March 24, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 330: This is going to be an incredibly hard week emotionally. A big change is going into effect and at the same time, I have a complicated management situation that requires more handholding each week than any one of my regulars need in a year. There are compelling reasons for this. I do hope we get through it intact on the other side. I won’t regret doing the right thing even if things don’t work out, but MAN do I hope they work out. I also need to make sure that I pull back enough that I don’t drain myself dry trying to be there for them. There’s also a reorg in the works as well and the changes from that reorg will give us an opportunity to fix longstanding problems and are going to be really sad. I’ve cried sad stress tears between meetings for the past week. At least I’m letting it out.
I think the universe took pity on me because we knew these things were landing this week. I haven’t seen neighborhood dogs for three weeks. This morning, PiC spotted one of them and hailed me before I missed her. Then the beautiful black lab we might see once a week showed up! He was as happy to see me as I was to see him, he took a running leap and tackled me. He’s never done that before and got extra hugs and love for it even as I apologized for encouraging bad manners. We had our other neighbor scheduled to pop by to pick up a treat I had for her, and when I came out to deliver that, my third dog friend showed up! We had a quick game of catch. What a treat for me. The spirit uplift from the trio held me up all day, despite all the Monday frustrations.
Year 5, Day 331: A second game of catch with dog friend, and two giant pitties needed petting. Again, I appreciate the confluence of whatever that’s taking pity on me and my nerves. Dog time is the best therapy. It’s keeping my blood pressure much steadier than it would otherwise be after a day of meetings without any time to get real work done, and then having to get that work done. And then having my wifi cut out on me.
Know something funny though? My “genius” solution to my inability to remember to stop reps during workouts was to count backwards. I did that. It revealed that I can’t count backwards. 20, 19, 18, 16, 15, oh wait 17, 14?
Then I went back to counting normally except my brain was still all turned around so I caught myself counting like Smol Acrobat a few months back: twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty…wait.
I remember how bad I was at math beyond algebra in high school and wonder how much of it was my brain failing to stay on the rails long enough to follow the logic.
Year 5, Day 332: I knew it’d be too much to hope for a third day of dog petting but I hoped anyway. We had a power outage instead. Thankfully it didn’t last too long.
It was a molasses brain kind of day. Everything was slow and sloggy. I could never find my flow state so every single file I reviewed felt like a heavy lift. Every email felt impossible to resolve, even the easy ones, and after 3 hours of processing one stack of work there was still more than half left. That was demoralizing even though it was really because I had twice as much work as usual. I took my computer to bed after dinner vaguely thinking maybe I’d get a thing or two done, I tend to work whenever I’m on the computer even if work wasn’t on the agenda, but this was not that kind of night. Thankfully my only specific goal was to write a handful of words and anything else was bonus.
Whether this is because of emotion overload finally maxing out my brain or because Smol Acrobat’s virus is waging war on me, it’s just not a getting things done kind of day or night.
Year 5, Day 333: Oh. Of course my brain was slow yesterday, I was slowly coming down with a bug. Today was extra rough, not quite brain fog but halfway there, with extra aches and dizziness and greying out episodes. Better than the first time this happened though, didn’t have a near miss again. I just felt bad.
PiC took over my afterschool run, Smol Acrobat and I were two sickies in bed this afternoon.
I read up on IRS Revenue Ruling 2023-2 that changes the way assets are treated if they’re in an irrevocable trust. Our trust is revocable until one of us dies but more importantly at least until 2026, this won’t impact us because we aren’t anywhere near the federal estate tax threshold ($13.61 million). In 2026, it’ll come down to $5M. Maybe we’ll aim for the stars and that threshold, but I have my doubts that we’d be able to grow our assets enough to hit that amount in the next two years barring any big unanticipated changes. My read on the horizon is that all big unanticipated changes are going to be negative for our net worth, not positive.
Year 5, Day 334: This is the hardest day of the week so I’m trying to also remember the good things right now.
The neighbors have custody of a new wee tiny puppy for a week and I got to introduce said puppy to playing with a Chuck it! He was ecstatic.
Q of BraverMountain finished his own personal Iditarod after the race organizers removed him from the official race. So many happy tears for them and Queen Pepe, she who does NOT ride in the dog box because she runs!
I planted four more garlic cloves in the garden last week and three of them are putting down roots. The blueberry bush is starting to put out leaves and already has three beautiful little pink blossoms with more blossom looking buds on a lot of branches. The blackberry bush is starting to show some signs of life, too.
This one isn’t good, just news: I’m keeping an eye on the Mt. Spurr news out of Alaska, we’ve got friends there.
March 17, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 323: Sunday was terrible, I had vasovagal syncope from 10 am to 5 pm, no idea why. I feel owed a weekend day, I got nothing done yesterday other than trying to not pass out. But today! Today I feel like a nearly functioning human! As much of one as I can ever feel.
