January 12, 2026
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 259: You know a thing I miss? When people enjoyed media such that for most books or tv shows or movies, you could Google the title and find at least 5 sites dissecting various plot lines and explaining what happened. Sometimes I can’t hear or understand what’s going on and those explainers were great. I also miss Google working properly but those days are also long done.
Currently steeping in senioritis. All the more ironic that I didn’t have senioritis as a student. Deep breaths. Make it to the end of the year. Focus on things that matter: getting help out to people who need it. Whine to the friend who is currently happily unemployed and doesn’t mind empathizing that I keep having to go to work.
Huh. It’s funny. This is usually where I tell myself that people (and dogs) depend on me as a surefire way to make me shake off the malaise and buckle down. Now the thought just makes me tired and resentful. My brain has evolved past only prioritizing everyone else as survival?
Year 6, Day 260: I FIXED THE PRINTER. I actually fixed it yesterday but the printer refused to admit that I had indeed safelisted it on the ISP for a full 24 hours. Today I went over to give it another piece of my mind, I have so many of them to spare, and saw that the wifi icon was finally lit up. I WIN.
*snoopy victory dance*
Pondering my evening workout selection (in the 8-11 minutes I might have in an evening to squeeze it in, so don’t let me misrepresent this as anything so glamourous as actual workout time), all my muscles responded as if to the Little Red Hen: not I, said the arms. Not I, said the legs!
In the end, everyone got it.
60 squats. 51 band pullaparts. 45 calf raises. 47 bicep curls (5 lbs). Trying to remember if I actually did do that 3rd set of curls or if SmolAc distracted me from them. Probably the latter. I don’t think I’d be able to make it through a full set of 25. Or 15. Or 5. An hour later, my arm was protesting the temerity of picking up a 2 lb weight to put it back in its place. Who’s going to be sorry tomorrow morning? Everyone.
Year 6, Day 261: I’ve been testing two phone cases because the first pick turned out to be awful quality. I really like and prefer the colorful red one (for differentiation more than anything else) but the material was so smooth that it’s slippery. Ms Butterfingers over here doesn’t need any help dropping my phone. But the clear case, which feels a little “stickier” is so similar to others that I worry about the case of the mistaken phone recurring.
Once we were on a trip with friends and after bidding us goodnight, our friend departed for her hotel room. After another hour, PiC and I packed it in as well, only, his phone was missing. We retraced all our steps from the whole day and found nothing. I was a mess thinking of what we’d have to do to get it replaced and set up again while traveling out of the country. The next morning, our friend handed over his phone – they had identical cases and she’d taken his by accident! It’s been ten years and I still remember the heartburn. Maybe I can add some creatively distinguishing paint to the case.
Every so often, when I look at a site and close it after a cursory browse, they get hold of my email address and email me some discount code. I appreciate a discount as much as the next bargain shopper but this is going way too far. I hate that they’re managing to get my email address and contact me. UGH. This is another nudge to move fully to DuckDuckGo.
Year 6, Day 262: It’s about to be Girl Scout cookie season again and a) I’m still recovering from paying the December credit card bills (thanks past me for upping our cash cushion) and b) realizing that not even the thought of stress eating GSCs takes the edge off work stress anymore so my body’s clicked over into an anti-eating mode. That’s not unusual. It tends to be either/or. Now I mostly feel like I have an empty stomach and not hungry at the same time. It’s weird. But what a savings!(?)
I’m getting really irritated by the constant religion dropping that keeps coming into JB’s after school activity. It feels especially insulting in this Christo-fascist period of America and I’ve started researching alternate places and activities to replace this once our prepaid membership runs out instead of renewing. No, I won’t bother telling them why, I don’t think they’re reasonable people about this because reasonable people wouldn’t be dripping their Christianity all over everyone at their workplace that is not a church. In my experience, when the gratuitous God and Devil talk starts, it’s all downhill from there for those of us who aren’t Christians. And even for some of us who are. At least a few Christian friends were appalled when I shared it with them and said they’d be mad enough to leave as well. A secular activity is not the time or place.
