December 8, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (288)

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:

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

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (287)

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.

November 24, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (286)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 210: JB broke their retainer and I can’t get the damn ortho to call me back. Our modem went down and required a VERY expensive replacement. I managed to replace that quickly only for the replacement to screw up our network setup, taking out my printer connection and screwing up our security system. Then my laptop starts blipping in and out several times a day, restarting on me with wild abandon, sometimes losing all my work, sometimes not. Then my phone dies which really feels like the kicker because that screws up everything and it’s going to take HOURS, and energy that I don’t have, to fix this problem.

I’m exhausted and at the end of my rope and want to cry.

And yet.

As tired as I am, as sick as I am, as bone deep annoyed as I am, I’m incredibly lucky that if the only way to solve these problems is money, it would sting, but I could do it. Money can’t buy me more time, or a working immune system, or feeling better but it can solve each of the problems above if fixing it isn’t possible.

So I take a huge deep breath. Several more. Call the ortho again. Go through tech support for a while, no dice on troubleshooting the phone. Get offered a discount code for a new phone – not my preferred route but I’m not covered in the GOOD luck fairy dust so I’ll take that. Get an appointment to deal with the phone. Schedule all of JB’s math tutoring lessons for the year. Get a quote for the phone. Things are in motion. That’s better than lounging in the trough of despair.

Year 6, Day 211: TIL that some credit cards have cell phone protection coverage. I thought I knew all the credit card benefits out there, but this is completely new to me.

Since so many of my day to day apps require an actual working phone, right now, I had to cough up the money for a new phone. I set up the mail in repair order, that’s $400 in hopes I can get my data back. If I can’t, at least an otherwise reasonably working phone will be available for use – I have an offer for a free phone line through Xfinity for a year. I wouldn’t rely on them for any regular use phones but that’ll do fine for a back up phone. JB’s activity fees landed today, too, so that’s $3000 out the door.

And there’s my heating pad quitting on me. I just ordered the same one again without taking time to be distressed about it because at this rate, I can’t keep up with all the things demanding replacement if I spend time having feelings about it. *flop*

Year 6, Day 212: My cough is still a giant rattle in my chest but it’s possible I might be turning a corner today. I don’t feel good but also don’t quite feel horrible either.

Tech heavy day: getting the new phone set up, fighting with log ins, changing my 2FA so that it doesn’t rely solely on my phone, learned that in Slack DMs, you can just click over to a files view to find that file your colleague shared with you a few months back but you couldn’t remember precisely when. Handy!

I’ve been given two absolutely impossible directives to reconcile at work and I don’t even know how we’re going to do this amid the sheer gutwrenching stress of having the goalposts moved on us multiple times throughout the year. I have so many regrets and “should have known” and at the same time, I bet if I had known, they still wouldn’t have listened to me protest and we’d still be in the same kind of boat.

It’s deeply upsetting after everyone’s hard work all year to be told none of it matters because the highly inflated totally unrealistic numbers weren’t met.

Year 6, Day 213: We were furious to hear that another kid had attacked JB trying to grab the mask off their face at their self defense class earlier this week. I’m surprised I was able to sleep the prior nights even while I was thinking about who I was going to talk to about it, picking and discarding one possible person after another – testament to how absolutely exhausted I am every day now that my anxiety can’t keep me awake when just three weeks ago my stress anxiety stopped letting me sleep. My congestion is slowly clearing up, and my coughs are less death rattle today, I wonder whether stress insomnia or total fatigue will win at nights once the virus has cleared my system

About JB. They didn’t want me to tell anyone because they didn’t want to get singled out or embarrassed. I admonished them that we don’t let people get away with this stuff when we have any leverage to stop it – if we do, they think it’s ok and carry on doing it. At this age, it’s important to correct and really important to impress on them – you stop when people say no.

I had firm words with the person in charge, and they actually dealt with it reasonably appropriately, so that was a relief. For now. I’ll be watching that kid.

My old phone has reached the repair center who declares I’m eligible for a refurbished replacement phone. I suspect that means they’re giving me another phone and my data is farewell forever – support chat confirmed it. Wah wah sad trombone. I knew that was possible and I’m sad but there’s nothing more to be done but to accept. It’s not like NOT repairing it would save my data. Alas, my texts weren’t backed up so those are gone forever.