So while I didn’t manage to hit my notes to self to-do list, which is separate from my other two to-do lists, I did:
Make full use of a largely uninterrupted workday, gouging a huge dent in my piled up work. Felt annoyed the whole way through because I’m on hold for so many semi-related things but this is good. This helps me start tomorrow a little less behind the 8-ball than usual.
Finally get to work out again for the first time in more than a week! It freaks me out when I have to go more than a day or two without exercising because I lost conditioning so fast after the December holidays. But today I figured out how to manage longer planks – read three pages of a book. That gets me through the first 40 seconds pretty smoothly. My new range is 47-57 seconds, and I’m shaky on the back half, so this feels like a big win when I needed one on this front.
Tomorrow is going to be much more fractured with early school release and needing to make calls, so Tomorrow me will appreciate Monday me’s efforts.
Year 5, Day 324: Demotivation: 100% today. Might be because I woke up from a dream about losing a key software we use at work and I wasn’t able to come up with an adequate workaround for my anxiety dream brain. Everything I did today came from a deep well of “don’t WANNA”. I still did it, just with poor grace. It comes from being too dog-deprived, I’m pretty sure. My neighborhood dog encounter tally is 0 for the past two weeks and that’s just too long. As a poor attempt at a cure, I ogled some adoption listings and this beautiful girl is up for adoption. She’s 3 years old, good with humans and dogs, and appears to be very good natured. She’s also 120 lbs.
She’s well over my lifting limit of 65 pounds, if 120 lbs is accurate, but her adorable face had me wondering … could I learn/build up to deadlifting 120 pounds? No, the answer is most definitely no. Still. One can sigh.
But like an answer to my prayers, some folks brought their dogs to the kids’ afterschool activity and the dogs hung out with me for half an hour. Darn if that didn’t heal my psychic wounds and bring my spirits right back to fighting form. There’s nothing better than having a dog sprawled out next to you while you’re working, letting you pet them at your leisure.
We came back to a chili and cornbread dinner that took me over a month to prep, 1-2 ingredients at a time. I prepped the peppers and froze them several weeks ago. I made the extra cornbread a few weeks ago and froze that. I gathered the rest of the ingredients over the past two weeks and cooked it yesterday. On a night when we’re usually late and tired and rushed, we ended the night with happy and full bellies. Even if SmolAc WAS a party pooper and claimed not to like it. They probably didn’t, they are not a pleasure to feed.
Year 5, Day 325: You know I’ve been simmering about financial changes needed with the threats to the FDIC and our banking system. Now, on the one hand, I don’t see these billionaires, whose net worths are tied up in the stock market, trying to tank the US stock market. However I DO see them deliberately destroying our banking institutions to push their crypto agenda or to destroy the middle class while they continue to loot the government. So far, everything they’ve done is geared toward destruction. It makes sense to assume their move on the FDIC is just a matter of time. Though if they threaten the livelihoods of the wealthy (not the uber wealthy) by destroying banking, I wonder how those people would respond. Even if they don’t try to tank the stock market, the global community boycotting American products will eventually have an impact, I know my Canadian friends are doing everything they can not to buy American: The Entire World Is Pissed at Trump—and It May Cost the U.S. Big Time.
Anyway, I’m looking to mitigate our risk. I’d opened a brokerage account during the years I didn’t have a 401K. In it, we are heavily invested in domestic stock (Vanguard’s VTSAX) which served us very well for years. I’m changing future contributions to buy VTIAX instead or also. My Roth IRA is also VTSAX, and I may sell VTSAX to buy VTIAX instead in there, it’s such a small amount it seems negligible. In normal times, I’d just stay entirely aggressively in domestic stocks but it’s no longer precedented times. These are relatively mild moves to balance our exposure between domestic and international stocks.
I’m still eking out time to research international bank options as a safe place to lodge a good portion of our cash in case there IS a bank failure. I’m not even sure how this new imaginary risk-mitigated landscape looks, I’m just trying my best to deal.
What, if anything, are y’all doing?
Year 5, Day 326: You’ll be proud, I’m sure, to know that I have learned how to conquer my “I sat in a bean bag too long, am stuck” problem. It only took 3 months of flailing like an upside down turtle to figure out that instead of trying to stand up, the better way to go is to roll to the side onto my knee, and then voila! Freedom! I’ve always said I’m a bit slow on the uptake.
This is my first full week of working out since the whole ER thing and I’m still struggling more than I like but being able to do something every day, even just a little, is a huge relief.
Speaking of flailing like an upside down turtle, metaphorically this time, I’ve been so annoyed at myself for perpetually losing count when I’m doing my reps. Around 4-6 reps, my brain wanders off and I finally snap to attention having done way more than I meant to. It’s not because it feels good, it’s because I literally forgot to stop. It only just occurred to me that the solution is to count DOWN from the target, instead of counting up! Surely I will notice when I run out of numbers. We’ll see if this works.
