Year 5, Day 271: PiC found our local HMart and got Korean takeout for dinner!! It was SO good. Gochujang, so good. That was the one bright spot for the day. It was nonstop today, starting even before the day began with an 11 pm kid-call for comforting and a 5 am wakeup because one kid didn’t feel well and then the other kid didn’t feel well, and then it was morning and time for questions, emails, checklists, to do lists, questions, chats, updates …. ! It was nonstop with people needing things.
There’s something awful going around right now. This one’s not COVID, flus A or B, or RSV but definitely something that overlaps the same symptoms. I know several people are down with the ick. I hate that we still got gotten even though we mask. It’s not perfect of course, but it probably keeps our infections down to a minimum. Even if it doesn’t feel so best case scenario when you’ve got a kid hurling the contents of their stomach.
Sometimes the state of my brain feels like I can’t learn new stuff because I keep forgetting and then relearning random old stuff. Like the definition of an archipelago.
Year 5, Day 272: We found garlic toum at Costco and it’s amazing (the brand is Toom) – highly recommend. The kids eat so many fresh veggies with it.
I love the ol Donyo Lodge Wildlife Live Stream, it’s so soothing when I’m frustrated with software.
I’m on Week 24 of trainer workouts! And uhhh I am starting to crave some kind of feedback. Maybe this was set off by my doctor’s appointment last week. My doctor (who is the exact same age as me, mind you) commented that she thinks we’re good parents and that she’s proud of me for being self aware and acting on that self knowledge. Having gotten an A in doctor’s appts, now my dopamine seeker wants approval on working out. Tsk. Some impulses are as bad as sugar cravings.
I’m still not reading the Vulture article reporting on Neil Gaiman yet. I intend to at some point, when I have the bandwidth. That said, while I appreciate my friends giving me a heads up that it’s a tough read, it was awfully annoying to have total strangers exhorting me not to read it to protect my peace. You know what, mind your business!
Year 5, Day 273: Our neighbor’s lab is adorable and sweet and hilarious. She walks by our house at least once every two weeks when we’re outside and it just makes my entire day because she wants ALL THE PETS and I want to GIVE all the pets! A match made in heaven. We touch noses and then it’s off to the races: skritches til my arms cramp up. She has that really beautiful thick water dog fur which requires really strong fingers.
I was so stressed by an email at work (it was the opposite of what we needed to hear) it sent me on walkabout through the house so I decided it was time to get my planks out of the way. Now, I don’t hate any of my exercises but do hate that it never feels like planks are getting any easier. I need to do them earlier in the week. By the end of the week, I’m out of time and energy with planks left to do and they don’t always get done. So that email was kind of a lose-win situation.
Year 5, Day 274: JB and I are whining in equal measure about (respectively) homework and work. I’m indulging in excess whining since it’s easier to match their mood than it is to ask them to get it together.
Sometimes I wonder about other people’s finances. In a nosy curious kind of way. We’ve got multiple neighbors with four kids in multi-generational homes with expensive cars and taking expensive vacations (several week trips, international, and theme parks like Disney and the like) every year. I’m so curious about how much that all costs because I couldn’t swing that. We make ok money for here, not that kind of money. Ignore the six figure car. That’s just a “won’t” (even if we could. But we can’t). We priced out Disney last year for a two day pass and almost passed out at the cost. Well over $2000 for the four of us for 1 day. Are we just cheap? Because that seems really expensive. Maybe we’re just cheap?
Maybe the older generation pitches in? In my family the elders are provided for, they don’t contribute financially though they might help around the house. Oh well that’s actually probably the difference isn’t it, they didn’t have to pay for daycare for any of the four kids. At an average of $2000/month per kid, four kids for say five years, they did not spend $480,000 for daycare. That pays for quite a lot of vacations.
Now I’m curious how much we’ve paid for childcare over their lifetimes. If I were on my computer, I’d go find out.
On second thought, best not to.