Year 6, Day 214: Big day for JB and friends. They have been working hard on their art and I’ve been working hard to helping them create sellable merch with their art. I want them to learn from this experience about quality and presentation and the math of creating art to sell.

It was a long night, but comparatively very short, market they sold at. It was only two hours for the actual event. We were there over three hours to make sure they got a good spot, were set up early, and knew what to do and how to do it. The whole event was kid-centric within the community so people were motivated to spend money and support the kids. They didn’t have to pay a table fee or transport costs, it was local so they didn’t have to pay for hotel etc costs.

They will have to deduct their materials costs from their cash intake to reimburse me for their supplies – I want them to know how to do that and what the reality is between creation of art and selling to what kind of wage you can make by creating and selling art. It was a good training wheels for younguns event. I was extra proud of them because you could tell the kids were not primarily responsible for the work at a lot of the other kid booths. They were, as much as possible. I helped a lot with the parts they needed help with and then I had them do the majority of the work after that. I’ll be beat up from being on my feet and talking so much on the sale floor but I hope they remember some of the lessons. PiC insists this will be a core memory. I hope he’s right.

November 17, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (285)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 203: Damn that moment of sharing a bite of food with JB! I had been fending off their germs pretty well the last five days and got complacent (forgot, even). The germs immediately took advantage of the direct infection vector and ambushed me. I came away the loser in the confrontation with congestion and cotton fluff for brains. There are no good times for this but this is definitely a bad time. We have the final prep for SmolAc’s birthday coming up and we have to make our final selections for Open Enrollment. With minutes ticking down, I finally told PiC that if he wasn’t sure of some of his healthcare plans, we can just stick with the HMO in 2026 and prepare ourselves for HDHP/HSA in 2027 assuming everything else stays the same (remaining employed by the same companies). *Knocks wood, throws salt, etc*

The added complexity is that I just started physical therapy and we have no idea what they charge for that. So it’s a crapshoot where we’d land financially in 2026 if I’m still going to PT. Right now it’s entirely covered.

Year 6, Day 204: Our neighbor’s busy season hit at the same time as her partner’s scheduld had surgery and has needed favors left and right for their school age kid. Luckily it’s super easy, just picking them up or dropping them off on our way out or back in, and sometimes I only get the ask a few minutes before it needs doing but that meshes perfectly with my schedule since I try to force myself to get ready earlier than necessary. I like banking the favors. I know they’re not keeping score but it makes me feel better and yes, I know, it shouldn’t be a thing. And yet. This is my brain.

As my reward this week, their cat came to meow at me for petting, even in the rain!, and I was very pleased to oblige. We had a nice chat of MROW. mow? MRROWWW. MIAO.

Year 6, Day 205: I was up and working at 5 am and that should have been good for knocking off by 2 pm but instead I worked 12 straight hours and then tacked on another 1-2 after getting the kids off to bed. Chalk that up to the weird intersection of being really sick but also incredibly stressed and anxious.

It was interrupted by one of my favorite neighborhood dogs tackling me, though, and that was The Best. He’s as happy to see me as I am to see him and that feels like a compliment seeing as how I don’t provide for any of his needs. I DID have a bacon treat hidden up my sleeve but he didn’t even notice it until I held it out, he was too busy trying to hug me and rubbing on my legs like a cat.

Year 6, Day 206: Utterly overwhelmed today. I think every year, the pressure starts cranking up at the end of August now, with the start of school and dozens of school activities that make me cranky and spiky and then sometime in November the whole Jenga pile comes tumbling down. We may have hit that point. Bad meetings at work. This damn virus has its hooks in me, I’m feeling worse than ever. I hate the pressure at work and don’t see any way of turning it down. The kids have events this and next weekend that will require me at my best and I’m nowhere near there. I took some really deep breaths, ate a food, and tried to reset my spinny circle of death brain spiral.

Year 6, Day 207: We have entered the “Hast ye offended yon witch?” era. My computer started acting weird last week, restarting randomly or anytime I put it to sleep and woke it back up. This week, some of the restarts are accompanied by a screeching that would put the AOL dial up screams to shame. Then to cap it all off, though I must say I was taking this all in my stride up to this point, my phone just bricked.