Year 5, Day 327: There’s a storm rolling through California. Even without looking outside, my bones are telling me it’s dark and stormy. It’s been a long day in a long week in a long … well. I’m really feeling it today.
One money question answered! we did both get bonuses this year. Now I can sit down this weekend to figure some things. I’m hoping to stretch them to cover that cashflow hole I caused with so many donations, and fill in some planned spending buckets for the year. This needs a couple hours of wrangling to figure out all the moving parts.
And another money question answered! We’re due a federal refund and owe CA state taxes; they just about cancel each other out. We come out a little bit ahead. I feel ok about this – I’d have felt very gross paying any more federal tax than we’ve already paid in. Fundamentally I want to pay taxes to fund a better society, that’s our civic duty and it makes sense. But this is so very much not the year that our tax dollars get that result, and it’s hard to see when it will again.
March 10, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 316: I don’t know what’s for dinner but I DO know what’s for dessert: a delightful little apple crisp we found at the farm store. This is going to be great! We visited a small town over the weekend and played tourist which meant I looked for yummy new foods to bring home like a fresh artichoke lemon pesto.
We also made a quick grocery run, so added to the pantry: beef and fireroasted tomatoes for my future chili-making (maybe I could throw this together tomorrow?), a mirepoix for a future chicken pot pie (might be able to manage this midweek if I can defrost the chicken and cut it up, sure hope I still have pie crust in the freezer). I’ve been thinking about cooking these things for weeks and have been slowly acquiring ingredients one at a time and freezing them. There are three poblano and Anaheim peppers already diced and frozen ahead of use. I just need to some green onions and the chili can start to come together pretty quickly.
We might eat well this week! (Fingers crossed)
Sad update: JB asked for tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner. They picked a new to us tomato soup, Rill Foods’ Umatilla Tomato Soup Mix, and it was the worst tomato soup we’ve ever had. It was bitter and kind of gritty. Yuck. We couldn’t even finish our first bowls, every bite was awful. I tried to doctor it with sour cream but it was unsalvageable.
I speculated that my wicked heartburn before dinner was trying to warn me off it entirely but I was too foolish to listen.
Year 5, Day 317: I jinxed us. We did not eat well. Also, my heartburn turned into an internal wildfire. It woke me multiple times and by morning I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t experiencing some kind of heart problem. The advice line nurse and an ER doc thought there were enough concerning symptoms I should come in to get checked out. Sigh. Two hours of tests, IV drip and copious meds before the enflamed vise-like band around my chest and upper back eased up enough I could breathe again. The x-ray, bloodwork, and EKG all came back normal so as always, we have no idea what my body is doing and why. My (physician) relative speculated on a few other possible diagnoses, I’ll follow up on those ideas with my primary care, while I try to figure out how to cope with this horrible burning pain. And I’m completely exhausted.
A Bsky mutual gave me a useful list of rules they follow for their heartburn, and I backed away from the calcium carbonate Mylanta this evening in case that really is just making things worse. It was administered with lidocaine this morning and the heartburn came back with a vengeance this evening. Sigh. I had such high hopes. Call me … I don’t know what to call it but I pulled out chicken to defrost anyway in case I might be able to cook it later this week.
Year 5, Day 318: I don’t know how optimistic people function in life. I know a few people whose attitude and approach to life is “I always decide to have a good day.” And things turn out reasonably well for them! Meanwhile I say “2025 is going to be a little less shitty! I made a plan!” and then the fates cackle and kick my teeth in. What am I doing wrong? I’m referring to work life and life in the US in general, but also in specific, my health this year.
Yesterday’s ordeal kicked off muscle aches at a level I haven’t experienced in years, unbearable aches that drove me out of bed because I couldn’t stand laying there and hurting anymore. I had some hazy desperate thought of walking it off, maybe. That did not work. PiC attempted to comfort me and that helped a little bit and I was able to get a little sleep but honestly, my status is roughly “death warmed over”.
There’s a bitter irony in my having written that and then getting a text from my friends from four jobs back. Our former coworker T, who I didn’t know was battling cancer, died. We weren’t close but we cared about each other when we worked together and I’m kind of numb.
Year 5, Day 319: Today was a hell of a slog at work. But. While it wasn’t good, it was better. I’m still in a lot of pain but:
I managed to locate the possible ant entry point in JB’s room and put down bait.
I pulled out the defrosted chicken thighs, pondering on the premium we pay for boneless meat because if we didn’t, I could never cook at all, and cut them into chunks (5 minutes). My recipes are stretched across 2-6 days as it is and sometimes I still can’t cook before my ingredients go off.
