About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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July 15, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 103: No, the giant boxes destined for UPS didn’t go out. There were multiple hours this weekend where I thought “I should…” but the body said “hahaha you’re funny”. I feel like I’m constantly at odds with my brain, my body, or both, and they’re independent entities that I coexist with. Starts to make you wonder where your “you” lives and who’s in charge anyway??
Ahem. Anyway.
Today I am stalking the delivery truck. After much adjusting of the watering (more water, less water) making absolutely no difference in the cucumber plants refusing to grow taller than 2 inches, I’ve ordered fertilizer and it’s due today. The snap peas are still refusing to germinate to my disappointment, so I’m overcompensating by planting a whole lot more green beans. But few of the plants seem willing to grow much right now, so I’m pinning my hopes on fertilizer perking them up.
Year 5, Day 104: Big sigh. JB’s not feeling well again and a small part of me wishes this happened next week when we didn’t have camp paid for. There are no refunds for non attendance, obviously. But this is me putting down the wasted money woes and leaving it here instead of dwelling on it. We are trying to balance “don’t give up at the first sign of discomfort” and “your health comes first” with them and sometimes that means money is wasted.
Year 5, Day 105: Some days I feel like a bizarro incarnation of the terrible manager in Office Space. I arrive at work with my cup of water and my annoyance and spend the day calling people to task for embarrassing mistakes, misinformation, and wasteful incompetence that makes life harder for everyone else. It leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. The external people are terrible, my reports are the best, but it’s still ever so frustrating.
These changes have been creeping up on us so it’s not a surprise but is still deeply unpleasant. Not unlike a dousing of ice water in the face at six random times a day. When they first started, I resolved to TRY to ride out 12-18 months to let the dust settle before making any decisions. I’ve been leaning really hard into the Buddhist idea that clinging to what I want (and can’t have) is what produces (more) suffering and we have control over nothing (as another Buddhism practicing friend reminds me). Not sure if it’s actually helping, there’s still so much frustration in my day to day right now. Actually, yes, as I think about this more, there’s a tendency among the Buddhists in my family to interpret the “let go of the illusion of control” as “have no feelings, show no feelings” and that’s not healthy. This DOES help because after my feelings run their course, it helps to recenter myself in accepting that I’ve done my best and let the rest go.
In a fit of ironic self soothing, I revised our 2024 and 2025 cashflow spreadsheets with the assumption that these numbers will be stable for at least 18 more months. At this very moment, I’m skeptical about that outlook but will lean hard on the spreadsheets to keep my sort-of-promise to myself so that I don’t quit in a huff.
Year 5, Day 106: Wastewater levels in California are classified as high. We still mask, and we just got our boosters, and I’m adding a third layer of protection. We ordered an iota-carageenan nasal spray (Nasitrol) for use when we’re going to be around other people for hours at a time. We’ll have to unmask to eat and drink so the nasal spray adds protection for those times.
You know what’s really creepy? When your kid starts whispering really harshly like they’re possessed, in the middle of the night. Not a fan!
Year 5, Day 107: Shoe report! For my replacement sandals, I bought Crocs flip flops (very functional, can get wet without getting ruined) and Clarks Arla Glison (functional and fancy) sandals. They are all very comfortable. I was skeptical when I bought them, probably most skeptical of the Clarks because they’re platforms, but I’ve been able to wear both pairs for long stretches without pain. And without tons of regret at the end of the day. Total surprise.
PiC went rogue and bought Hokas for me which look a touch outlandish but, after adjusting to them, they’re quite comfortable. Their very large price tag is uncomfortable, I usually buy 4 pairs of sneakers for $110 and that lasts me 4-5 years, so these are way outside my price point but they feel really good now that I’ve gotten used to the height.
July 12, 2024
1. I treated myself to a $5 body wash in hopes it would smell super fruity (pink lemon and mandarin orange) and it’s totally what I hoped for but also it’s basically grapefruit.