That’s a real problem. 2-step authentication is generally linked to my phone, as is my work authentication app. I use my phone for everything. Texting, alarms for schedules, my medication regimen, emails, notes for everything that I think of during the day that I need to do later but will forget if I don’t write them down. All my books live there now! (A moment of: oh this is what I get for not buying a Kobo device, isn’t it? Maybe I can load the app on my old phone.) Sigh. I missed the ONE appointment available so I’m going to have to wait til Monday to get this fixed. What a giant pain in the caboose.

November 10, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (284)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 196: Number crunching: I keep going back to the drawing board to reevaluate whether we can/should try to do the HDHP/HSA plan again. I swore it off after the one year we tried it because of sticker shock. I’m talking myself around again because PiC’s company will contribute $2000 to the HSA, reducing our contributions to $6750. I can swallow the idea if we know we’re not going to get more than 50% of the way to the OOP Max ($6800) but it gets a lot harder to accept the math if we do spend that much. Looking at 2025’s rates for our actual healthcare usage, we’d have spent $5700 of the $6800 cap already thanks to me. Under our current plan, I’ve only spent $550 this year. My emergency room visit cost us $250. On our Explanation of Benefits, the list of charges for that visit was well over $10k. Our coverage is really good. (Everyone should have this coverage, I will always believe that everyone deserves this level of access to healthcare as a minimum.)

If we have to pay up to our OOP max with the HDHP, then we’ll spend $12,500. On the plain HMO (which I love), we’d spend $10,500 – but, even in a year with an ER visit or a baby labor and delivery, on this plan we’d have a hard time hitting even $1000 in OOP.

If we only use about $2000 worth of coverage (roughly what we would have spent this year if I didn’t land myself in the ER), then we’d spend $8000 and keep $4500 in federally tax advantaged funds to invest.

Or we could stay on our current plan and spend $8250 on premiums and copays and not have any tax advantaged savings at all.

The math is if we’re lucky and if the HDHP actually does cover lab work and all immunizations, we’ll sock away some future savings for health expenses. I worry about that luck bit.

Year 6, Day 197: Election Day was unexpectedly positive. CA’s Prop 50 was passed. No one thinks it’s GOOD, but (most) everyone thinks we have to do something to stop the Republicans from turning this into a fascist police state and this is our something.

I’m thrilled for NYC voting in Mamdani decisively. I’ve watched the energy of his campaign – the intelligence, timing and welcoming open arms – and yearn for more of that nationwide. All of us need someone willing to do the work in a open and inclusive way. I know he has his work cut out for him. I hope his staffing for the transition and going forward is as smart and strong as it was for the campaign.

It was insulting that Cuomo, the sex pest who was horrible in office on so many levels, insisted on running as an independent, that establishment Democrats still supported Cuomo after he lost the primary, and that all kinds of money was spent on his campaign. I’m especially glad he lost. I hope that sends a stinging message to the establishment that their way doesn’t work and we don’t want it. We want someone willing to try and willing to fight.

Year 6, Day 198: For $6, we can get one loaf of rustic Italian bread at Costco OR a bag of usually 2 large or medium loaves and 4 small rolls from the Too Good To Go app (referral link if you want to try it) now that a large local bakery has joined the program. Some days we pick Costco, more days we pick the TGTG app, it just depends on if a Costco trip is already in the cards.

SmolAc thinks it’s deeply unfair that sometimes PiC brings me leftovers from meetings for my lunch the next day.

Gee, I dunno kid, what’s better: 3 catered meals (lunch and two snacks) a day guaranteed or sometimes I get to eat lunch if I have time and I remember and if I don’t have so many meetings it’s impossible? Of course we don’t expect them to understand, this is my internal dialogue.

My doc thinks these shoulder pains I’ve been experiencing periodically are rotator cuff impingement. Ha, I’ve been dealing with it for years assuming it was just a fibro symptom and never mentioned it to her. Whoops. She’s set me up with a PT referral and thinks it’s very PTable.

