June 22, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (316)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 7, Day 48: JB and I had the school lost and found project scheduled and we’d invited one of their friends to come help out since they were bored at home. I didn’t expect Friend to be a great deal of help but having the extra set of hands did make a difference aside from being a bit of company. We had to load, and then unload, 15 bags and 7 cases of books, open all the bags, construct all the shipping boxes, sort and pack the books evenly so they didn’t overset any single box, check the zippers to make sure they worked on all hoodies and jackets, and then do team lifting after we’d stuffed the boxes as full as we could. We completed a huge 2-5 day task (depending on whether 1 or 2 of us was working it) in five hours (with a break for lunch and rest). We even got the boxes to the shipper in the same day – that’s never happened before. Very proud of ourselves!

Year 7, Day 49: I’ve taken some time off work to visit family and am observing the changes in my body while I’m offline. Lots will probably remain the same but it’d be nice if anything changed. These first days I see my fingers are EXTRA swollen. I can tell because my ring that usually fits as expected is instead leaving giant grooves. Too tight rings always provokes anxiety over possibly having to cut it off! Never have had to but it’s felt like it’s gotten close.

Sleeping in some mornings has been really nice. The overall stresses of the past few? several? years has messed with my sleep a lot. For months I wasn’t sleeping much, then it felt like the full sleep debt was called so I was an anchor dragging myself out of bed. PiC’s massive sleep debt was also called in and he was actually able to sleep in until 1030 this week. I wonder if I can even learn to nap in the future.

Year 7, Day 50: My supply of scent-acceptable shampoo and conditioner is starting to run alarmingly low so it’s time to scramble again. What sounds like it won’t offend my scent receptors?

A price comparison of these five items surprised me:

Herbal Essences Shampoo Grapefruit – 13.5 oz
Herbal Essences Conditioner, Grapefruit – 13.5 oz
Herbal Essences Eucalyptus – 13.5 fl oz
Herbal Essences Eucalyptus – 13.5 fl oz
Herbal Essences Conditioner Tea Tree – 33.8 fl oz

With a May 20% off promo code, this comes to a total of $50.35 pre-tax at Walgreens, $55.32 after tax. I’ll submit a P&G rebate offer for $15 off $50. That’ll bring us to $40.32. There’s also 3% cashback from MrRebates but I won’t include that in my price comparisons. I also get $10 in Walgreens cash for the order but since that doesn’t defray the costs of THIS order, I won’t count that either.

That same cart, with a $3 Herbal Essences coupon and 5% off with the Target circle card, came to $57.45 pre-tax and $57.13 after tax at Target. There’s a Rakuten 1% off as well.

I was glad to see it worked out this way because we are trying to avoid shopping Target.

I don’t love that these are all more than I’d normally pay. The old standby of Tresemme used to price out at about $3.50-$4.25 per 28 ounce bottle after coupons and discounts. But the changed formula now induces headaches and nausea. Can’t be perimenopause according to my OB because my oral BC already gives me a steady supply of estrogen that would make up for a perimenopausal drop in estrogen.

I learned how to make paper balloons.

Year 7, Day 51: My other layer of layoff worry. This is so much pressure on PiC. He’s not been happy at his job for a couple years. He was happy with the change at first, 2020-2022. But the constant layoffs, while we’re grateful they’ve missed him so far, have more than tripled his workload. It’s taking a significant toll on him. He’s not complaining about needing to keep it together because we’re down to just his income but it’s very hard to plan to rest and recover when he’s now the sole income provider and is under SO MUCH pressure.

I feel immense pressure to figure out how to dive into another high-level high-income job when I really don’t want that life anymore. But let’s be honest, it’s still a bit of a puzzle to figure out what I want and can do, anyway. They don’t always match up. All the things I really want to do require a physical ability that I haven’t had in decades but maybe things on that front could change after I’m finally released from this particular level of hell.

On that note, PiC’s company just did another mass layoff. The last one was only 6-8 months ago! He was thankfully not cut and/but will be slowly learning about the impacts of those cuts, pile on the extra work!, over the next few weeks. This is why I always have some empathy for how hard it is to be left behind in a layoff too. You still have income but going by his experience, your quality of life seriously deteriorates over time. If you care, that is. In my company the people left don’t care and are garbage at their jobs (HR ahem).

Year 7, Day 52: The burden of meal planning and prep and cooking hasn’t been on me OR PiC for a few days and I can’t fully express how much of a weight it lifts off my whole being. Usually I have to engineer this sort of thing to create that space but the family time has even rendered that part moot. We’ve also gotten some sleep even though the kids are actually up first every day, they’ve been playing quietly without bothering us until we both wake up. It’s because of the novelty more than anything, this won’t last since we do have to get back to work but I’m enjoying it while it does. Heck, we’ve even been able to let PiC sleep in late twice. He normally always has to be up with the kids because I’m a slow waker with the pain and fatigue delaying sleep for hours but I’ve been able to fall asleep by midnight a lot of nights instead of 2-4 am so he’s gotten a turn at the mid morning waking.

