October 12, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (332)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 7, Day 160: Work stress is coming to a head here for PiC and even though I’ve been seeing the train’s headlights for a while, I still don’t know how to help.

He’s been working so damn hard. He’s trying to do an impossible amount of work AND be here to help out a lot with the kids so that I don’t die. This leaves him working late into the nights and running on 2-4 hours of sleep and that’s totally unsustainable.

Today, promotions were announced again and he was passed over again because they require you to put together this whole promotion packet thing to be considered. So they won’t consider him for promotion. WITH WHAT TIME?!

I was supposed to be so much more free now with less and less work to do. But my damn throat pain is sending pain up to my ears even with the lidocaine because I had the audacity to eat. I am not happy to have a THIRD mystery pain thing, and even more unhappy that it’s compounding his stress because he’s trying to be everywhere at once while none of his work efforts are being recognized in a tangible way. I’d be mad too!

Year 7, Day 161: SmolAc’s first elementary school parent teacher conference was happily a breeze. They are adjusting really well. Their teacher likes their energy (has lots but channels it appropriately and knows when to let loose and more importantly when not to), their vocabulary, and their critical thinking. Apparently when the other kids aren’t understanding a concept, she will call on them to explain how they think about it and it helps the other kids. That’s really not something I would have predicted, it took literally 2.5 years for them to even be willing to speak in class, now they’re an explainer? I’m so happy that they’re happy. Though I would be happier if the other kids would finally learn to keep their hands to themselves! They aren’t distressed by it but they have been telling us about the kids who hit them at school (after which they tell the kids to knock it off and if they won’t, then the teacher is called in). It’s being handled in real time like it should be and they’re not coming home bruised in body or spirit, they’re just very matter of factly letting us know. They’re still very happy to go to school and enjoying loads.

For JB, however, I am displeased with their new school. TWO teachers in subjects that absolutely should NOT be using AI platforms in teaching – because the point of doing the work in those subjects is to learn HOW to do it by doing it and editing it- have been telling the kids to use AI platforms for edits without bothering to inform parents. I’ve been very alert to the introduction of this tech and have pushed back strongly on the requirement to use it when the principal claimed that policy is to allow families to make the call. Sure is hard for them to make that call when you never tell them that your kid is a guinea pig, isn’t it??

Year 7, Day 162: I should continue to read up on the propositions for voting, but I don’t wanna.

I should sort more kids clothes for donation. I also don’t wanna.

I should figure out the Cricut and make some stickers but don’t wanna.

I’m surrounded by so many chores needing doing and I don’t want to do anything.

I have a sneaking suspicion this is depressive sluggishness and would LIKE to shake it off but how? Or is it intense fatigue and depression from the current excessive pain on top of helping out a friend with childcare all all month on top of my kid’s aftercare? That’s also possible.

So for now I push myself to get the kids to school, rest for a while, do a few chores like pay bills or run the laundry, pick up the kids, feed them all, manage SmolAc’s homework and home learning until JB comes home and sort of keep an eye on their pacing through their homework and music practice.

Just survive one day at a time and, if I can, get myself to make some basic donation decisions already because the books and clothes and toys, outgrown hand me downs mainly, are piling up and doing damage to my peace of mind too.

Year 7, Day 163: I’m slowly replacing all the things, services and such, that we have paid through work because my privileges will be revoked in a couple of months and we have to be ready to shift seamlessly if PiC’s layoff lands any time soon. I get a free phone line through Comcast for a year and I’ve set that up to have an extra hot spot on hand, along with a very limited release use case for JB to be able to reach me and PiC on a check in and emergency basis. We’ve been using PiC’s work phone for the data when the internet cacks up a hairball.

I need a good replacement for Adobe since that is subscription that’ll go away sooner than later. I tested RevPDF for a couple weeks but I hate it. Claire Willett advocated for SmallPDF (referral link) which looks very promising so I’ve gotten myself set up with that and will be giving it a good test to make sure it does what’s needed.

I was able to do what I needed at PDF24 (fill a form and sign the doc) but it’s in browser so I wouldn’t feel comfortable using this for anything confidential. For confidential stuff I would only be happy with a reader/editor app that I downloaded directly to my computer and wasn’t loaded into someone’s servers. If anyone has a better alternative, please share!