She’s pretty great. We’ve had some good conversations in these past few years, she’s been my primary care for going on 12?, but we’ve gotten to know each other better in the past few. She doesn’t have a lot of answers for my weird problems but she has a lot of compassion and is really supportive of most anything I might want to do or try for my health. None of my earlier doctors up til I was 30 was worth a damn so I appreciate her a lot.

Year 6, Day 199: PiC and I have been married 13 years and together … Uh. 20? Something like that. I’ve always said if I were alone again, whether because of divorce or worse, I’d never date again. This one marriage has been good and I have no patience for nonsense. I think my contentment is that we chose this. We built this life and we chose it with each other. I never thought that marriage was important or necessary, and I was always willing to walk away if lines were crossed, so when we chose marriage, that had little to do with societal expectations.

I say this with a bit of amusement that while I’m juggling the Big Job and family and all that, I’m comfortable with my relationship choice being stable and boring. Well, not boring to me but probably boring from the outside. At the same time, I’ve got three friends experimenting with poly relationships and they’re all from very conservative traditional backgrounds (we grew up together) so they were a little hesitant to share their exploration with me. They very quickly learned that I’m glad to support them. As long as they’re being true to themselves and not harming others, go forth, enjoy! I never want to have any part of it and I’m perfectly happy hearing them out. It’s a nice place to be in.

Year 6, Day 200: A few new poppies are sprouting outside, good job, poppies. The counter green onions really love water. I was being so careful trying not to drown them but figured out they only shoot up when they get twice as much water.

Work is even more intense now, this time with personnel issues! *fake unenthused jazz hands* I had my problem staff issue earlier this year and now I have to teach someone how to handle theirs. It’s taking up half my time every day and I do not appreciate it. It absolutely has to be done, no question. Morale for the rest of the team is really low. Directly dealing with The Problem who is making messes and can’t be trusted is the only way we keep the rot from spreading. Absolutely miserable job to do but I absolutely won’t allow TP to break the team with their arrogance and selfishness. Wish me luck next week, lots coming down the pike for this particular problem all week long. Unfortunately that means half my weeks have been borked all to hell and I sit down on this Friday night to realize ALL the balls I’ve been dropping these past few weeks. Taking some deep breaths. Nothing irretrievably broken, just a wave of stress over the tribbles of my to do list. But the first step is making sure everything gets ON that list so I can then start checking them off. Always love that part of the to do!

November 3, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (283)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Are

Year 6, Day 189: We got notices that we still needed to vote in the special election for Prop 50, but I know for darn sure we did that weeks ago. Thank goodness for the track your ballot tool or I would have yet another reason to be sleepless half the nights. Actually tonight’s reason was nightmares about mosquitoes. Ick.

Today was rough. Lots of management stuff which means hearing people’s frustrations over other people that are being genuinely awful and can’t be reined in (for stupid reasons), and getting called out by exec management for not achieving the impossible. So just another Monday? I got through it all, along with the weekend backlog of work, plus a side of doing someone else’s job because they’re too green to do it themselves (which might sound resentful but I don’t resent them, just the situation). I’m exhausted. But the anger and frustration had me too keyed up all day to relax even when I made myself step away to cook part of dinner. I ended up working late into the night.

FYI! On Monday, November 3rd, Microsoft will start using your LinkedIn data for AI training. And remember, you’re opted in by default. To toggle it off 👉 Account – Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement.

Year 6, Day 190: Even though I know we do a fair bit to help folks, I tend to struggle with the feeling of buying anything nice for myself when I “should” be using that money to help others. Every dollar I spend on my family is fine (food, clothes, books, tuition), but fun stuff for me tends to feel guilt-laden. I usually go to our bank accounts to self soothe but even doing our net worth early for October didn’t generate a lick of dopamine today. It just set off a new mini spiral of anxiety over whether this will disappear like smoke after we’ve worked so hard, and what else do I need to shore up and protect what we have so we can keep helping other people. Whoof.

We’re coming into the last two weeks of a major migration at work and I’m both going to be so glad when it is over but also dreading the two weeks after the whole thing goes live because that’s when all the real problems start cropping up. That is also doing a number on my anxiety.

Year 6, Day 191: Launched the fundraiser today. I was trying not to get my hopes up buuuuut too late. I hope we gather enough to help folks.