Year 6, Day 263: It feels like a minute ago (probably 6 years) we had a new toaster oven and thirty seconds later it was all gucky and the glass door was impossible to see through. I’m told this is normal but am sure that other people’s toaster ovens are shiny and clean. I spotted our brand new can of Barkeeper’s Friend and surely this is the precise kind of thing you use that on? Crossed my fingers and set to work because this glass is embarrassing. Not that anyone sees it but us, but still.
After an hour and three rounds of paste application, that’s several hundred layers of grime removed! One corner of the glass is actually clean! The rest of the grime is still very stubbornly clinging but that has to be another weekend’s project. My hyperfixation wants to work at it until it’s all clean in one go because that would be so satisfying but that’s not worth wrecking my hands, shoulders and/or back for weeks.
January 5, 2026
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 252: Boy did I overestimate my ability to get anything (everything) done today. I’m thoroughly wiped out from all the holiday stuff but now running into the towering to-do list built up by pushing off all kinds of chores until after the holidays. I did fix the external access to our storage server. That got us back on one track and that’s great.
I did not figure out why my printer still refuses to connect to the wifi. It may have to be a mystery that goes forever unsolved if this drags on much longer, PiC is rooting for a replacement at this point. That would sound brilliant if we hadn’t already spent so much money replacing so many other electronics and weren’t entirely shopped out. We still have to make a decision, though. On that and replacing the 14 year old iPad that is so many versions behind that it can’t handle many common apps. We’re considering getting JB set up with Procreate to learn how to do digital art in addition to their other media.
In the absence of arms or a brain willing to work, I’m reduced to paying some early January bills, cleaning up the end of 2025 spreadsheets and moving us into the 2026 spreadsheets. It stinks that I was so busy in the holiday period that I ran out of time to make a last few donations before the end of the year, speaking of money.
If you’ve got half an hour and are interested in how dishwashers work, this YouTube video had me fascinated for a bit. (Admittedly the bar for entertainment is currently quite low.)
Year 6, Day 253: The clothes (hand me downs and new gifts) have been squared away, as has the laundry, huzzah! Returns have been initiated and dropped off, woo!
Now it’s time for (gulp) the toys and other gifts to be homed. I cleaned and tidied and decluttered in December, hoping it would reduce this feeling of being swamped by STUFF but there is still so much stuff. SO much. I’m pushing this off another day. Or week.
Please enjoy Elmo and Robin Williams.
Year 6, Day 254: Tis the season of scammers. I nearly got got when I searched for Darn Tough socks sales and found them for 60% off. I picked a bunch, threw them in my cart on my phone so I’d have the list, then went to my laptop to check for cashback. It’s a good thing my purchasing process includes extra steps because I found the site on Rakuten but not the sale prices. Hm. I was pretty sure that it was user error at first but after confused flicking back and forth between the phone and laptop, I noticed “-us” in the URL for the site on my phone. A quick search of the URL and the word legit turned up a Facebook post from Darn Tough pointing out that they only do business at DarnTough.com. A-ha! No cheap non-existent wool socks for me.
We tried to order sandwiches for dinner one night but after a few searches turned up sites with their name but no location where I knew there was a location, I told PiC best not to risk a restaurant search scam, they are super common, and we just drove over to the place to put in our order.
When I needed to order from our local sushi shop, I searched for it online and of course CoPilot puts up a search result with the right name and address, but a completely different site, some “wix” site. That was the quickest and easiest to spot. It’s exhausting that we have to be this much more careful thanks to the slop that’s taking over the Internet.
Year 6, Day 255: Some of my offline friendships are now 20-30 years old. Folks are showing up to gatherings with very grey (and rather distinguished) hair. It’s a touch unsettling to realize we’re all in our 40s and 50s. One of our friends is about to turn 60.
Also unsettling: the number of people I care about who are outsourcing their thinking and writing to ChatGPT (which should spontaneously combust and wither away, I hate it all so much). Your Christmas card? Really? Why?
I’ve gone three more rounds with my printer that steadfastly refuses to work, claiming that the MAC address is being filtered. The MAC address was already manually added to our router’s allowed list, so there’s no reason for it to continue complaining about this! But it persists. It’s possible that the printer will win this standoff and we’ll have to replace the darn thing. That will deeply annoy me since we still have a brand new replacement ink cartridge waiting in the wings.