I came back after a long break and separated the onions out of the mirepoix. Boiled the celery and carrots briefly, then boiled the chicken cubes briefly. Set them aside to cool. I pulled the frozen pie crusts out to defrost. Tomorrow I’ll make the roux. There’s no time and no energy for that today, not if I’m going to make it through dinner, bath and bedtime. JB’s been wanting me to make a chicken pot pie for over a year and it’s taken me this long to attempt it again.
I’d defrosted too much chicken the rest of the thighs go in an adobo chicken marinade. Thankfully it takes more effort to find the ingredients than it does to put together the marinade. They’ll cook tomorrow.
Then it hit me tonight: T died. And so did my mentor who passed suddenly last January. So did my last dog, Sera. A long-time friendship died about this time last year. A huge seismic shift for the worse happened at work this time last year. This country elected the worst shitbag last November and let that into the White House this January and it’s been nothing but chaos since.
This has been such a painful fourteen months. I thank therapy and meds and PiC’s support for keeping me going but the bigger surprise is that my body didn’t cave earlier.
Year 5, Day 320: Money things I’m stiiiiillllll waiting on: our tax filing. Confirmation of any raise for me this year. Confirmation of my bonus amount. I’m trying to be patient but everything seems to be delayed for one unknown reason or another and that’s a bit of a frustration.
PiC got his percentage, that’ll be a modest increase. With how much I’ve increased our direct aid, I’d hoped for more. Also to keep pace with the cost of living but I’m glad he got anything at all, we never take that for granted in this economy and political environment. We really don’t know how long we’ll keep our jobs in the face of this administration so I’m doing my best to balance self-preservation planning and supporting the vulnerable in our communities.
At least we had the adobo chicken ready to cook tonight, I didn’t have any brain left by the end of today. This week was really a deep dive into a deep hole of BLEH.
March 3, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 309: One of the many “first things” I did this morning was to schedule alarms for alllll my meetings. Has to be on my phone, can’t do it on calendars because those reminders are useless for my brain, apparently.
Speaking of useless and my brain, I ordered a load of supplies for my puppy niblings on the weekend. Today I realized AUGHHH I sent it to the wrong address!! I called Chewy, told them I mega goofed and asked if there was anything we could do? The CSR was very kind, laughed with me about it, and offered a couple solutions. Both of them cost me nothing and the right puppies would get the right delivery. In a day when everything else took so much more work to produce less result, that help was much appreciated.
I managed to throw together dinner with all kinds of fish: poke from the local market, seared our two last chunks of ahi tuna from a friend’s catch, and Sunday’s baked salmon all made it on the table with rice and cucumbers. Thank goodness that was easy. I also threw a frozen Costco lasagna in the oven which was going to take too long for dinner but juuust in case people were still hungry, figured it’d be ready for the tail end of dinner. JB scarfed 3/4 of the seared ahi tuna and then held out for dessert lasagna. This is probably getting to be a bad habit. I made dessert cornbread on the weekend.
I feel this quote deeply, all the time: “Of course I’m amazing at it but I hate it! It’s all relationships and people. So many people. In person.” Mike B, Madam Secretary.
Year 5, Day 310: Ah ha. So this virus is shaping up to be flu-like. Fantastic. I could blame my mood on that today but I’ll be honest, there are 15 million other reasons for my “why can’t I retire Right Flipping Now” scowling and growling. Most of them are at the US government, a significant number of those reasons are at work, and there’s no day I’m particularly happy at work these days. We are making progress on one set of important projects to get support in place so that’s a long term good but it’s hard to feel positive right now. This is going to take time to settle down.
I put myself to bed to work, and that helped me. I didn’t feel better by the time I had to pick up JB and do the working from an uncomfortable chair at JB’s activity thing, but at least it wasn’t a lot worse.
We had an “easy” night planned for dinner: a Costco Irish stew with a Costco loaf of bread. Not planned: JB injuring their hand. I bandaged it up to stabilize it and let them sleep in my bed because they’re a strange creature when it comes to their bed nest and they had a specific nesting ritual planned for tonight which they can’t do one handed. Here’s hoping the swelling goes down tomorrow and it’s not worse than a sprain.
Year 5, Day 311: There is simultaneously too much work and yet somehow not enough distraction from the fact that we’re waiting on multiple financial things: bonus announcements, raise announcements, our taxes and whether we owe or expect a refund. I hate waiting! It should be a good thing but it can’t be good until I actually have the pertinent information and see if it’s what we need. *GIMME*
I’m also extra anxious on the tax front. If we do owe more, I don’t want to give this administration a penny. If we are owed a refund, what’s the likelihood they’ll actually be paid? Seems low!
Around midday I wandered outside to find that the weather had changed on me. Not too hot, not too cold, just perfect. I still felt like garbage physically but the emotional uplift was temporarily so strong that I went and weeded the garden a bit. I opened all the windows and aired out the house.
