever.
Sophie: Parker, you do not want to kill Ethan.
Parker: Yes, I do. I want to kill a lot of people, all the time. I just don’t.
Parker: What, didn’t you see the sign at the front of the building? It says 112 days without an accident. They’re due.
Hardison: Wow you are so smart, you are so smart. I bet you could spell every word in the dictionary except for respect.
Year 5, Day 180: I was scheduled for three workouts this week and since I simply could not get my equilibrium all week they ended up lumped in the middle of the week:, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Today I had the weirdest urge to fit in a set of exercises so I did a couple sets of squats. Extra weird because that’s one of my weakest exercises, but the brain wants what it wants.
I’m annoyed about ingredients today and my inability to use fresh ingredients when I’m have them and never having them when I want or need to use them.
There were the Anaheim peppers I asked PiC to buy extras of so I could chop and freeze them for future chilis. I then got sick, or had a flare up, or something for long enough that I forgot they were waiting until it was too late.
There’s that cabbage I asked him to pick up 4 months ago so I could make chicken cabbage salad one day but I’ve been so crazed I haven’t cooked more than three times since. It’s given up the ghost.
And sour cream! We perpetually forget to have it on hand when we plan to have Mexican food and when we do have it, we don’t need it until it’s expired. WHY. WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS.
It’s not everything all the time, we’re good about finishing leftovers all the time, it’s fresh ingredients that I just cannot cope with between the vagaries of my attention (remembering it exists) and energy and time.
My produce situation has gotten to the point at which I only buy fresh produce if I have a specific plan to use it within 3 days of purchase. Plus I am officially refusing to buy potatoes from pickup, because there is ALWAYS at least one that is either already moldy or becomes moldy soon after purchase.
I am jealous of your covid shots. I called our pediatrician’s office every week for the last 3 weeks and was told, “we don’t have the ones for kids yet.” And today, my kid tested positive.
This is the second year in a row that this has happened, and I am profoundly unhappy about it. Last year, at least the pediatric supply problems were a known Thing. I wish I knew why her office hasn’t gotten the shots to give out this year–if it’s a weird local supply problem or if it’s a problem with the office itself. But either way: So Not Happy.
That’s about where I feel like we are. Unless PiC has a plan, because even if *I* have a plan my body often betrays me, we just cannot. Fruit we can do, veggies are just not possible.
I’m so upset for y’all! There shouldn’t be a supply problem with pediatric shots that I know of, and it really sucks that the CDC still hasn’t adjusted to the fact that there are two waves, fall and summer, and changed the vaccine schedule accordingly. It’s been years, we know this!
I got some additional information–it’s a small office that isn’t affiliated with a hospital system and doesn’t have its own pharmacy like some of the bigger medical systems have. Apparently the distribution plan here has them lower-priority, which they didn’t know. They now aren’t sure if they’ll get any at all, but (unlike last year) area pharmacies are getting the pediatric vaccine. Really wish this had been clearly communicated to them at the outset so that they could communicate it to their patients in turn.
Next year, I plan to treat this like Pandemic Vaccine Year 1, where I checked for availability multiple places, multiple times a day until we got it. Not like I treat flu, where we get it when we can be scheduled at a doctor’s office’s convenience. And I’m not going to group the family together for covid unless it’s that way by luck. Adult vaccines seem to be more widely available before pediatric ones are, and I think trying to get us all at once was a mistake. (I tested positive on Thursday. It’s currently acting like an aggressive cold which would be a short-term nuisance but wouldn’t trouble me if it weren’t for all the potential long-term effects. Really hate the potentials.)
Re: medical linked to employment – yes! My friend from Canada was just visiting and had forgotten about it, until some of us were talking about retiring early vs finding part-time jobs that come with health benefits. It’s an unimaginable factor in other countries.
Re: snapping at JB. Of course you want to have some patience and forbearance – and ALSO think of it as teaching them expected behavioral norms. They can’t have unlimited attitude all the time and think they won’t get snapped at.
re: fresh ingredients – I think you might have success freezing sour cream but that will inevitably lead to it not being thawed when you need it – sorry!!! You may have to accept you are human. My biggest issue is fresh herbs and I take solace in the fact that we compost – but I DO try not to be wasteful, I get your angst.
American healthcare continues to be profoundly ridiculous in nearly all ways.
Some days I feel like a bear dealing with the attitude. It comes and goes, it’s not constant, but boy when it comes, it STICKS.
I really did think about freezing sour cream but you’re completely right about where the plan falls apart. SADNESS.
I throw away so much cilantro. I eat maybe 10% of it. As I’m throwing it out I think I could have thrown it in ice cubes for soup but I never think about it when it’s fresh.
I had the same problem with Good Girls. I mean it was cringe hilarious but wow what awful people!
We started packing our own cases around age 7 or 8. I found it easiest to just go about my day and pack what I use, with a double check I remembered bathers, drugs, passports and toiletries. I only use the full checklist for big trips to places where stuff might be hard to acquire in a pinch.
It’s almost reassuring that everyone has their own particular weak spot in this area.
I usually like at least 2 side characters in any show, if not the main, but there was just no one that I could connect to in that show.
JB does pack their own clothes, and most toiletries, but I think we’ll start graduating to having them do their own entire toiletries case once I can get a good sale at Michael’s again. I usually can’t unclench my anxiety muscles enough to tell myself “we can just buy it there if we need to” but therapy might be loosening them up.
Of course Open Enrollment is stressful; it feels like if we pick the wrong plan – DOOM ON US. š¤¦āāļø (I’m still not quite sure how choosing the wrong plan would send someone to the emergency room or cause cancer, but my brain weasels assure me it’s inevitable.)
At one point I relabeled my fridge’s produce bins “Vegetable Nursing Home” and “Fruit Retirement Home”! I console myself with the fact that even if we didn’t actually eat things, at least I’m still supporting farmers. š
In my family kids tend to start packing their own dental care & hair stuff around the time when they’re old enough to brush their own teeth. So like 5-7. At first I double-check that they have everything before we leave, the same as I do with their clothes, but once they consistently remember everything that should be on the list I back off – and let them learn how to handle it if something was forgotten. Preparedness is good, but learning resiliency and adaptability is also good!
That’s exactly how it feels!! It’s like the second we pick the wrong plan, all the bad luck is going to befall us! It did work out that way the one year I tried the HDHP and HSA. Or it felt like it did. I never knew how much x-rays cost before, OMG they’re expensive, or office consults, and I didn’t usually need to know or have them every year but in the year we had the HDHP I learned the hard way. The worse.
XD Veggie retirement home here too! Fruit, at least, my kids go through like water.
I remember the trip when JB forgot our hairbrushes and combs. I ALSO remember the business trips where *I* forgot pants, or charging cords, or shoes. I know it’s not the end of the world but I also don’t want to deal with it. Still, they have to learn eventually!