April 21, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (255)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 358: I went into the weekend with one goal: to cut my hair (again). I’ve been taking 2-3 inches off at a time since I’m a novice and have no idea what it’ll look like each time I chop it. It feels like about 4 more inches off the back would be right.

What I did instead: a rescue run to drop off stuff at the pool, filled up gas, therapy, set up a new spreadsheet to track some data, took everyone to the optometrist, ordered two pairs of glasses, picked up a pair, got one eye exam, went to 2 grocery stores, 3 loads of laundry, took the kids on a 4 hour adventure into the city via BART (by myself! I never take them on adventures by myself), yelled at our Senators about the SAVE act, ICE and illegal deportations and the Democratic leadership’s general uselessness fighting this fascism and laid in bed regretting at least a few of my decisions. No coincidence, I’m giving the Celebrex a test run. This is the new pain med my pain pharmacist prescribed to use instead of tramadol which makes me sick sick sick.

Maybe the hair will go next weekend.

Year 5, Day 359: I still need to set up time for an ADHD diagnosis, which is more for the kids than me at this point because I have new! improved! (maybe?) coping mechanisms. Upping my depression meds helped. Adding sixteen alarms to my life helped. Adding lots more organizing pouches to my bags helped.

This post at Nicole and Maggie‘s had me thinking: did I have lifelong symptoms? I dunno, how would I remember? Maybe. I remember being socially awkward all my life. I get on best with ND folks generally, NT people confuse and annoy me more than not. Like when they have an issue but don’t address it directly. Or spend a lot of time on chitchat before finally getting to the point. But is that ADHD or “I’m fecking BUSY, people, come on?” I’ve learned to read some social cues by mimicking the humans in my life who are comfortable with other humans. I hyperfocus or popcorn work: I’m either 100% locked in or spend 1-3 minutes at a time on 15 different projects.

I had RSD like whoa for most of my life. I’ve been actively working on diminishing its power over me.

Year 5, Day 360: I’m not feeling good today, but am noticeably less wrecked than Monday and Tuesday. I was testing my Celebrex for pain on Sunday and Monday night. Is it just coincidence that fatigue was extra high the day after taking them? Or is it a side effect? Maybe I was just feeling like a million pounds slug because pain was high enough to try my newest heavy hitter. That’s also logical.

Work is both wildly unsettling and settling down in various (and maybe opposite) ways. We have been working really hard at hiring people we hope will be good and long-term fits for my department. Now we’re deep in the thick of training which is the even more painful (because it takes so long) part. While handling that micro-level stuff, I’m also working on (juggling) several projects that will change policies for the whole company. Then I have to build business strategies to keep my people employed through the rise of fascism in America and that’s about where my brain goes squeeeeee squeeeee squeeeeee like a DSL modem. I’ve advised my non-US counterparts that this “weird Americans are being weird again” is really a deeply dangerous version that threatens the fabric of our democracy, and we may not come back from that. Let’s strategize around that, y’all. The folks who don’t live here (that I know) truly don’t understand how bad this really is, they think it’s business as usual with the volume turned up a bit.

Year 5, Day 361: This is a complaint. I have to find some presentable professional wear clothes by summer. a) I don’t WANT to and b) have absolutely no clothes look like they’d be both presentable AND comfortable at the same time. I’ve combed through my usual resources of a reliable petite fashion blogger to get ideas and after hours of searching and brainstorming, everything in me is rebelling. A couple hours of light online shopping later, I hate even the idea of clothing. Also I seem to have gone from a 00P to a 0-2?? (which I made my peace with post-first-pregnancy, mostly) to 10/Medium?? At least that’s what the size charts say.

I will deal with the numbers shifting, it’s mostly unsettling living in this body that still doesn’t feel like mine yet, but the idea of having to build a professional wardrobe again, urkk. My brain and my performance is completely unrelated to the clothes I wear but well, no, not true. The more comfortable I am (sweatpants and hoodie!) the better work I do. But what I feel good in is the barest nod to decency. I change out of my sleep sweats into my work sweats. I DO wish I could roll up in my existing wardrobe, either indoors sloth or geek comfort chic, but instead I’ll have to spend real money on business clothes that, if I’m lucky, I only have to wear once a year. No matter how much I’ve proven myself, I really doubt the new to me higher-ups are going to look at sloth-me and say yeah, let’s trust her decisions will yield multi-million dollar revenues. Humph.

Alright. Having gotten that off my chest: maybe it’ll be enough to find 2 blazers and 2-3 trousers to mix and match with casual tops and shoes. Keywords: Machine wash, and “never wrinkles”. Fingers crossed!

Year 5, Day 362: This was a 3 days of workouts week, we alternate between 3-day and 4-day weeks, but it still felt quite challenging to get through them all. I still have quite a bit to do by tomorrow. He’s planning to move me off the regular planks once I can achieve 3 1-minute planks but it feels like cheating if we do that before I can do them all three in a row. I break up my exercise sets across days, have never done 3 planks in a row, and as I tell JB, cheating in exercises is only cheating yourself. I’m not actually stronger if I’m cheating!