That also reminded me that JB’s in between swimsuits sizes and Primary.com has a 60% off sale so I picked out clearance items in the next two sizes up for them. Smol Acrobat already has their next two sizes up so they’re good for now. I wish shopping for swimsuits for myself felt as simple as picking roughly the right sizes and then clicking BUY. Never has felt that way though.
Year 5, Day 312: My pain flares are coming more frequently and at a higher levels like it’s building up to a tsunami. I’m increasing my antidepressants dosage today for overall pain maintenance, and have an appointment to talk to the chronic pain pharmacist next week about any other pain meds I could try for the acute pain.
Whine: I have to set our eye appointments AGAIN. Didn’t we just do this?? I find that I dread eye appointments so much it feels like once a year per person is too much. Versus dental appointments which happen twice or thrice a year.
Oh hey I do not hate the La Croix Lime flavor! Our dentist had them out for some things and I gave it a try. Not bad! Now I’m hoping they have other flavors I like but I’m wary of trying a 12 pack.
I have to do my planks today, don’t I? I usually try to do them Sunday or Monday because we are not friends and the mental fortitude required to meet your mortal workout enemy for fifty six seconds a pop doesn’t exist by the end of the week. But Sunday and Monday my flu symptoms were overwhelming so here we are. Thursday planks. Three sets of 56-second planks. You know what helps? Taking off your socks before you plank so you’re not fighting to plank AND keep your toes from slipping out from under you. Protip.
While I was laid out on the floor, I also did 30 glute bridges and 40 lying leg raises. I live here now.
Year 5, Day 313: After I went into a 3 week flare up after my last massage, I worried that my body couldn’t handle massages anymore. But thinking about the timing more, it had to be coincidental because in that same week, I got very bad news and then we were also just a couple weeks out from the inauguration so my whole being was clenched tight as a drum in anticipation of the terrible that was able to roll out.
I’m now attributing the massive flare-up to the corresponding spike of stress going through the stratosphere in January. So I had my massage which helped my back that’s been a wreck since working from bed for so many nights, and have increased my antidepressants which may be sufficient to stave off the worst of my tsunami of anxiety. It does feel less intense than it’s been feeling so that’s something. We made some good decisions: to NOT volunteer tonight at the PTA thing. Only PiC was going to go but that left me managing the kids alone on the Friday night after a long as hell week. We decided the better choice was to accept a last minute invitation to see our friends on the weekend for an impromptu overnight, so we called it a night early.
February 24, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 302: This is the first day I’ve had to mostly myself (while still being responsible for JB) for so long I actually can’t remember when last I had this luxury. The morning was dedicated to setting up the back-up laptop (3 hours in and about 60% done). I planned to pop out for a spot of gardening (hauling soil) afterwards but my hips said absolutely not so instead the plan became trying to get a better rate from Comcast (also no dice, I have to wait til my promotional period is almost over because their offers right now stink).
For some time off my butt, I discarded the ideas to make pretzels, or mozzarella cheese, from kits. Both too time consuming and apparently you cannot make cheese from ultra pasteurized milk so we didn’t have the right ingredients. I mixed up a marinade for seared tuna steaks and baked a load of mini muffins from scratch using an easy recipe a PF buddy shared (turned out great but that zapped all my energy). The recipe WAS simple but the physical demands were too much and sent me to bed for two hours. Unfortunately, amid all the attempts at decompression, my plan from last week to hack off a foot of my hair was entirely forgotten. Drat!
This was the first homecooked meal I’ve made in at least that long, or longer and it’s no coincidence that it lands on my single day off but it was also fortuitous that I defrosted the fish two days earlier. We had seared tuna in a soy honey sesame marinade with rice and roasted broccoli. Mini muffins for dessert!
Year 5, Day 303: Double Mondays are the pits. I front loaded the day with three dog encounters and agreeing to dogsit for our elderly neighbor who has a family emergency to tend to soon. That will be weird, we haven’t had a dog around for ten months now. I felt like jumping out of my skin half the day, not sure why but speculated it was being too keyed up with stress and being full to the brim with emotions about the work and the world.
Still, I managed to avoid any meetings today so I was able to power through so much work, my personal backlog was as close to tamed as it ever gets.
The kids moved up in their self defense class to a more intense class. I was dreading this change because of the time of the new class, but I’ve tested a few ways to deal with it and might be making it work well enough to reduce my stress over the change.
I’m easing my way back into training this week. It’s both frustrating to have broken my streak and to feel so weak again after a couple bad weeks. It’s taken six months to feel a little stronger and so little time to feel like I’m back at the beginning. I know I’m not, but the first pushups and planks back are
Year 5, Day 304: What a frustrating day. I could feel the virus getting the better of me so I had to work from bed. Increasing chaos with several upcoming transitions at work means more of my attention is spent on answering questions (ohhhhh I hate questions!) than working. An hour of calls, and an hour and a half at the orthodontist, and no lunch. I was at the end of my tether by 530 pm by which point I had to figure out what to feed people. I didn’t try very hard. It was quick cheese pasta from Costco, pasta sauce, and mini corn dogs alongside bell peppers and carrots.