Year 7, Day 164: All my labwork came back negative for anything solveable so, dammit, it could be outside referral time. The one bit of good news is after 3 weeks of intense pain (up from the 6 weeks of moderate barely tolerated pain), I think the increased dosing of the antivirals broke the blockade. The swelling finally seems to be reversing course – not getting worse each day. If I’m lucky, this will also start to get better 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

What a huge, temporary, relief. It’s been 3.5 years of surviving with yet another daily medication to just kind of manage the problem. I want answers. Preferably answers I can DO something about. But that process is a slow one, I’ve been warned.

October 5, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (331)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 7, Day 153: The last few nights and mornings my pain did a weird reversal. Normally, pain hits me when I lay down at night and then I can’t sleep for hours with painsomnia. That’s when I do my best reading sprees. These past days, when I wake up the bones start to buzz with pain. Weird. Likely won’t last but weird.

PiC and I have been discussing sports for weeks and I think we might be starting to settle in on the idea of competitive swim for JB and swim and beginner baseball in the spring for SmolAc. The time commitment would be almost balanced between the two of them, JB would have practices 3 times a week (and we might be able to carpool with friends), SmolAc would have 1 practice and 1 game each week. The staggered start time is also helpful so that we’re not trying to juggle three sports at the same time. We can ease into it. After the cast is off.

Year 7, Day 154: All I wanted for my birthday was… Well. A lot of things. The replacement of no less than 10 key Republicans in power across all three branches of government, a billion dollars to spend on people and animals (I get to keep 2-3M to shore up our accounts, pay off the mortgage, and whatever I’ve forgotten but the rest of the cash can go into making life sustainable again for folks), to not be exhausted anymore. To be cured of my fibro and CFS. To have all the clutter and dust and dirt cleared out of the house in one fell swoop without having to Pay A Price (physically). A horse and two dogs. Two horses if we’re wishing for the stars. For the kids to stop being obnoxious.

More realistically, I got a short nap, vacuumed under furniture that usually doesn’t get moved but haunts me since I moved it two weeks ago and saw all the yuck under there, spent 3 hours organizing the donations and orders for the Red Shirt village on Pine Ridge, and decluttered a fraction of a corner of the office. Also there was a slice of cake. It worked ok for the reality we do live in.

Year 7, Day 155: I made a simplified (no herbs, no cheese) version of this chicken zucchini stirfry and other than the zucchini getting too soft too fast (note to self, next time, cook them for 30 seconds max), it was quite good. I wonder if I swap out for a veggie that doesn’t soften too much, maybe that might be better. I’ve had a huge hankering for cauliflower lately and that could hold up nicely in this recipe.

I also want to make Mediterranean cauliflower with sumac one of these days. Or is it better with za’atar? I’m not sure! I’ve seen recipes both ways.

Year 7, Day 155: The first two of four new camping lanterns arrived. I’ve charged and labeled them. The next two should arrive later this week. I don’t know how much runtime we get from the small lights but I feel better knowing we have 4 big lanterns with 12 hours each in addition to the 4 smalls. Judicious use of both sets should give us a reasonable light supply for any 2+ day power outages.

I’m pondering on how many Ilona Andrews worlds I’m emotionally invested in that I crave more of: Innkeeper, Kate Daniels (Wilmington), Iron Covenant, Blood Heir, Inheritance. Maggie is good but I’m just not as invested in that world right now. Probably a time thing? It’s new and all the others have had time to sink into my marrow. Although Inheritance is also pretty new and I very much want more of that.

I think we got really lucky with the full ten books for Kate Daniels, I keep wanting that much of everything else but trilogies are more the thing now. Sadly. Ponders brought to you by all the rereading I’ve been doing.

Year 7, Day 157: My throat has been a problem since August but it really spiked a doozy these past few days. It went from sore and hard to swallow to referred ear pain, feels like swallowing knives when I eat or drink, and even breathing hurts. No idea why it escalated so quickly when I’ve been on my maintenance meds without a break but this is the worst.

It’s not been this bad since 3 years ago when I finally got it sort of diagnosed and was prescribed antivirals that helped most of the time but not all the time.

I finally caved and called the doctor. Ultimately ended up spending 5.5 hours between the primary care and specialist to get it scoped and scraped until he got blood from the sore (frickin OW) and blood drawn for labwork but honestly the ENT isn’t sure what to do or think after he went through the whole list of types of stomatitis. That’s the drawback to asking for help, medically, I have to spend the whole damn day or three worth of energy to get maybe some of the right questions asked but more than likely no answers.