June 15, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (315)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 7, Day 41: Somehow we landed on some cruise lines’ mailing lists which is starting to make me batty. We don’t cruise. Stop sending us junk that I have to clean up! I usually email these places and tell them to stop mailing us shit but Silversea especially pissed me off claiming that brochures sent from their name and address aren’t being sent by them at all, they’re coming from travel agents. Oh really? Travel agents who want our money but won’t get it because we won’t use their services because we don’t see the middleperson in this mailing at all? That makes a lot of sense, yep!

I just remembered the cocktail that I liked a while back, so this is a reminder to myself order this drink: Blackberry Vodka Mojito. I hate rum but always forget that’s what’s in mint mojitos until I taste it and then sadness. (I also hate gin.) Vodka and tequila are fine in reasonable amounts, so is white wine, so if I MUST drink an alcoholic beverage (practically never) I really ought to stamp this one across the inside of my wrist so I don’t mistakenly order a cocktail of regret yet again. Since I imbibe about once every 5 years, the chances are very high that I’m going to forget.

Year 7, Day 42: Last week’s ask results:
A) deeply irritated that the company is completely unreasonable and refusing to budge on anything important. I can’t tell if this is a firm position or if it’s the healthcare position of “always refuse the first ask no matter how justified” so I’m going to push back.
B) Vision Plan reimbursement. They said it’d take 20 days but it’s been paid! Saved: $59.03 of the $61.80 paid.
C) The sharpener warranty: They said it’d take 6 weeks but they shipped a replacement without any fuss! Saved: $21.50 (They were $16 in 2020, now $20).

Thinking about how prices have risen, I noticed that my gardening gloves were previously $14 in 2020, now they’re $19. Thank goodness I’d gotten an extra pair back then when I realized they were a good fit.

Year 7, Day 43: I’d shared a while back on Bluesky: Going down to a 1-income household while still being a party of 4 for an unknown period of time is in fact causing me a lot of underlying stress and anxiety.

I’ve been the breadwinner since I was 17. Yes I have saved intensely for this situation whether it was me or him. No that doesn’t help my stress at all.

Not that PiC hasn’t been an equal breadwinner because he has been and his income and mine have always been joint funds equally regardless of how much each earned. This is my amygdala freaking out over my lack of personally earned income.

That and the fact that for a while we can’t help anyone til I figure out what we have to do to stay stable and that’s been as much a part of my identity as being an income earner has been. This sucks in many ways.

I’ve been sitting with this feeling and thoughts because, as I said, everything (but the money) about this job sucked. So why all the anxiety? I yell at myself a few times a day.

Ironically, all the work I’ve been doing in therapy is why I’m so scared and anxious. I’ve been making room for my own health needs: feeling feelings, a lot of pacing physically (which means: NOT doing), and trying to get a lot more rest than I ever got in the past. I always needed more than I was getting but my fibro and CFS are now at a point where I must have a roughly 3 to 1 ratio of rest to exertion to recover from low exertion activities or my body shuts down. I’ve been cancelling or rescheduling appointments when the fatigue is high because driving isn’t safe when I’m this impaired. I don’t know if it’s accurate to compare to drunk driving because I’ve never really been drunk nor would I ever drive after having had a drink but I bet it’s similar.

I made it out of the last layoff by near killing myself proving myself at the next job. I am not the same person anymore. I can’t do that. Maybe also won’t. I shouldn’t. That means I now have to find another way to get through this next period which is boding to be incredibly rough. The corporate world has gotten immeasurably more cutthroat and corrupt. The world where you could build a business on the internet has been massively impacted by two godforsaken Trump presidencies and the huge push to steal and sell back our data by AI companies. So many small businesses that once thrived are struggling since Twitter went down.

What chance do I have? I don’t know but I’m scared that it’s “not much”. I don’t want to learn what it’s like to be unable to provide for my family. Of all the ways I thought I might parallel my mom’s life, I didn’t think this would be one.

Year 7, Day 44: The WordPress app is finally allowing me to compose again 🎊 buuut calling my reply comments grr so I’ll drop my replies to comments here.

@Alice: Yes, thankfully we will be able to make changes to PiC’s health coverage because of the layoff so that’s good so long as he continues to dodge those bullets himself.
I’d love any thoughts you want to offer on self-employment, any time!

@Linda: Thanks for the recs and the contribution! It will be so good to focus on helping folks again.

I used your wool socks to keep my feet warm at night when I could still generate warmth on my own! These days I require the help of the heating pad to get started and it’s a strange juggle trying to get warm enough only to hit too warm too warm suddenly.

@Linda: absolutely excruciating. I’m trying to make the best of it, since it is income for a while longer, but it feels like getting little hairs plucked at random times. Unfortunately the company refuses to budge on any terms for anyone for any reason 😒

Year 7, Day 45: @Tragic Sandwich: I hope neither of us need to put this information to use any time soon but we might as well have the knowledge. 😐

@Rae: congrats on your cucumbers! It’s a delight to eat from your own garden!

@Hawaii Planner: Well, that’s a bummer that UI takes so dratted long to pay out! My memory of the slowness is hazy but I’m sure things have gotten worse since 2008. Do you recall how long they will pay, by any chance? Is it a 6 month cap?

Therapeutic Bostons

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