What is it with kids? I hollered for JB while I was trying to get dinner on the table and they just yelled “YES??” back. Get your young behind out here where I can actually talk to you. By the time they dragged their tardy butt out to the kitchen my patience had snapped. Is it too much to ask them to use their legs, blessed with the energy of healthy youth, to travel the less than 50 feet to the room where I am doing three things at once to hear me out? ARGH. I have told them both that I had better hear the running of feet when I call their names from now on, do not make me call you twice. The “or else” is unspoken but very loud nonetheless.
Bedtime was another six rounds of nonsense. PiC is as overworked as I am so he keeps falling asleep in the middle of reading to Smol Acrobat (I don’t blame him, I’d be falling asleep everywhere too, I just suffer from insomnia/painsomnia so I can’t. Almost wish I could). Smol Acrobat then escapes containment to come find me and reports “Daddy fell asweep”. Last night, JB was enabling the escapee by cuddling and offering to read to them, tonight they offered a session of calming stretches. NGH. GO TO BED. I chivvied two into bed and one out of bed (he said he had too much work tonight to sleep early) and set myself back up in my bed desk.
Year 5, Day 305: It’s a takeout sort of day, crammed with meetings and running around, but I’m drawing a total blank on what to get. Also, my throat is killing me. I was optimistic and worked at my desk today for the first time all week but that was a bad call. It ate up too much energy. Or maybe falling sick was using up all the energy and it wouldn’t have mattered? Hard to say! Back to bed for me tomorrow. Tonight all I can do is try to get as much work done as possible before dinner and not work late again.
Instead I ruminate on hypernormalization and the feeling that our democracy, flawed and broken as it was, is completely going away. We have to keep taking the kids to school, to their activities, feeding and caring for them as normal. We have to keep up the house, put gas in the car, menu plan or get food on the table one way or another. We can’t just stop.
And from a money perspective, I’m worried because I have no idea what to do. I am working my tail off to keep my job and keep my income for however long that can last – we need the income to pay our bills, my staff needs their income to pay their bills. Even as things are falling to a shambles, we need to pay the rent and put food on the table.
But it also feels like I should prepare for disasters that I’ve never contemplated before – like the FDIC being dismantled and US banking systems failing. I’m contemplating moving some emergency money to an overseas bank (TBD) so that we’re not completely destitute if this attack on our entire country and every institution wrecks our finances.
Thing is, I am also under no illusions about there being any easy escape from this country if things go that deeply wrong. There is no safe haven. Canada doesn’t want us. Mexico doesn’t either, I’m sure. We’ve been awful. There is no country that isn’t racist, sexist, that isn’t prone to right wing hardliners and Nazis. We stand and we fight, we help others who are less fortunate – that’s our first response. We yell at our representatives to do something and we take care of our communities and the most vulnerable.
But I am not me if I don’t plan for multiple contingencies. It’s just never been less clear what roadmap or hierarchy of contingencies begin to make sense in all of this.
Year 5, Day 306: I’m deep in the hiring slog and was struck by a memory. When I was new to one of my first four year jobs, the office manager called me into the office. She told me that my brother had applied, could I work with him? She wouldn’t consider him if I said no. I was taken aback and felt the NO! well up from practically my toes. I could NOT work with him. I knew what he was like – flaky, bombastic, thought he knew better than everyone. It shamed me to my core to think of being associated with him at my workplace, where I was earning the money that paid our rent and for my school, and the idea of that livelihood being threatened near about choked me.
She didn’t call him back and we averted what seemed in the moment to be a potential crisis. I worked so many hours there that I paid for my entire college education and continued to pay the rent and all our bills. I agonized over that decision here, even. And it hit me all over again today: Was I wrong? Could that have been the stabilizing influence, the chance that he needed, to get himself on a path that would have led him through his dark moments? Or would he have done what he always did and screw it up somehow, only to take me down with him?
I don’t know. I don’t know why it bit at me today.
On a lighter note, PiC did the Costco run so we have provisions again and we have survived the week that kept kicking me in the shins. I’ve been getting sicker all week and will need the whole weekend to try to not get worse. Getting better is a whole other ask and may require the symbolic sacrifice of something.
February 17, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 295: Today was demoralizing. Or started off demoralized and just stayed that way. It’s been a long long haul of fibro and chronic fatigue taking turns kicking me in the teeth every day, for almost two solid weeks. I have very little spirit left.
I did get an enormous amount of work done, considering how much of my morning I lost to other people. Honestly it feels like most of my days are about other people and their needs. I don’t love this. It’s part of the management gig but sigh because after I get through the exhausting if necessary peopling, then it’s a full day of my own work waiting for me and there simply are not enough hours in the day.