We had a four hour (“stray” dog) rescue operation that ate up our whole evening unexpectedly. The situation both made me think: oh wow, I really need a dog AND ALSO NOT RIGHT NOW. I’m absolutely too tired for a new dog and all the integration work that would require. The dog was a bundle of contradictions: must have people because she’s chonky, but had zero manners whatsoever; bonded to us immediately; reeked like she had been living on the street for years (which meshes with the no manners thing). Animal control came by (turns out our animal rescue unit is open 24 hours! Good to know) and we learned her name, that she’s 6 years old just like Sera was when her owners gave her up, and also that her owners suck. I really hated giving her back. Animal control was sad about having to deliver her back. We all worked together to help her into the kennel safely and with the least amount of stress possible, but the poor baby was very scared when she saw the van. She’s a repeat customer and the whole situation is infuriating and heartbreaking.

Year 6, Day 192: Fall fundraiser total: $725! I’m still recovering from yesterday’s dog saga, work stuff and nonsense, and still need to delve into the numbers for open enrollment. I think all my brain is used up because now we cannot decide where to go tomorrow with the kids. PiC is the clearinghouse for our kid-related social life and he’s got an invitation from one coworker for to join her and her kids in Town A, a few of SmolAc’s friends are meeting up in Town B, we were originally planning to go to Town C as always but PiC spotted a new spot organizing much nearer to us, and JB’s friend’s dad asked him about joining us wherever we go. To complicate matters even more, JB’s bestie inexplicably invited Ex-friend to join us – the kid that gossips about JB and makes nasty comments about them to other people being their back. I put my foot down without even waiting for JB to come home to ask their opinion. Even if they were willing to spend the evening with Ex-friend, I’m not. Their parents would just dump them on us to handle and I’m not signing up for that, nor am I willing for JB to have to spend their Halloween evening watching out for the backstabbing. I asked the adults involved if they could retract the invitation instead of bowing out of our invitation.

Year 6, Day 193: What a DAY. I used to hate Halloween as a kid. The need for costumes that would draw attention to me, which I hated, having to trick or treat which meant seeing strangers and talking to them, I hated all of it. My kids love it and I’m surprisingly ok with facilitating their enjoyment of the day because I don’t have to do the things I hated back then but holy ghosties is it a lot of work.

We had the kids’ Halloween parade. That was an hour in the cold with an added knife twist of the principal reminding us that this is the last one for the 5th graders. OUCH.

A few short hours later, it was time to pick up the kids and get them ready for adventure. We explored a new to us trick or treat spot and to our relief, it was really well organized and a whole lot of fun. The kids, all 6 of them!, also ran into a lot of kids they knew from different schools and that was delightful for all of them. That made me feel better about how JB-centric our Halloween plans tend to be. It’s been 10 years of what they want, and this year SmolAc is starting to have preferences too. They enjoy seeing some of their classmates so we’re adapting to this development, though they aren’t asking to invite their friends – they’re happiest hanging with JB and their bestie.

Uch somehow it is the end of October and I needed to order a slew of craft things to be done with by now but haven’t done yet. I submitted a bunch of orders, please cross your fingers they all get here before the end of next week?

October 27, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (282)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 182: I woke up at 5 am with hands curled into claws. My fingers, stiff and swollen, couldn’t be straightened. At first I was confused but then I realized I’d done this to myself. The kids needed outdoor exercise time yesterday but my skeletal pain was so bad, I couldn’t take them to a park. I sat in the yard to play catch with them and have them run relays. Whoops. I could throw and catch yesterday, but that meant giving up the use of both hands for a while today.

I’ve been taking my anti-depressants in the morning for 5? days now. I think(?) it helps a bit with the lack of motivation and the rage during the day. It doesn’t help with the worrying over other people’s lives: bestie’s upcoming biopsy, a friend’s relationship is falling apart in an unexpected and painful way (where it’s not anyone’s fault) but their partner is also acting erratically so I worry about their financial stability especially in this economy. I know of at least two sets of people in my social online circles who are becoming unhoused or on the verge of. I give but I can’t solve these huge problems alone. I also feel so helpless now that I can’t rally any assistance from connections online. This feels weirdly isolating. It’s not about me but it’s miserable seeing so many people’s worlds fall apart.