Year 6, Day 256: Win win: Taking four of JB’s old ratty pencil cases that still worked fine, I organized everything in one of our technology supply drawers and labeled them all. Now we don’t have to bin the plastic and we have the semblance of order in the one drawer. It’s not pretty but who cares, it’s in a shut drawer anyway.
I pieced together a coupon stacking deal at Walgreens for a Tresemme shampoo/conditioner, Garnier shampoo/conditioner, and 2 large Eucerin lotions for $37 after stacking 2 coupon codes and 2 manufacturer coupons. I expect $13 Walgreens cash (which I will need to spend sooner than later) and 3% cashback from MrRebates. That took me back a couple decades to the days of 5% savings accounts and loads of Free After Rebate deals.
December 29, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 245: Because I’m a giant sucker, I’ve written to the city asking about next year’s holiday craft fair for details so we can discuss whether JB might want to table there. They were prompt in supplying the information from this year for my reference. The table fee is $70 for a six hour event and they had nearly 700 attendees last year. I think we’d need at least 10% of the attendees to buy one thing for it to be worthwhile. Still, it’s worth having them learn to do the math to see how much they’d have to sell just to break even. I shared the information with them and they very enthusiastically said they want to do it.
Related: I’m very annoyed with myself for looking at a sticker printing service the other day that seemed like it was a good prospect but didn’t save it and now cannot figure out AT ALL what it was called.
Complaining just inspired me to go try searching my browsing history! Luckily I remembered correctly that it was on my phone. My laptop browsing history would have been impossible to manage. Turns out it was CatPrint. Sure wish I knew why I came across them in the first place – did someone recommend them? I have no idea. But I thought we could try them out in January and do a few sets of stickers to see how they might sell online, along with buttons. Magnets are too heavy to sell online, shipping costs a mint.
That annoyance has transmuted into mild annoyance with myself for continuing to create more work for myself in the pursuit of teaching JB to make money from their art. I think it’s not just because they definitely want to earn their own money but also because I worry about them having an unrealistic viewpoint on whether they can make a living in art. It’s precarious, from what I’ve observed.
Anyway, they’re interested in making and selling stickers still. But/and that means I have to learn how to set up their designs for printing as stickers. But this is a good thing for both of us maybe?
Year 6, Day 246: I knew it was likely coming but I’m still sad that Vogmask is likely winding down their operations due to low demand. Their available inventory is incredibly low now. I am very glad that I stocked up big time months ago, and wonder if I shouldn’t just buy out the small sizes they have left. These masks fit us well and the kids are willing to wear them for long stretches because they’re reasonably comfortable. I’m not looking forward to having to find a replacement supplier for kid masks. š
Update: I bought another 18 masks. This should last us about 18 months with current heavy use?
My fight with all things electronic continues. Our backup server is being sixteen kinds of a pill and randomly decided that it doesn’t like our internal log in protocols. After SIX HOURS of fighting to figure out why, it decided it was totally fine with them what are you fussing about? BUT THEN that meant our external log in protocols were borked instead. What in the!!! Essentially this means that all my autobackups are paused for two or four weeks because I don’t have any stretch of time to sit down and fight with it again to straighten out the external protocols. URGH.
Year 6, Day 247: I’m a sucker part 2: I decided to try making a Ko-Fi for JB’s art. My own Ko-Fi doesn’t get much action but I’ve had one and navigated it a long time so I’m familiar enough to chance it. Bonus: they have actual products to sell. I really like the ease of Big Cartel but we’re limited to 5 listings for the free site. I don’t see any limits on listings on Ko-Fi so far.
I also spotted this cute listing for a downloadable coloring book and thought: that could be a thing they could also make! They’ve made coloring pages for SmolAc in the past. Maybe digital for online purchases first, and later I can figure out a print version for booth sales. I posted books and shirts that I designed on Amazon Merch several years ago and I seem to recall there is possibly a way to order author copies at cost. If that still exists, I could use it solely for that purpose and delete the listing after.
A reminder to myself: never use Sticker Mule, they went full-on MAGA a while ago. Other creator friends use Sticker Ninja, and they don’t appear to be evil, so I’m exploring them. The nice thing is that, unlike Catprint, they prefer to add their own cutlines and that means I only have to provide the digitized art.