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July 8, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 96: Ngh, I feel several shades of terrible. No specific symptoms, just intense fatigue and the creeping crud type feeling of “ugh”. My dental hygienist spotted the start of a viral infection during my appointment last week so I’ve been taking my antivirals and trying to rest more. Well ok, I rested this weekend because I had to. I couldn’t actually manage to keep pushing through. But that’s still an improvement over tormenting myself!
My Mondays used to stink, they’re really terrible now. So my response is to be really angry and then set new limits on what I’ll do. I’m hoping there’s a bell curve of horrible that we’ll come down the other side of soon. Very very soon.
To compound my mundane sadness, I forgot my dog walking bag today. I usually take it in case of crow friends and running into dog friends but in my haste, I left it behind. Who landed on the house just ahead of me and eyeballed me waiting for a treat? My crow friend I haven’t seen in weeks! It waited very pointedly until I lamented, I’m so sorry, I don’t have treats for you today! Then it flew away. I hope it doesn’t hold this against me.
Of course this is all super mundane against the Supreme Court basically cementing fascism this week and declaring a President immune from prosecution for Official Acts. Who knew it would come on this quick? Oh right, we all saw this coming.
Year 5, Day 97: Work is frustrating to the extreme right now so this tickled me deeply:
On top of the frustrating people, all my devices and apps and software are acting up. This one doesn’t want to open, that one doesn’t want to load, the other one will only refresh on my phone but not my laptop. Seriously not cool.
*****
The community that used to come together for mutual aid, mostly on Twitter and sometimes by email, is so fractured now, it feels like it was just a happy dream. It’s heartbreaking to see the effect this is having on vulnerable people who were juuuust scraping by before. I followed Aji and Wings on Twitter and now on Bluesky. The work Wings does is breathtaking, that craftsmanship!, but I cannot be trusted with these works of art. They’re also people who support their community as much as they can even though they’re going through tough times. They’re really struggling financially right now as they’re not getting the sales they need to make ends meet this year. I’ve sent some money through Paypal to avoid unnecessary fees (since this is a gift) but it’s a drop in the bucket and I hope that sharing will lead to more sharing and sales.
Year 5, Day 98: Here’s an upside! I’ve been taking a brisk walk every day for my mental health since last week. Last week, I had to stop halfway to catch my breath every day. This week, I can make it most of the way without stopping. Of course, I discover this just before the massive heat wave to hit this region so will my conditioning hold through next week? Who knows!
*****
I didn’t think I would relate to Mike Barnow from Madam Secretary but on reflection why didn’t I? Love dog, hate dealing with people, yes, yes that checks out:
Mike: I want the job you promised me. Counselor to the president. Behind the scenes. Under the radar. Cracking heads and crushing enemies.
Elizabeth: Yes but you’re so GOOD at being my chief of staff.
Mike: ACTING chief of staff and of course I’m amazing at it. But I hate it. It’s all relationships and people. So many people. In person.
Year 5, Day 99: So hot. It’s stiflingly hot. My kingdom for a breeze.
We don’t usually let the kids do water play, we’re a drought state! But it’s a holiday and also so so hot so we invited the kids’ friends over for a water and bubble play morning. In the end we forgot entirely about half the things we intended to set out for them but the water slide thing and the hammock were all they needed before and after the water balloon fight that PiC instigated.
We’d stocked up on fruit and easy kid food so snack time segued right into lunch time and all the kids ate what they were served. Smol Acrobat wasn’t even half a butt about eating their lunch with all these other kids to play with! They returned to a whole butt status when the kids went home for dinner. Of course they did. The kids (all under 8) went home without complaining, but one of them made sure to secure permission to come back again. Then tried to schedule that next visit for tomorrow. A compliment of sorts? What’s even funnier is that those same kids said they were heading home for a nap. Well exercised and well fed enough to choose a nap, good job on our part? PiC, as usual, deserves most of the credit. He did all the grocery shopping and food prep. I shared kid wrangling with another parent and coordinating the timing of things like water breaks and snack breaks and so on. We did good teamwork.
It was a lot of fun and also I massively overdid it. My body has a number of regrets and would like to formally complain to management for poor decisions.