I’m stress shopping: treats and toys for my canine and feline niblings. Three Christmas presents done, one dog and five cats to go. I might send them a bit early too, save myself some year end packing and shipping stress. I’ve got the clothing half of the presents for the human niblings and need to buy their books soon.

We also had gift cards to use up so I combined them with sales and promotions to stock up on: Shampoo and conditioner, my current favorite St Ives pink lemon and mandarin orange scrub, wrapping paper since PiC is on a gift wrap kick right now, parchment paper (kitchen), eraser pads, hair removal stuff, and dishwasher detergent. I have no idea what’s going to happen with tariffs and the cost of living but these are consumables that we always use and I feel a little bit better for having a full stock on hand at least. For now.

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April 14, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (254)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 351: This day started with the surprise visit of a neighbor dog as happy to see me as I was him. That was really nice. Lots of kisses and skritches. Every morning should start with a dog visit until we can bring home a dog friend.

I spent 2.25 hours trying to order pet food from not-terrible places to ship to the reservations. That is way too much time for what result I got out of it: having to order one part of the shipment from PetsSmart and 2/3 of it from Amazon. I also tried to get electricity hooked up for a family but we’re going 3 rounds of email and calls trying to locate their account and we’re not there yet.

Courtney Milan did a great explainer on the tariffs. I’ve been sharing this with people who aren’t plugged into the better sources of news (not mainstream media which fails on many fronts). I’ve also been recommending that they follow Celeste Pewter on Bluesky to get good political commentary and actions to encourage them to educate themselves a bit more and to hopefully take some action.

Year 5, Day 352: What a day. I woke up with blood pressure-brain problems so I was woozy all day long. Had a 2 hour call. Had to follow up on the Lakota orders, it wasn’t certain which would ship and which wouldn’t. Had to check in with staff to assign them more work and answer questions. SO many questions. OMG.

I catch myself staring at my to do list like there’s some magical line item that I can add that will fight fascism and make this country the place it should have been but has never been, and adding precisely nothing. There are a thousand things we can do, it’s just today, in this moment, my brain is stuck. It’ll shake loose, it’s just *waves hands*.

We’re also very close to ticking over into Year 6 since COVID and I wonder if it’s time to change the titles of these posts. COVID is obviously here to stay. We’re not likely to hear much about it with this completely reckless, thieving, homicidal administration. I don’t know what to switch to, though.

Almost back on track with my workouts after the big derailing in January. My stamina still feels hollowed out, though, not sure if that feeling will go away anytime soon. Occasionally I do feel stronger, though, and I’m grateful for those few feedback moments.

Year 5, Day 353: Lucky timing, border collie friend caught me early so we had a quick game of catch. I can never pet her anymore because my only job is to PLAY and dispense TREATS. Oh well.

I’ve been in a holding pattern for so many things, for months, that it feels weird now that most of them are resolved. Is this how it feels when stress levels are reset from Excessively High to Medium? This is good! I’m just a little wobbly.

• We’ve filed our tax return, paid the state and received the federal refund (surprised and relieved).
• The raise negotiations that were held up for months concluded abruptly (got an increase. not what I deserve but in this economy I’ll take it for now). Now the waiting for the paperwork begins.
• We’ve met the minimum spend on the first churning credit card, bonus points deposited. The second churning credit card has arrived in time for us to pay for the big insurance premiums. (Our home and earthquake polices went up again, of course. Mrgh.)
• The restructure at work is almost done, we know all the essential changes and people can live with them.
• We took a day off and had an overnight trip with the kids that was pretty good. I’d been dreading the trip, worrying that SmolAc would be in Bad Traveler Grumpy mode. They were excited, though, so that helped.

I took advantage of the sun and the school minimum day to pull weeds for a quick half hour and worked up a sweat. Pretending that I can work my way up to my trainer’s level of buff. Hah!

Year 5, Day 354: My phone camera has started doing this strange thing. It strobes black vertical bars across the screen that causes the pictures to be partly blacked out. It seems to only do this indoors, but it’s cropping up at places where I’ve taken hundreds of photos and videos. I can work around it by taking a video and snapping pictures as I record but that doesn’t work for portraits. I don’t intend to buy a new phone so soon, this one’s only 3 years old! I’ll have to figure out a fix somehow.

In other phone news, PiC’s phone croaked so we ordered him a new one. Just like that, we hit the minimum spend on the card that just arrived today.

Year 5, Day 355: The slow motion ant infestation is making me lose it a little. I find them in the kitchen, put down bait. Two days later, I find them in the office, put down bait. Two days later, kitchen again. Bait, again. Two days later, bedroom. Bait. Four days later, bathroom. ARGHHHH!! It’s like they have us surrounded and every time I bait one area, they send their scouts in another room.