Year 6, Day 248: I managed to visit one of my oldest (time of friendship) friends this week and I cannot tell you how much of a lift it gave my spirits. I always forget how easy it is to just gab about everything going on in our lives at the moment we see each other again. It can be a year or a decade since we’ve heard from one another. It doesn’t matter, we’re somehow still the same people who love each other regardless of how our lives above evolved. Happy bonus, our kids get along like a house on fire. They did not want to part ways.
Also? DANG we look old(er). Half my friends have grey/white hair. It looks great on them but it’s definitely jarring to go from my memory of them in high school to today. I know my face has aged tremendously since 2020, I shouldn’t be surprised they have too.
I’ve been thinking more and more about random things I want to do instead of work. Like I had to think hard about that. But things have been coming up that I’d just like to do. There’s a 2 day course that a local outdoors shop gives on treating emergency injuries out in the wilderness. I try never to be in a position where I AM in the wilderness without medical care but I’d still like that skill. It appeals to the hypervigilant in me. Also the me that watched a few too many episodes of Royal Pains. Possibly also the part of me that wants to be useful in hard situations.
Year 6, Day 249: First it’s our out of touch CEO pushing “AI” (it’s NOT INTELLIGENT!) on us, demanding that we incorporate it into everything when it doesn’t do even a tenth of what they believe it does. Then there’s our customer base’s use of the same which is eroding our ability to run a business that offers an ethical and accurate professional service. I spend part of every single day trying to mitigate the effects of fraud committed by using gen AI tools and it feels like a losing battle from that side. I refuse to use it in my day to day work and have to waste my time redoing the work that it comes up with. Now it’s LinkedIn pestering me to add “AI” key terms to my profile. GET AWAY FROM ME. ARGH.
So many companies are so all in on this garbage even though it does not increase productivity at all, I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull out of this nosedive when it finally crashes. I am whatever the secular version is of praying very hard that it will finally crash and this incessant parade of clueless mouthpieces demanding that we incorporate AI into every part of our lives. I can hope.
December 22, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 238: A day. This has been one. Two meetings that weren’t terrible but stacked on top of an hour with a friend dropping by to pick up hand me down and another hour and a half ferrying JB to the doctor and then to pick up a promised treat as a reward for controlling their breathing to manage their anxiety. This day has felt like a LOT.
I came into this morning carrying a whole load of aches from last night’s workout. Last week was my best workout week all year, and every bit of it was hard won. I worked out every single night trying to complete the week, no nights off, and finally checked off the last exercise on Saturday. Starting right back up on Sunday I very boldly started with two sets of 16 push ups at the end of which my nose nearly suffered the consequences of my poor choices. Long story short, today’s arms are very angry at yesterday’s arms, and the rest of me was griping over the other poor choices.
Year 6, Day 239: Half my day was bogged down in brain fog with depression. When that finally passed, I was bathed in anxiety. Then it looped back to brain fog with anxiety. Super!
I got my work done but it always feels worse getting it done when carrying the brickloads of emotional stuff.
We’re scraping out the barrels to manage the year end workload but I can’t even relax with the end of the year because I’ve been looking into next year’s requirements and they’re bad. I’m prepping as much support as I can while also working my ass off to get this year squared away but it still feels like ten tons about to fall on our heads. Trying to think of any other ways I can prep us.
A quick chat with a senior person at another company in a similar role revealed that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Their company is considered the premiere income generator in their corporate portfolio and their GM constantly feels like she’s behind the ball too. It’s both mildly comforting that I’m not alone and horrifying that there’s no winning. We’ll be punished for under-performing and for meeting expectations. Just in different ways. UGH.