Year 5, Day 275: You know what I like about Elementary? On my 6th runthrough of it. There’s a pattern of Sherlock growing as a person and however begrudging he may seem about affection in the beginning, truly embracing the value of Joan as a person and as a partner, but there are moments I didn’t catch on in previous viewings like the moment when Joan snaps at Sherlock about his being tetchy with his professor friend and her annoyance with Sherlock who chooses to be alone. He says in this incredibly hurt tone: “Watson?!” but later in the episode, he obviously takes in the point of her upbraiding. It’s a little thing but I liked it.
This, friends, has been an intensely hard week. With sick kids, and intense work loads, our household is a shambles. And I am TIRED.
Part of my stress response to uncertainty is to work more, which is only contributing to the fatigue and stress cycle. Admittedly I actually did need to log some extra hours to clear out a backlog that was going to cause real problems in a couple weeks, so that’s actually a relief but when it’s just about caught up, I forget how to cycle back down to more acceptable levels. I’m waiting on some pretty important answers to very important questions, and it’s not like working myself into the ground is going to do anything at all to change that outcome right now. I need to stop working after dinner, for a start.
Year 5, Day 250: Spiral cut ham is amazing and makes for some amazing leftovers-lunches. Who knew? If I had a deep freezer (one of my “if we could manage and afford a bigger house” sorts of dreams), I would have hams in there at all times. Dreams.
Also, and this is probably not news but, I cannot be trusted to go to Costco alone. If I’m not getting myself lost (which is most of the time), then I’m picking up that ten pound bag of pancake mix because it’s $4 for 2 lbs elsewhere but only $10 for 10 lbs here! FOOL. What 4 person family needs 10 lbs of pancake mix?? We do not have pancakes that often. I plead holiday / end of year brain. I guess we will have to have them that often to get through this.
Woof. Mostly unrelated: I’m logging our credit card bills due in January and they are double the normal budget. Lots of one-off expenses that added up so fast. I think we can cover it through cashflow but it’ll be a bit tight for a while. Also daycare’s price increase hits THIS month, I forgot. $2400. A month. ðŸ˜
I solved the toe blister mystery: I’d worn my cotton socks for a couple days and my precious toes hated them so much they all developed blisters. As soon as my wool socks came back on, they healed up.
Year 5, Day 251: It’s a four KitKat kind of day. It’s cold and dreary out. There’s very little growing in the garden. There is no furry-feet family member to greet me at the door when I get back from a loooong morning of running errands. Or to be snoring and then looking at me through bleary eyes as I tiptoe back in trying not to disturb them. Harrumph.
Speaking of Costco fails: We found Boudin clam chowder in the refrigerator section. I didn’t expect it to be as good as the restaurant when I bought it but then we (uncharacteristically) wandered through an area with a Boudin, had their clam chowder, and now the Costco version tastes flat (to me). I bet it would have been just fine if we hadn’t had some that was better. Taste bud inflation is terrible. PiC likes it well enough but that just goes to show you how easy he is to feed with my less than stellar cooking.
BUT. I put in a big order of snacks for my Lakota sponsee and staple foods for their family. I squared away raises for all of my people before the last days of the year trickled away. Those are the good things.
Year 5, Day 252: I’m doing big time grey rocking with certain people this holiday. I’m doing a good job! I’m not intensely irritated, I am simply a person floating out of time.
Wait no, I am irritated. By all this talk about trying to revoke the FDA approval for the polio vaccine. I can’t tell if they’re seriously this reckless and horrible (yes) or if it’s primarily intended to drum up panic among those of us who have an iota of sense and being reckless and horrible is just a bonus. I don’t know if he was the LAST American (as purported on Bluesky) to have used an iron lung and died, but this just makes me shake my head all over again about how utterly awful these people are: Paul Alexander, forced into an iron lung by polio in 1952, dies at 78
Year 5, Day 253: Do you like shinies? I keep saying that I don’t need any more earrings, but I love them so. Turns out Kythryne Aisling’s shop (I found her on Bsky) has a selection of perfect earrings to fill a specific genre of earrings that has been missing from my collection: small, dangly and tough so I can wear them all the time without discomfort or damaging them. I’d been going through these silly cycles of wearing earrings for some special thing or another and then leaving them off so long the holes would partially close up again (as they always do between earrings) because my preferred earring styles are too fragile to endure me being me. I got myself the elephants, the forbidden candy (they look like jolly ranchers!), fauxfire twisties, and kitsune. As a kid I always envied people who could wear all kinds of earrings. My metal allergies limited me to a very few pairs that wouldn’t cause infections. But now, if I never let them close up, I can wear anything I want! This is an unexpectedly fun jewelery era for me. Also Kythryne has very cute dogs and I appreciate the dog pictures on the skyline.