Year 5, Day 100: My entire body is vibrating with pain. I’ve popped painkillers all day in hopes it’ll ease up soon. And, as expected, YEP, I’m thoroughly discombobulated back at work today. Days off in the middle of the week are weird.
What day is it, what’s tomorrow, where do I need to be when? I hate having my routines disrupted. Except there was a new disruption today: a long time friend was passing through town and we got to nab her for a few hours visit and dinner. I’ve missed her so much and that short visit cleansed my mind and refreshed my body. The pain and fatigue was halved after she left, even despite my staying up way too late afterward. Treatment for ME/CFS: super supportive fun friends who are easy to hang out with regardless of whether it’s been a day or a decade since we last saw each other?
All kidding aside, I’m paying for Thursday through the weekend more than likely, and I’d better adjust my expectations accordingly. We’ll get laundry done but I’m not sure if we’re going to do much more than that. Though there are two very large boxes I’ve got nearly packed up to ship to the Allen Youth Center, it’d be great to get that on its way. BUT I’m still waiting on PiC to sort through the last set of Legos to see what else he wants to add to what I’m sending, first.
July 5, 2024
1. Half the potato plants are turning yellow and brown. Sooooon, we harvest! 🤞🤞🤞
2. So far I’ve spotted two blueberries on the bush. Maybe we’ll have as many as three this season? Once again I’m so grateful this is a hobby and not a need.
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July 2, 2024
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks, cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates) and affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon sometimes pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
***
Dividend income. We received $511.25 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
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July 1, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 89: What a DAY. Meetings upon calls upon meetings upon questions, and all before I got to the actual work that needed to be done. Made myself eat a fast bite at 2 pm and go outside for a brisk walk at 3 pm in an effort to not fall back into workaholic ways. I was rewarded by running into a neighborhood dog who is a great fan and of whom I am a great fan. Puppy skritches and a blissed out dog face were just the ticket.
JB’s at full day camp this week which gives me three whole days of working uninterrupted (except for all these meetings and calls). Love solid days. Hate meetings. Boo corporate life.
JB blew through all my hearts in Duolingo tonight so I have to get in several practice sessions to build up the heart stash. Apparently, you need hearts to get to do new lessons, which I forget frequently. I also forgot which language I was working in myself, and made a couple mistakes before I reoriented my brain. I don’t know if it’s worth paying for the paid version, I’m working on 3 languages off and on and paying for it makes me feel like I’d REALLY better be getting somewhere with them. That might not be worth the extra pressure (incentive).
Year 5, Day 90: Per Chef Jose Andres, it’s Bourdain Day, a day of remembrance on Anthony Bourdain’s birthday “to celebrate everything Tony did for the world and how he used food to break down walls and build longer tables”. Bourdain is one of the few food celebrities I respected. He brought humility to his shows about food in the world, unlike most dudes who make the food about themselves, and his condemnation of Kissinger were the first peek I had into what a monster that man was. I appreciated that learning. A moment of remembrance for a man who tried to be decent.
Our many waving potato plants are starting to turn a little yellow. It’ll be exciting to see if this spring’s regular watering and extra hilling resulted in a bigger yield or if the aboveground action was the whole party. Fingers crossed! Also aside from the novelty of (very occasionally) eating from our own garden, the garden potatoes just taste better. Sometimes the store bought potatoes come with a weird taste that only bothers me. Not quite bitter, not quite sour, just an odd offness. No one else ever noticed but our fresh dug potatoes don’t have that.
My work day went from 8:30 am to 10 pm today. Subtract two hours for two appointments and two hours for dinner and bedtime routines. That’s a 13.5 hour day containing 9.5 hours of work. Maybe not as much overworking as I’d assumed but you know what, that’s still a hell of a lot more than I think the job deserves given the recent developments. Partly the technology mess they created has slowed me down to a crawl but I need to get on top of this tendency to overwork to make up the difference. If work has to wait three more days, it has to wait.
Year 5, Day 91: A dear friend of ours recently caught COVID and it took two weeks for them to recover, their course of illness was awful. That, combined with my anticipation of summer socializing (the county fair is coming!), had me anticipating horrible things. I scheduled the whole family for boosters. We were last boosted in the fall and we are well out of that 4-6 month efficacy window so Kaiser better not give me any guff over these.