I found a baggie of cleaned frozen mystery fish that a friend of ours caught. I decided to just bake it with some lemon juice, salt and pepper, and hope for the best. Buuut it was awful. Just terrible. Luckily, after I choked down several bites, I realized what it needed and whipped up a little bowl of mỡ hành from our countertop green onions. It was so much better. Childhood recipe memory to the rescue! This is why I hate cooking fish, I am used to eating really good fish from home recipes but I never learned so everything feels subpar.

Year 6, Day 183: After 4 hours of nightmares and 3 hours of trying to “rest” because I couldn’t force myself to get up predawn to get some work done, I had giant claw hands again today. I popped on my Peculiarity Shop rings for some sensory input that isn’t pain and carried on. Thankfully I had an unplanned and surprise gap in my schedule midday and instead of forcing myself to push through, I laid down for an hour. It made a real difference. I’m trying to be better about finding spots to rest when I feel terrible.

Bright spot, my crow friends visited today! And one of the usual pair is getting VERY brave. It was coming in faster and closer than it’s ever done before, and even hung out waiting for more treats even after we started puttering around in the driveway getting ready to leave. Usually that’s when they take off and put distance between us. Today they either waited on the roof or the car, and even hung on the driveway while I gently tossed treats in their direction.

Year 6, Day 184: Each night I try to sleep, fail miserably, and the next morning I struggle also miserably to stay awake as the sleep was worse than the night before. This week I’ve been trialing a combination of my full dose of prazosin for the nightmare warding, and a time release melatonin in hopes of having more peaceful and maybe prolonged sleep. I can deal with fatigue but that on top of the side effects that come with this much bad sleep, swollen painful hands and wrists plus the All new! Not improved! TMJ like pain because I’m clenching my jaws for hours, are a bit too much. Fingers crossed I can figure out a regimen that helps my body stop making everything bad worse.

SmolAc is aggrieved that they’re being left at TK without any family to keep them company or lovies to cuddle all day every day so each morning, they and JB conduct increasingly dramatic farewells. Bye! Byyeeeeee. Byyyyyyyeeeeeeee! One of these days, they will hit the exact note of melodrama that they are going for.

I defrosted chicken but couldn’t remember what I meant to make with it. PiC decided he’d take that chicken and make fajitas! He had to stop and pick up more ingredients which is a showstopper for me but he did and got dinner together. What a relief.

Year 6, Day 185: 6 lbs of bacon, green and grey. 💔 I don’t know what happened but my bacon all went bad. ☠️😭 Thankfully it was all Zingerman’s bacon, so they were very pleasant about replacing it.

In better news: the prazosin is warding off nightmares and I think I’m getting a handle on when to take it to minimize the side effects now. The extended release melatonin does nothing for me so I’m still waking up 3-5 times a night but it’s more of a muzzy fuzzy waking than the clenched fists-and-face, stress and anxiety dialed up to 12 wakings I’ve been having. Definitely an improvement. My jaw isn’t tender and out of whack which means I can eat! And chew! Glorious! My shoulder and knees are shot but heck I can hobble around with boulder knees, that’s fine.

Year 6, Day 186: Loads of work stress, but a temporarily reasonable amount of work waiting for me specifically today meant I could take the kids to the Halloween carnival thing at PiC’s work. They’re getting to dress up a few times this year, which is nice, they’re getting a good lot of mileage out of their costumes, and these things are mostly fun. Loads of free food (middling good) that the kids loved: hot dogs, nachos, cupcakes, brownies, rice krispie treats. SmolAc even liked the pasta salad.

Far too much time on my feet though, between 3-6 pm, and I paid dearly for that at night.

*****

I’m thinking about all the stressors of the world, people being on the verge of losing homes, SNAP benefits, having no income during this furlough, etc etc, and if I can scrape up the energy to put together a fundraiser to do mutual aid and the like. I will think on it.

Then I read this from Cat Valente and remember how good it was when we could help folks and maybe we can do this again?

Tiny Adds Up: Unshittification and The Pawshank Redemption