My sinuses are making their presence Very Known right now and I hate it. They’re angry. My heart rate keeps doing weird things late at night so I can’t get even the minimal rest I normally manage, I keep laying awake later and later.
Year 5, Day 254: A black lab encounter: Neighborhood dog came over for love, of course I obliged, and then wouldn’t leave. He kept looking at Smol Acrobat and PiC with “but you haven’t petted me yet? I cannot leave?” eyes. I gave him extra pets to make up for the fact that they couldn’t come pet him.
Saying this really quietly here so as not to jinx myself: shipping issues have plagued the dozens of shipments for the Lakota families so I was expecting the same for all my orders this month: books, clothes, prescription refills.
Also a nice surprise: a sale of a very old swimsuit (still in remarkably good condition) on Poshmark! I never open the app anymore, I just leave my listings up and occasionally it bears some fruit. In this case, $13 eventually. I also followed up on that money side quest from the Swiss government. Two weeks and that lady had done nothing with the revised information to send the bank transfer. She didn’t even start processing it right away when I followed up. “In a few days” she’ll start it. Cough up our money! They should be required to pay interest on money they’ve held onto for too long like the US government has to when they refund us.
I’ve hit the point in the holiday season grind where three out of four of us are sick. I’m just dragging myself through each day with gritted teeth. Not my favorite but also not super surprised. Everything is topsy turvy this year, our relaxing family time was swapped to the new year and that’s now in question because they are sick.
1. I learned about the Foodraiser years ago through Shep on Twitter because he knows Greg Doucette, and have been happy to contribute every year to this tremendous effort. Greg’s duplicated the Foodraiser thread on Bluesky, and they got a local write-up too. When I grow up, I’d love to have that kind of impact for the Lakota families.
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 $1,056 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Immediately reinvested, we need to grow our portfolios enough so that if we lose our jobs, we won’t be totally up a creek. That’s a concern again! Layoffs at PiC’s, absurdity piled upon absurdity at mine.
I was gifted a $100 Clipper card in a stroke of pure luck. A friend of a friend didn’t need their card anymore and wanted to give it to someone who would use it. My Clipper card had malfunctioned several months ago and after too many phone cards PiC managed to at least rescue the balance, but that solution meant I needed to replace the card itself.
Year 5, Day 124: For the past two weeks, PiC has had at least one bad driver encounter on their bike commute. I hate it so much.
Just this weekend, a bicyclist was hit and killed by some asshole driver in an area we are familiar with.
It’s usually an asshole driver around here – rushing to cut off other drivers before the red light, and/or running a very red light. They’re definitely disregarding pedestrians and bicyclists.
*****
Smol Acrobat came home with a bit of a leaky nose and a moan-groan-bemoan attitude. “I’m not few-wing well” they say. Oh boy. (We tested, negative for COVID.)
Trainer time! Week 2! We are going to schedule my workouts for every other day. That feels like a pace I can handle. It helps that I want to do it and I like to do it, it also helps to have someone tell me to do less this week to avoid a fatigue crash.
My brain knows this up until the point of doing the thing and suddenly it gets caught up remembering this was a dopamine generator! Let’s push through! More is good! But no, no it’s not.
Year 5, Day 125: I ache from head to toe. Smol Acrobat is a bit sicker, though testing negative for COVID right now so it’s probably just a bit of a cold viral thing, and I’m keeping my distance but PiC had to get up with them in the night. I was first up, which is unusual. More so today because I slept badly. I keep waking up sweating buckets in the middle of the night. Don’t know what it is but this is getting old.
But the real whammy was that a friend needed childcare and we took on 3 bonus children most of the day. This, after hosting JB’s friend for 3 days. We vastly, deeply, overestimated our ability to deal with such a crowd. On the one hand, Smol Acrobat was tickled pink with the company, both of them had a ton of fun with the bonus siblings. On the other hand, children talk so much. SO MUCH. They talked my ear right off.