Some of the green blackberries are turning a beautiful deep red.
My plantings of sugar snap peas, lettuce, and second round of bush beans from three weeks ago were all a bust. If they were going to sprout, they would have done 1-2 weeks ago. I’ve popped more snap peas into water to soak for several hours for another attempt: hope springs everlasting unlike my sprouts. It’s a good thing I’m choosing to stress over growing something to eat out of our garden. If we relied on this garden’s success for our meals, our rations would be very thin indeed. This gives me something relatively harmless to direct my need to fuss at and only generated mild levels of proto-anxiety. It’s a reasonable pressure release valve. I go pester the plants whenever work or life gets to be too much.
Year 5, Day 92: Dental spa day! My teeth are now sparkling clean after a nice lie down on a soft reclining chair and they tell me that my gum pockets are actually improving. The anxious underachiever in me is soothed by this proof that our dental habits can make a difference. This is so much better than eye appointments where they just confirm a minor deterioration for me or a major one for JB and advise us to do certain things but say ultimately there’s really nothing we can do to stop it other than trying the course of therapeutic contacts. JB is very squeamish and afraid to try, and I will not fight with them over sticking contacts in their eyeballs, so that’s out. I can work with “floss better in these problem areas”.
United Healthcare has finally coughed up ten out of fourteen FSA claims submitted. They’re still holding out on 4 old ones.
I ALSO forced myself to put on those fancy new sneakers that PiC insisted on picking out for me to try and went for a brisk walk around lunchtime instead of hunching over my computer like a gremlin for an entire day without breaks. That felt really weird. Not just the walking part but also the new shoes part. They felt like mattress sized clown shoes. They’ll probably feel better after a few walks, or my calves will go into complete revolt. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to! I wonder what this time next year will look like and if it’ll be significantly better or worse for the battles I’m fighting today. My pessimism says worse. My desire to continue earning an income without simmering in frustration every day hopes maybe it’ll better??? I hope but I doubt.
Year 5, Day 93: Dual dental insurance: is it worth it? I’m trying to figure that out but it’s sort of a black hole in that I don’t know how much more it’ll cover, and if that outweighs the premiums. Assuming generally routine dental care, cleanings, exams, x-rays, and fluoride, has anyone found dual insurance policies to be worth it?
Well that’s awkward. I contacted Neighbor Kid’s grandma and politely begged off: it’s so busy for me at work, I’ve put JB in camps all summer. Playdates are really hard right but would NK like to be a penpal? We can manage that without having to juggle multiple schedules. We’ll mail them a treat if they’ll be hanging out at your place.
The response: we have a big backyard and both JB and Smol Acrobat could come play.
Errr, that’s not at all what I offered and I’m not letting my kids go to unsupervised playdates yet. Maybe it’s almost time for JB but there aren’t many people I know well enough to trust them for that. I’m backing away from the conversation because I truly am so swamped and frustrated at work, I’m not mentally or emotionally prepared to do any of this when it’s not what JB wants. If they were going to come around, they would have done by now, and I’d have carved out the space somehow. But since they didn’t, I’m not going to bother making any suggestions.
Anyway, I’m also not pleased with how Target keeps making their ThinkSport sunblock “unavailable” whenever they have promotions that would apply to that sunblock. It’s reef-safe but expensive. Then it mysteriously comes back in stock the day after the promotion ends. Three times now, that can’t be a coincidence. Sunblock IS an FSA-eligible item though, so at least there’s that.
June 28, 2024
1. I was very proud of myself for managing to get the kids rounded up to go to the mall and return some poorly chosen purchases over the weekend. Physical errands have mostly fallen to PiC since COVID and while I’ve been to that shopping center dozens of times to grab takeout, I have never gone in to do any shopping related activities. This felt like a minor victory that I could scrape together the time and energy.
2. Of course then I had to nap afterwards because I’d spent the whole morning doing chores and morning the kids solo. But rest was also a good thing even if I resented it.
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