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April 7, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (253)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 344: I’m having an irrational thing. I set a high retirement contribution rate last year to max it out in the time I had to contribute. Having already tightened the belt to adjust to our much lower cashflow, it made sense to keep that contribution rate this year in case I had to quit in a huff if everything fell apart. (I’m still on the fence about that. Things are supposed to get better but “better” is relative!) I’m suddenly very impatient and want it done. Even though it would cut my take home pay to very little cash, I want to increase my contributions to max it out right now. Why? I don’t know! I am pure impatience.

Ten hours later: Ohhh this is my version of cutting my hair to pretend I have control when I have no control! I am waiting on several important financial things and I can’t do anything about the punkasses who are dragging their feet. That’s why the overwhelming urge to do anything.

Year 5, Day 345: JB has to start a medicated eye drop regimen that runs $100 for a 3 week supply. *faint*

We just had our eye exams and their rate that their myopia is developing is concerning. They’re not willing to do the overnight contact lens therapy, I’m not willing to fight with them over this yet, so we’re starting out with the eyedrops first. If they can get accustomed to that without having a total meltdown every night, maybe we’ll work our way up to the contacts. Maybe. I feel bad for them. They got my aversion to letting anything ever come near the eyeballs but they did not get my good vision.  Their eyesight is worse than mine is right now. This is worrisome.

My eyesight is a touch worse than last year so I need to replace both my computer glasses and the distance glasses I completely forgot to start using when they were prescribed … uh 18 months ago?  I’d prefer to use my own frames which means bringing them to the eye doc and hoping they don’t screw it up. I’ll get a cheap pair from Zenni first to hold me over during that lens replacement time. My computer glasses allowance is only $90 for frames. That is silly low and I don’t want to pay another $250 out of pocket for new frames that won’t fit well with my office headset if at all possible.

Year 5, Day 346: I’m negotiating for a raise right now and the ghost of anxiety is fluttering in the background. Surprisingly, it’s just a friendly little ghost. Even though the negotiations are with an entirely new person I don’t know or have trust built with, which brings all the baggage of their social expectations of women to just take what they’re given if anything, my past 20 years of negotiating raises for myself and for my team and teaching my friends to just go for it has blunted those nerves. Here’s hoping I get an answer (and that it’s yes) this week so I can map out the rest of our budget year.

My tax person has been uncharacteristically slow this year. I KIND of assumed that the WTFness of the world played into that but she didn’t say. Still, she managed to submit our return this week and to my relief given the wanton destruction in DC, the returns appear to be somewhat automated in some way because the money hit our bank today. This covers our CA state tax bill.

Year 5, Day 348: We went on a little adventure. My biggest goal was for us adults to not have to think about what to feed people for at least a whole day.

I have learned some more things about myself on this trip and all of them are: Digital disconnect makes me itch. I prefer to remain in civilization with all the trappings thereof. I hate not having the option of GPS, I hate not being able to download another book from the library when the painsomnia is up. I hate the blanket of cold that comes from having only canvas between me and the rest of the world instead of walls.

My friends and PiC have all gently pushed the idea of camping for years. One of them accidentally made it sound kind of fun but my very gentle brush with the wilderness this week, though I love nature, reminded me that even if my curiosity is piqued, I’m no longer built for such things. This very thin veneer of camping was enough to remind me how I like my creature comforts.

We did have fun! It was dusty and dirty and muddy with one of those single “stall” showers with the showerhead that makes me think of MASH (probably only because I have never been to a real campsite) and I didn’t mind all that, it’s roughly like the barn life I grew up with. But I’m in pain and discomfort daily, who needs to add “roughing it” to the list of challenges? Even with the softest beds, my body was all NOPE til 4 am this morning.

Year 5, Day 348: I forgot to update my spreadsheets for the monthly Net Worth update so I had to do it today. WOW.  The last time I checked VTSAX, it was trending down a bit but nothing alarming. Today? That was a significant drop from Monday to Friday.  It’s not personally alarming because we’re currently very fortunate on multiple axes (and are hyperaware that could change at any time): we’re still accumulating assets – this drop means we’re investing in the same assets at lower prices. We also have W2 income and don’t depend on that money to pay the bills.

Of course you know that I think the bigger picture remains extremely alarming. The executive branch of the government is disappearing people, admitting it, and saying we don’t have to offer due process to SOME people. I would hope that people would realize that if some of us don’t have due process, none of us have due process. The government just has to disappear you and make vague claims that you were suspected of terrorism or some such noise, and refuse to tell anyone where you are. If they can do this to legal residents, and they are doing it and admitting it in open court, then they can do this to citizens just as easily.

I keep wondering if our country and democracy are going to survive this period. It feels absolutely surreal to see people in the PF community taking this administration in stride as if we aren’t in constitutional crisis and as if this new regime isn’t going to do lasting damage. It’s as surreal as still having to go about our everyday lives, raising the kids, making dinner, and dealing with work (both the important stuff and the minutiae). What’s the phrase, fiddling while Rome burns?

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