PiC handled half the day on his own, taking all four kids (minus Smol Acrobat who I raced to drop off and raced back to my desk) out on an adventure. I worked as fast as I could and then made their snacks, ordered dinner, minded them for an hour or so until we
I was very pleased to be able to tangibly help our friend who is going through a bad divorce from an abusive spouse, and it was good to see them, but also wow did that take so much energy.
Unfortunately that also required me to stay up and work until midnight to clear enough work off the desk to feel an ounce less despair over how behind I am. If I can get more caught up before the weekend then it’ll actually stay caught up. But getting there is going to take a lot of work.
Trainer rest day that wasn’t restful.
Year 5, Day 126: I’m still so physically tired from yesterday I don’t even have the energy to dopamine farm today. My brain status: dude, if you can lift your arms, you’re doing well today. Who cares if we get anything done.
Oh right. The job cares. The job cares and the bills care and the kids needing feeding care. Fine. I spent the day catching up painfully and slowly on one mountain after another, only taking a short lunch break and a Walk the JB break when they hadn’t been outside all day and refused to go do SOMETHING active on their own. They had been puttering around the house doing the laundry as instructed but filling in the gaps with books, comic books, and the occasional video game.
Trainer time! I didn’t like squeezing it all into the end of the day but that’s how the cookie crumbled today, between having to take JB out for their outside time and keeping me locked down at my desk to push through piles of paperwork. Luckily they felt easy: glute bridges and calf raises. Note for trainer: I accidentally did a cardio today.
Year 5, Day 127: Sent a nibling a belated graduation gift today. Tracking the birthday gifts for this weekend’s birthday party.
Annnnd another round of layoffs are looming at PiC’s work. My pessimism was spot on – this spring I darkly predicted that we could breathe safely for about one quarter before we’d be holding our breaths again. It’s not just us, I see a headline that I won’t link to because it’s Fox “Layoffs announced at multiple companies this summer”, and that tallies with the lists of layoffs we have been seeing. But here we are again. We’ve been stretched thin this year, emotionally, physically and financially, after Sera’s intensive care and vet bills, and as we helped out a bunch of people who are living far more on the edge. Most of it was direct aid so we won’t see it again, and that’s fine, and some of it was big loans and we’ll deal with that later.
Funny story: the toaster oven caught on literal fire today. I realized we don’t have any fire retardant in the kitchen and dithered over the idea of throwing flour on it because what a mess that would make. PiC found a more sedate way to put it out and all was well. Go figure this was probably the least taxing thing of the week.
Note for trainer: Oops, another accidental cardio today. It’s my rest day though, so this was just bonus.
Year 5, Day 128: It’s been a week of overcommitting, both for work and personal stuff, and today’s no exception.
I’ve been working flat out and late into the night most of the week to burn through my backlog to create time for a doggy playdate today. It felt hard to fit in but there was no question of giving up the plan because it’s been 3.5 weeks since my last dog time. That’s far too long.
Pup and I spent about an hour together. My soul needed that. There’s a special sort of happiness generated from spending time with a dog that simply can’t be made any other way. Then I got back to work and cranked through another few piles. There’s light at the end of that tunnel yet.
Note for trainer: Oops, another accidental cardio today. Well, not accidental. More like a plan with consequences I ignored beforehand. I went to a friend’s to borrow their dog for a walk. That plan was revised almost immediately to taking him home to play because they’re so busy they haven’t played in ages and my legs were going to fall off if I didn’t sit down, or at least stop walking so much, for a while. We hung out in the yard playing fetch for nearly half an hour and that was perfect. Pup was happy and exhausted and I was happy and exhausted. We’ll bridge this dog-less life gap with more of these doggy playdates. It doesn’t erase the sadness but it does generate a special kind of happiness.
In the end, between that and an adventure with PiC that involved so many unauthorized and unappreciated stairs, leagues and leagues of them, I had to quit on my workout plan for the day. Or so I thought.
When I got home and realized that two of the three exercises were arms, I knocked those out so that my body was evenly balanced, top and bottom, with fatigue. Win?
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.