Year 6, Day 240: I used to browse Extra Petite for professional wardrobe ideas and links. We’re currently shopping for cold weather clothing for everyone because PiC’s cooking up a cold adventure trek for January. I’m still in the Petite / Short range for height but I’ve catapulted from size 00 to 6/8/Medium. It’s very weird. It’s also weird (to me) that Jean still fits 00P. Do other people’s bodies just go back to their old normal after having children? How? Not even my feet are normal! Ugh. I had to replace my boots, couldn’t go back to my really nice Patagonia winter coat so I’m still wearing my maternity winter coat, and my tees don’t fit right. The tees might be more because I’ve been working hard to build strength for more than a year, because my arms went from stick thin to very much not. I’m not muscular but I would not object to being! As I was telling my weightlifting bestie, I don’t care what the number on the scale is if I am feeling strong and actually AM strong. I will confess to asking my trainer to add exercises to help me define my arm muscles more, that would be nice, too.
At some point I need to get these trousers tailored to fit my lumpy potatoes body. I bought two very nice pairs of pants back in the spring and they’re too long. Maaaybe I could venture to hem it myself but I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I don’t want to ruin these very nice, very expensive pants.
Year 6, Day 241: Whenever it’s time to face down planks, only managing one a day these days, I call JB over to do them with me. We’re on 46-second planks. They also have good pushups form because we have been working with both kids to learn how to do a good pushup. SmolAc can do almost three real pushups!
Lucky them, this means they are prepared to do planks for their sport warmups. Of course youth will carry them through that stuff just as well as training does at this age. But it gives me a brief flash of satisfaction that their work at home is good grounding.
I’ve been including them in (age and size appropriate) weight training. They’re allowed to use my little one pound weights and to do half the reps that I do. Then SmolAc goes rogue rigging up weird weights+bands set ups which I have to make them undo so they don’t permanently stretch out my bands.
Year 6, Day 242: Having a prolonged moment of being dissatisfied with my face. Mostly it’s the rosacea redness that makes me feel some kind of way about taking pictures with old friends when we reunite briefly. I’m asking another friend to remind me of the product she uses to cover it up but I don’t just want to cover it up. I really want it gone. Alas, that’s unlikely to happen. Even if I spring for laser treatment, that may not remove it completely, and it can recur after treatment.
This sucks.
I don’t like hating to see my own face in the mirror and in pictures.
December 15, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 231: We’re scheduling our holiday plans, and some old friends popped up and wanted to get together. I started thinking about the pair of friends from that group who’d had a falling out around a decade ago. Friend A was a contractor and Friend B happened to need their services. They didn’t approach Friend A directly, it was just discussed in our group chats and Friend A offered their services. Then it all went wrong.
Friend B accepted. Friend A did the thing and then presented a bill. Friend B was taken aback. You never said anything about billing!
It’s true, they didn’t. But, this is my actual job and livelihood!, Friend A rebutted. It was a five figure bill. It was paid but they’ve not spoken sincem
Personally I have offered my professional services for which I could bill $60+ an hour to many friends, family, and their kids over the years. I’ve never once charged them or asked for money. They’ve never offered. I haven’t ever had a problem with it. However, I have always had, but for the one recession period, a job paying my bills so while it was extra work on my plate, it wasn’t a loss in the same way doing non-paying work instead of paying work would be for a contractor. But on the flip side, unless we bartered, I wouldn’t take free work from a friend. I would pay them. I have paid friends for favors that felt like above and beyond when they insisted no payment was necessary.
To my mind, both of them screwed up. Friend A absolutely should have been clear and upfront that they would be happy to help and would need to bill their usual fee. Friend B shouldn’t have expected free work from a friend unless it was explicitly said to be on the F&F freebie plan. Anyway, I had a brief moment thinking about whether they’d be in the same room together again all these years later. We’re all old now but are we all mature?
Year 6, Day 232: The pressure at work has been 110 degrees F for a while now, so I’m not loving the extra layer of low grade pre-holiday anxiety that comes around this week every year. I’ve got the majority of the 18(?) family gifts ready to go. Our new year card is now half designed. If I can get that done by Wednesday we might have it in hand in time to prep envelopes. I try to have these cards done before we start the family circuit so we can hand deliver those and save on postage. I’ve got 9 more staff gifts to purchase out of pocket because our new overlords are cheap and won’t let us treat them to the usual holiday tradition to which we’ve become accustomed. Plus cards to write for all of them. I’ll be damned if I let them go unthanked for their efforts this year because corporate is cheap. I’ve already contributed to the daycare collection for the teachers but I still owe SmolAc’s teachers a personal thank you card and gifts. Those are well overdue because they’re hard to write, we really liked them and I hate saying goodbye to good carers.