Checked off many boxes at home, too: finished one portion of our complicated taxes; got our churning credit card in the mail and promptly made 5 purchases that I’d been holding (3 bills, a giant order for Lakota families, ordered my medication refills); scheduled a notary appointment for PiC to get paperwork finalized; scheduled a last minute appointment for JB to get their braces adjusted after a tooth semi-sort-of-suddenly fell out. It goes from wiggly for weeks to IT’S ABOUT TO COME OUT without any predictability. Normally that doesn’t matter but, with braces, each time a tooth falls out, it’s a whole thing with the wire poking them and everything.
I commiserated with a friend in the same position of limbo and we at least feel a little more confident that we’re both in the same boat. Stinks for both of us but… misery, company, and so on.
Year 5, Day 296: I started the day running at warp speed, getting JB out of the house before 8 am for the braces fix, and then getting back into work mode all before I normally get settled into work.
Despite how hard things are right now, and we’re both bone tired between the two kids, the two jobs that are Really Hard right now, and everything else we’re juggling, I’m also deeply grateful for our financial stability. We have a dry safe home (atmospheric river incoming). Our kids never go hungry (SmolAc’s wails of despondency when they suddenly need a snack notwithstanding). They don’t have any poverty-related health issues. We can afford for me to have therapy and to work with a trainer to work on my health issues. This GFM came across my radar from the book community as this author and her family are navigating a third bout of homelessness. They prepared as much as they could but they’re facing a real uphill battle. I nearly broke myself over what, 16 years?, to keep my nuclear family off the streets and paying their bills but a huge part of that success was because my hard work was combined with luck in a number of areas. This family’s working hard, they need a bushel of good luck. Failing that, for now, they need a few bushels of cash to see them through til that luck breaks their way.
*”all this could be worse” isn’t my coping strategy even if true. Knowing that doesn’t make anything feel less hard or bad. It’s just an observation because I’ve been there – barely making ends meet while working myself to the bone. Working this hard in precarity is different from working this hard and being relatively secure. We’re not the kind of secure where we never have to worry but the (not wolves because I like them but something else that stands in for the olden idea of wolves) are a lot further from our doors than other folks’.
Year 5, Day 297: I’m eating these very tasty brisket chips and just realized that most of PiC’s local friends (“the guys” we call them) make or buy yummy treats for holiday gifts. They all bake, or whatever you do to create some of these treats, and I find that yet another reason they are delightful. Other reasons: they’re solidly dependable, caring, family-oriented in a healthy not-creepy GOP sort of way. When we had that emergency a few years back and I asked them for directions, without explaining until the very end why and definitely without asking for help because I don’t DO that, they immediately mobilized anyway and got to PiC before I did (they were closer). They have reasonable, healthy partnerships whether they have kids or not.
I took this gaming Alignment Quiz the other day and could not answer question 15 because I have no idea what local people think of me or if they give two hoots about my well-being. I CAN answer that for PiC. His folks show up. Another guy in the group had to move his dad into a nursing home and all the guys were there when he needed help clearing out the mess left behind. They’re all in their 50s and they’re still moving friends! And no egos to speak of so no one got injured. I really like that about them.
Year 5, Day 298: My contributions to dinner all week have been takeout. Ordered burgers at the start of the week, picking up pizza today because we’re a mere two miles away and still somehow not in their delivery radius and I’m not willing to pay their delivery fees. I should do the comparison on the time vs fees.
I have so much hair after 3 years of no haircuts, I could chop 8 inches off and still have plenty of room to fix the mess before it gets up to my shoulders. IS IT TIME??
PiC discovered frozen mini corn dogs at Costco! We love them. What is it about foods in finger food sizes that makes them so much more enticing? Normally one corn dog would be a serving size. Pretty sure I had 9 mini corn dogs.
Year 5, Day 299: Trying to find some good in the small moments even as I compile my list of reasons to contact our Congresspeople. There’s a rhythm to stirring a pot of oatmeal for everyone else to breakfast on (too mushy for me). I reserved a whole half hour for myself to just do work without speaking to anyone else after my first meeting of the day. That gave me a tiny bit of equilibrium back.
The Costco shipments to the Lakota reservation are getting unstuck, supplies are getting to people who need them. The first family this month asked only for space heaters for all the trailers. We sent enough for everyone. The second family has a house that’s more winter tight (but that’s all relative) so they’ve been giving bed space to folks whose homes aren’t. They needed blankets and food as they hardly had enough for themselves. We sent a huge (Costco FTW!) shipment of food and blankets. I’m working on the third family but we’ll be clean out of money pretty quick. They have ten family members listed too. I’m trying to shake out a bit more cash because right now I can only get them a couple weeks worth of food along with the toilet paper, shampoo, conditioner, and soap. I’d like to add a few more things: toothbrushes, toothpaste, detergent, more food.