We have a plan to refer out of Kaiser if these tests come up with nothing. That’s going to be a whole new complicated mess that I very much don’t want to deal with.

September 28, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (330)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 7, Day 146: Welp, we were approaching “better schedule and carpool arrangements” last week. Now we’re redoing everything because JB’s mobility is very limited for the next four weeks. We’re trying something new with dropoffs and pickups. It requires a lot more driving on my part but it also involves a lot more carpooling.

Maybe this change will help me put together a better schedule for post-cast life?

They were walking with a sorta friend a lot of days before and they weren’t enjoying that relationship so much so we can take the opportunity to reconstruct a set up with a lot less time with that person.

Year 7, Day 147: I can’t remember the last time I did anything purely on impulse and I’ve just reminded myself why. I’m not good at it and it’s probably not a muscle I should flex more because it’s annoying and uncomfortable. Going to pick up JB, I suddenly decided that we should get our flu shots today instead of waiting until later in the week. I had an inexplicable brain itch that didn’t like the idea of “later in the week” and since it couldn’t be reasoned with, I wanted it over with.

I decided to borrow a page from Maggie‘s book and preemptively offered the kids a treat: ice cream and fries (we never get fries!) for their cooperation. We went to the clinic and the universe saw me surprising the kids with this sudden decision and raised me the surprise that the COVID vaccine was in, did I want it? Yes I do! Except, I had no antihistamines on me to manage the COVID vaccine effects and we’d be out for a few more hours after the vaccine. So I took my chances with the vaccine and side effects. Then we had no sweaters for when the winds kicked up, for me or SmolAc, or a water bottle because I left the house with the barest bones of supplies. I did have just enough stuff to get by, but not being prepared for all contingencies was annoying. I need to have all the things all the time. But we all got flu vaccinated! Yay!

Year 7, Day 148: I was wondering what the formula is for recovering from burnout. Discord friends suspect that it’s the same as divorce – one month per year of thingie. If true/accurate, that’s not great for me! It’s been 26 years, burning myself to a crisp the whole time. I’ve got 12 months budgeted for, not 26! And there’s no possibility of full decompression since I’m running flat out taking care of the kids’ stuff now.

My therapist thinks I’m already doing some of the healing now by cranking back my working hours dramatically and spending that time and energy on other priorities. I hope that’s accurate. I’m trying!

I have no clue what healing actually looks like but I hope it’s a lot less exhaustion and frustration. Linda’s lengthy mental load recovery post-retirement sounds like it could be what might be in store for me post-job – even if I am actively working on working less all the way to the end, there’s still a mental connection and a responsibility looming for the last weeks.

Today’s not the day, though, because I didn’t get antihistamines into my system fast enough. I was hammered today with post-vax weary.

Year 7, Day 149: We’ve had four power outages this month. Two of them were very short but two were long enough to be an inconvenience. Thankfully not more than that. Our new garage door with the backup battery worked so that’s one really nice thing about having to replace it recently. Before, I had to lift the door manually which is fine if my body is ok but on a bad day? Nothing doing. My new lanterns from Costco, ordered just after the first long power cut, came in time for the second and they were great. Of course SmolAc claimed the big lantern and JB claimed the tiny one.

Now I’m wondering if I should pick up a few more so we have more than the bare minimum to share between the house and cars. And for some redundancy of charged lanterns in case we have a longer shut off. Yes, I think the answer is yes.

We need to solve our water supply and storage problem. We need safe, clean and high volume storage that I can fill, empty, and refill even when my joints aren’t functioning properly. If anyone has already solved this problem, please share!

Year 7, Day 150: I woke up before 5 am, vibrating with unnamed stress, and wondering how much difference it’ll make to officially be out of limbo and out of work. We have what, a month and change left? Two months felt a bit like mental thumbscrews were in. 6 weeks felt more tolerable.

My days are so full right now with things I have to do and kids to care for (mine plus bonus kid on some days). Some days I’m picking up kids for an hour. There’s only 3 of them and it feels like a circus.

I have applied to exactly two jobs to date and have not yet found as many as a third to be interested in. At this moment in time I don’t have time or energy for any other jobs, paying or not.