I do all the holiday legwork because a) anxiety and b) PiC will do all of the holiday driving and childminding while I still have to work through the end of the year. It’s a reasonable split of labor. I’d rather do this stuff than try to juggle kids and working.
Year 6, Day 233: I caught a 40% off sale on socks and ordered 300 pairs (many bulk packs) for the Lakota Dialysis center for $200. Last year I ran out of money before I could get to the socks part of the request so I figured it’d be best to jump on the sale now.
I put Laura Linney’s The Big C on for background noise and have such mixed feelings about it. Her character can be caring but OMFG she can be so awful too. She intervenes in the altercation caused by Marlene being racist at Andrea, but doesn’t call Marlene out on her racism? Her students “reenacted the battle at Wounded Knee”?? And the stereotypes. The guy who overstayed his visa, calling him illegal, making him a scammer who tries to trick a girl into marrying him for a green card. The smart basically shut-in Asian student they hire to tutor her son who has no life because she only cares about going to Harvard – her brother calling her a “geisha”. Her son trying to bribe his tutor to cheat for him. They’re all so entitled in such weird ways. I don’t know, there are some really poignant moments and then the whole family acts so .. messy.
Year 6, Day 234: Alright I pulled another late night to finish shopping for staff and finish the holiday card. The writing is the harder bit than the photos, that took 1.5 hours to add, edit and prune. I never talk about our travel or really personal stuff, so it takes me a good long while to write the mundane silly stuff that makes up our day to day. I enjoy reading about other people’s travel but it feels too laundry list or braggy for me to write even though even our travel is quite boring compared to most folks. Anyway, I prefer to make the every day stuff our focus.
Back of the card designed, ā
. Address book glared at to figure out number to order, ā
. Order placed using a 50% off and free shipping promo code, plus Rakuten for cash back and a gift card Past Me thoughtfully arranged even though I wasn’t specifically thinking of this use? ā
. I redeemed points for that gift card so this order for $60* was covered entirely without paying out of pocket. Go me!
*It cost a little more than usual because I needed some envelopes and it turns out you can’t just buy some matching envelopes, you have to buy enough for your whole order. These definitely won’t arrive in time to put in the mail before year end, so I won’t even worry about trying to address and mail them until after the new year. I have enough on my plate.
Year 6, Day 235: I’ve owned cell phones for… Hum. Many many years. 25? Something like that. Received (did not choose it) my first smartphone 20ish years ago. I’ve turned off the haptics on every single one of them within minutes of using it. This is the first phone that I’ve left them on for. Is this my sign of aging?
Ally sent me an email “Get ready for tax season.”
Ally, I’m ALWAYS getting ready for tax season! I update my tax related records all throughout the year so it’s only waiting on the final forms from various places to finish off the package.
December 8, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 224: The majority of the time, when I hear a friend is getting divorced, I’m relieved and happy for them. Relieved because they’re finally choosing themselves, happy that they are allowed to choose to exit the relationship instead of having to stay trapped and miserable. There are some times, though, that the separation and filing seems came out of the blue and the friend in question is taken by surprise. It’s not always antagonistic thankfully but I do feel terrible for their feeling blindsided. We’ve just gotten news of the third one this year. I don’t know what’s going on, nor am I going to ask – that’s not for me to pry into, they can share if they are interested – I just hope they’re able to find a way to peacefully co-exist for the sake of their kid(s) and their own mental health. I see the impacts of antagonistic divorced pairs on the people themselves, along with their kids, and it really stinks.
Year 6, Day 225: I carved out time to call the propane company for a Lakota family that was running out of propane. There was a lower price per gallon if we bought more than the minimum so I went for a big refill for them. It cuts our cash in half but I think the remaining families have varying levels of needs so we might be able to help more families than just two.
I’ve asked the coordinators to give me all the information so that as soon as I can breathe, I can do some shopping research. I’m running on empty this week working a boggling number of hours, so I haven’t been able to do more than the barest of minimums.