I absolutely know there’s no time for a dog right now, I can’t even make time to go borrow one for a walk. My soul doesn’t care about reality or responsibilities, it yearns for a dog snoring at the foot of my bed again. Can’t. But want.
February 10, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 288: A pain flare kicked my ass this weekend. Still is. Some of it’s probably the barometric pressure shifting on me, a good amount of it will be the stress lately and sleeping badly because Smol Acrobat bunked with us for a couple nights. “I wike your bed better, it’s bigger den our bed” they observed. Then why did I keep waking up to you sleeping on my head?
Trudeau’s speech made me sad in that, yes! We know this is unhinged behavior that none of us (North Americans who aren’t garbage) want and we’re also fighting what feels like a losing battle against it all. We’re still fighting but man was it hard not to feel so much shame to be an American in this moment.
“I hate most people, it takes all of my skill to hide that!” – Blake, Madam Secretary.
Boy do I feel that.
Half my day was eaten up with calls. I’m living my nightmare job right now. May this pass soon.
Contacted all our Congresspeople to vote against these nominations.
Year 5, Day 289: My stress cravings are getting very specific. I catch myself wanting a Cinnabon most days. Or an old fashioned donut plus a donut hole. Or a ribeye. Today, though, I survived on a glamorous half inch slice of quiche and small Gatorade because I had no appetite. My pain was so intense last night that I caved and took a tramadol. I’ve not taken one in two years for a very good reason: it alleviates my pain for a little while and then I pay for it five times over with side effects. Feeling like my bones are lava has become almost routine on bad days, but this is Day 3 of extremely high pain. So high that it actually distracted me from work. Work is usually my way of distracting myself from the pain and it’s rare for anything to break my hyperfocus when that’s in gear. The tramadol bought me 3 hours of blunted tolerable pain. It also bought me 18 hours of severe nausea. These trade-offs are NOT worth it. But what choice do I have? We really need better pain control options. This is awful.
PiC had to take over my school runs and JB’s activities today because I felt so awful. I couldn’t even feel guilty.
Year 5, Day 290: Pacing myself this week has been the pits. I’ve been mostly bedridden because sitting and standing are so fatiguing they send my pain through the roof into the stratosphere. I refuse to take the tramadol again, that is SO not worth it.
You know what’s great? Giant spoonful of peanut butter. Can’t take away pain or fatigue or that river of lava flowing through my bones but it is DELICIOUS.
Was super proud of a friend who has committed to making calls to Senators even though it was hard for her. I provided all the scripts and phone numbers I had collected from Celeste Pewter and cheered her from bed.
Year 5, Day 291: From Courtney Milan’s newsletter, the word I was searching for last week for this surreal moment in time: “I learned a word this week: hypernormalization.
It’s the word people used to describe what was happening in the Soviet bloc countries in the 1970s and 1980s, as people went about their daily lives deeply aware that the center would not hold, that everything was falling apart, but with nothing left to do but pretend that life would go on as they understood it.
It’s a word that encompasses the moment when a large number of us know what is happening to our country—know what we are seeing—but engage in a mass, country-wide kayfabe to keep on doing the things we need to do to survive as individuals, even knowing that some individuals won’t make it and that the world we know is rapidly deteriorating around us.”
I think she’s 100% right about this too: “I firmly believe that if nothing is done, historians will place the end of the United States as a democratic, constitutional republic somewhere between a few days ago and a few months from now.”
I’ve been checking in on my people and making sure they know we’re here for them. I don’t know how, or if, this country survives these body blows. Maybe it doesn’t. But we as individuals and people may survive if we take care of each other.
We expect a few lump sums of money this year that’s mostly meant to pay for the roof but I’m also earmarking direct aid for people I’ll never meet offline who are in need or are community organizers or activists themselves.
Year 5, Day 292: I love Smitten Kitchen, I knew they wouldn’t fail me when I didn’t know how I was going to cook those spareribs I got on sale.
I spaced out the cooking process across DAYS because I haven’t been able to sit up or be out of bed most of this week. Mixed the spices one day. Dredged the ribs another session. Then popped them in the oven in the morning to bake for HOURS. A friend asked me how I get anything / everything done / survive between my health and my life. Well. This kind of budgeting is one way.
You know what’s funny about sending holiday cards super late? Five friends have texted me delighted to have received it. This doesn’t happen during the year-end holidays, no one cares or has time to care at that time of year.
Costco had no eggs and we are just about out. I feel vaguely like a failure of a quartermaster because I’m usually on top of these things and get enough supplies to hold us over for a while or ration supplies to make it stretch. PiC was advised to get there between 9 and 10 am to get eggs so they do have some, they just run out quickly. 
UPDATE: Children’s Wisconsin hospital reinstates gender-affirming care for trans teen after canceling in wake of Trump’s executive order