All the families I pulled are asking for the most basic needs: propane, heaters, food. We get a lower price per gallon for ordering more, and we had enough donations come in, some from you wonderful readers <3, to allow us to take advantage of the lower pricing.
Year 6, Day 226: We were invited to share a house rental with some newish to us friend-people for a long weekend next year. I enjoy their company for half days at a time but I’m awfully leery of the commitment of sharing living space, and having to cook communal meals together, for multiple days in a row. That sounds like a lot. Their kids are alright but they are a whole handful and then some. Plus, I’m really not a confident cook – the idea of having to cook for strangers sounds downright stressful. Easy foods like breakfast, sure, we can manage things like eggs, sausage, toast/bagels, fruit, etc. But dinners feel complicated and intimidating.
Talking it over with PiC, the activities sound like fun, mostly for the kids, and I’m not opposed. It’s all the OTHER stuff around it that sound at least offputting if not nerve-wracking.
Year 6, Day 227: I was complaining about how much I hate my job, more HR fuckery this week of course, and then catching up on Courtney Milan’s newsletter was a sobering reminder of why I can’t just cut and run:
I was hoping (ha ha ha ha, look at me) that it would at least be limited to a 20% increase, but no. It was 38%. Also, our individual deductibles went up by $1500.
If you are not from the US and do not understand this, what I am saying is that I am now spending $16,560 a year (compared to $11,988 last year), and this gives me almost no coverage until I spend an additional $6500 on health care, and yes, that is just me; my husband has a separate, additional $6500 deductible.
….
We were able to make this work, and most importantly, I was able to protect the budget item that is most important to me–which is, my ability to help out a little bit when I am able. Because that will be even more necessary as more and more people get crunched.
Healthcare and corporations in the US and capitalism – all utterly, irretrievably broken. This isn’t a doom post so much as a frustration post at how much suffering is wrought through capitalism.
I don’t have any real answer to this. The problems are simply too much for any single person to disaster prep for. I hate that. I hate knowing that my reality is so dependent on systems and institutions doing the right thing. They so rarely do.
This doesn’t mean we stop fighting. I’m just venting.
Year 6, Day 228: You know what will do your head in? Three kids under the age of 6 chanting “I am a gummy bear” at the top of their lungs for 28 minutes as they play.
You know what’s challenging about keeping up with my workouts (totally unrelated to the gummy bear thing which has been stuck in my head for ten days)? How my brain randomly decides it doesn’t have to actively be there while I’m counting my reps and suddenly I could have sworn I was on 12 but how am I at 18 now, did we get here legitimately or did we accidentally skip ahead and we’re really on 15? And my traitorous brain has no answers for me because it spent the intervening time between 12 and 18, however much or little that was, off dancing with fireflies and has zero recollection of the whole matter. “We” because clearly my brain and I are separate entities in this matter. It’s so annoying! I can’t even make an educated guess because either scenario is completely plausible. The skipping ahead is why I used to start counting money in different languages when totaling up the cash drawers for the night. That was a defense against an actual external asshole, my brother, who would come in and start saying random numbers in English to mess me up and force me to start over.
December 1, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 217: Every time I log into Fidelity, this message flashes at me: Attention: You appear to be invested too aggressively. Fidelity has investment strategies to help you stay on track for retirement.
So judgy! What business is it of yours that I am invested very aggressively? Could I not have a PLAN? In fact, I do. Invest as aggressively as possible to ensure our savings will see us through a long layoff or a medical emergency. Remember 2008-2009? I do. I job hunted for 18-20 months during a miserable economy. Nowadays we could probably, if it was just one layoff, make it a year without extreme panicking. Financially. Emotionally I might not be able to hang. But a medical emergency or crisis? THAT would be serious stuff and I don’t think we can withstand one of those. Not a severe one.
Every time I read an article about how folks have to go into full time medical care for something serious the calculator starts going. The costs of the care, the costs of childcare (if we could even get reliable childcare), the cost of feeding everyone when no parent has time or ability to cook, all adds up to a staggering number in my head. That would have to be entirely out of pocket for us. Like my pregnancy during 2020, we’d have to cope entirely on our own. We have no local family or friends who are financially set with the ability to put their lives on hold to help us out, so it’d be like the past ten years of parenting: one or two weeks a year when a trusted relative comes and cooks and hangs out with the kids. Everything else is on us.
Year 6, Day 218: There isn’t any day I don’t hate my job right now. We’ve been given impossible KPIs with next to no time to make them work and contradictory KPIs at that. Think: Double our productivity at the drop of a hat sort of impossible. “Dire” consequences are hinted at if we don’t meet them. Well, we won’t! It’s impossible. It’s been a long time since I thought any job was worth killing myself over, and this one definitely isn’t, but my priority is about my people, not the work and that’s what’s going to get me.
I’m damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
If I don’t put in the legwork now to prep support for next year, we definitely won’t have the support. So if we all still have jobs, my people suffer. Or if I’m the only one who gets the axe, they suffer because I didn’t take care of them. If I do put in the legwork now but we miss the target this year (as expected), maybe we lose that support anyway. It’s really stupid! Unless I can talk them around and say look – we’re all as well placed as we possibly CAN be to aim for the stars because I did all that work, surely you don’t want to waste it.
But my ability to talk sense into corporate “line goes up” types is naught because I argue logic and reality. They just want line to go up, completely divorced from logic and reality. So maybe I have a job for 12 more months before they decide it’s my fault that their impossible demands aren’t met.
That realization rubs up against my survival instinct. Day to day, I want to help people and that means giving money. Lots of it, these days. But if I’m likely to run out of job runway in 6? 12? Maybe 18 months at the outside? If nothing else, I don’t really want to be miserable for that much longer. It’s been awful since 2023.
And PiC is feeling similar heat at his work – massive amounts of work while having layoffs twice a year every year for four years. In his twelve years prior to that, maybe there were a couple layoffs? It was not the norm.
It’s hard not to give in to the feeling that we have to save every penny for our family. We do save aggressively but in the moments I remember the Great Recession, my whole being clenches up with stress.
Year 6, Day 219: Every day feels like a week these days but my cousin being in town for the holiday makes life seem bearable again (temporarily). This is the one long weekend in the year I can truly relax. There’s an adult in the house who can manage my kids that isn’t PiC and isn’t completely exhausted all the time and loves us. It’s a rare feeling and my body obviously feels it deeply because I can actually sleep deeply when she’s here.
We did cake deliveries in the neighborhood together, since we had a giant Costco cake and no party, and it was fun surprising friends with a large slab of cake.
It’s suddenly cold enough to see your breath now. I’m also finally feeling 80% human again. That’s about my baseline for health. Every time I hit this phase, I realize that I haven’t just been lazy for a month. I’ve been down and out. Now I can do my workouts. I can get out of bed and do a full day of work at my desk. It don’t have to work in bed all day to conserve every ounce of energy. It’s a huge difference.
Year 6, Day 220: JB asked what Thanksgiving is about for us since we don’t celebrate the Pilgrims being colonizing jerks. Well, I said. It’s a federal holiday whether we buy into the reason or not so it’s our time and our chance to have our own family traditions with food and chosen family.
I used to spend this holiday with in-laws and other family but I haven’t been able to face Other People since my mom died a month before Thanksgiving. From my still-raw grief and need to avoid people grew a new tradition where I don’t travel, we just host whoever might be around and we set an overly ambitious table for five. It’s become a far better day than it used to be and I’m grateful for this time.
It’s funny. Stuffing (dressing) and being with a wide array of people this weekend used to be the most important thing to me, back when I was young. This year I forgot the stuffing and was happy that it was just the five of us. We wouldn’t have minded friends joining but I didn’t feel like anyone was missing, other than our beloved dogs.
Year 6, Day 221: We spent this day freezing our toes off in the city. It was planned so far as: we met up with SmolAc’s schoolmate and their sibling and parent at a park. They had a hell of a time biking and cackling their little heads off. JB didn’t like the biking conditions so I ran an impromptu calisthenics routine for them.
The play time dragged into snack time, we’d all packed some things, and then into forest exploration. That turned into a hike and then the end of that turned into an hour on the playground.
The kids clearly had fun and I was too busy trying to find patches of sunlight to care about much else other than hoping that no one tore the seat of their pants or their knees, sliding down the hills haphazardly as they were.