Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (125)
October 24, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 213: I’m still hacking up a lung but a little less than yesterday so here’s to small improvements. But I discovered a painful bump, pimple?, on my shoulder and how am I still getting these in my forties? Is there no peace to be had??
Over the weekend I sent out a message to our giving group that helps me support folks on the Pine Ridge reservation year-round. I floated the idea of making a big purchase, taking advantage of the upcoming Black Friday sales, to send bulk basic goods to the reservation. Supporting indigenous people for Thanksgiving feels like the right way to observe that federal holiday.
Some folks were able to contribute quickly (yay!) and I started hatching shopping lists. One thing led to another, namely prices adding up really fast, and I started brainstorming ways to make the impossible happen.
Two boxes of diapers in each size (12 total) comes to $350 pretax. Just 10 packages of good socks comes to $280. I wanted to send a variety of supplies: socks, gloves, diapers, warm sweaters and vests, OTC meds, shampoo and conditioner, soap, lotion, and holiday gifts for kids (sports balls, puzzles, books). COVID is still a huge problem, the coordinator confirmed, and they can’t afford even the basic OTC meds.
Once again with the money we have, it’s variety vs volume. I hate having to prioritize.
I hate it so much I asked a couple of my high profile friends if they’re willing / able to help boost a bigger effort this year. Part of me secretly hopes it’ll be a massive success and we’ll be able to help so many families in one fell swoop. Part of me wonders if I’m biting off more than I can chew. Another part of me is pretty sure that I am. But I have a plan! It just needs money and good bargain prices!
It’s a good thing we had daycare today, we normally don’t on Mondays, because I got all my work done and set up some structure for a big fundraising effort this year.
FYI: you’re witnessing a real time obsessive spiral. I now have 50 links for dry goods and pantry foods that I’d like to buy to outfit X number of families and the cost most definitely leapfrogged the current budget by several leaps and bounds. One can dream, though, yes?
I also cooked dinner! Pork roast, rice, and bok choy. And Smol Acrobat even ate their dinner like a halfway civilized human! Except for the part after they calmly set their own bowl aside and demanded my plate. They wanted to eat off a plate like everyone else.
All in all, not a bad day despite how I felt physically.
Year 3, Day 214: I’m nearly convinced that my nighttime nausea is stress induced. Eating, not eating, drinking, and not drinking all don’t help. So today I run in a couple hours of fitful sleep and it’s just delightful.
PiC related to me a chat he had with a local mom at swim lesson over the weekend. They have four kids (!!) and they shuttle the kids to lessons and activities 4-6 times a week. 👀 He said: she says they love it!!
Me: uh, the kids or the parents?
They (parents) may love it but wow that could not be me/us. As much as I was tempted to encourage JB to try both styles of self defense offered for a year, the idea of shuttling them to a lesson after school FOUR TIMES a week? No. Nope. I don’t even want to be conscious right now, making it over to class was a feat.
I had to reschedule my weekend therapy appointment to today. It was much needed but wiped me out emotionally. Also it’s amazing how precious every child-free hour is. Losing that one hour, especially on a tired as a sloth day, meant I didn’t manage to cook panko chicken for dinner before leaving.
Year 3, Day 215: I’m on my own with the kids today because PiC is stuck at work super late. Normally PiC does all the daycare drop-offs and pick-ups, and I do most or all of JB’s. JB comes home earlier than Smol Acrobat, so we’ve worked out a routine. When we come home, we do a little catching up and then JB is in charge of their own tasks: homework, snack, washing up their lunch things, whatever chores are waiting. Then they’re to occupy themselves in their free time unless and until we have an activity to get to.
I got more work done after school before we had to go pick up Smol Acrobat. JB helped by playing with Smol, setting the table without complaint, and feeding Smol when I needed to step away. It could have been a pretty terrible day with the shift in routine but JB really stepped up with a good attitude and helpful hands and Smol was in a surprisingly decent mood. Made all the difference.
Talking to an old friend about how we feel about work now (summary: BOOOO) required some mental patching up afterward. They don’t enjoy work anymore, and only work to make enough to live on. I feel this! There are so many days I’m feeling crispy fried done too. But we have more financial needs, my $$$$ therapy, my need to have a LOT a lot of money stashed and our current cost of living is much higher (and will only rise as the kids get older), so I have to keep it together. We’ve got to keep our heads in the game long enough to get to a big amount of money. This is me, telling myself to get my head back in the game!
Putting together our 2023 spending spreadsheet, I got really grouchy because our cash savings has to drop waaaaay down in the first few months of the year when we usually front load our 401k contributions (but maybe I should change my approach this year). A friend pointed out that this is “prioritizing pretax savings, then cash savings”, not “can’t save cash right now, FAIL”. My instinctive framing, the latter version, is the kind of thing I do to make myself at unnecessarily fault. Friend’s reframing is much better.
Year 3, Day 216: I’m not sure if hours of nausea when I go to bed is fibromyalgia induced or anxiety-related but either way, I don’t appreciate my new normal one tiny bit. That’s why I only got 2 hours of sleep and still have to function today. Harumph.
It’s particularly insulting to be unable to sleep when we have to sleep every single night of our lives and yet somehow I’m still failing at this.
Routines that ARE working right now: I’m on my 5th week of writing a weekly snail mail to my elderly friend. I don’t anything particularly important to say, it’s just a little update on the things we’re doing, but I like getting snail mail and I hope she does too.
I started the barest of skin routines this week. I wash my face daily of course but haven’t made any effort to do anything more than splashes of water before running on my way. I’ve started using my micellar water each night. Maybe once I’ve got this down, I can add moisturizing!?
I’ve been taking JB to self defense twice a week for several weeks. It’s rough and I often regret signing up for this (the taking them part) but we’ve only missed one class due to illness and I’m proud of that.
So those three things are going well even if this week felt/feels especially insurmountable.
Year 3, Day 217: 6 hours of sleep!? A GIFT. And yet because I’m still in sleep debt and annoyingly, I feel the lack of sleep much worse on days that I get a little REM sleep.
Today felt like I was trudging through the deepest of swamps.
At home day with Smol: when it’s time to wash hands, they run away from me like I’m a masked serial killer, leading with their belly the way that toddlers do. And because I’m tired, I follow slowly and heavy-footed in their wake just like said serial killer.
We played as best I could manage until 10 am, at which point they retired for an early nap. I worked for the next three hours.
PiC was out running ALL the errands: appointments, grocery shopping at multiple stores, picking up my multiple Target orders.
We made it through the day, slowly and painfully, but we DID make it! And we had a lovely weekend to look forward to.
Also I suggested that JB try Spirit Rangers on Netflix, it’s absolutely adorable and I very much hope that enough people take an interest in this Native created and written show to get it renewed for a second season. It’s for preschoolers but I thought it was cute enough to watch and frankly we need more creative shows like this that aren’t just formulaic and feel aimed solely for merchandising.
Biologando… Hacer la mimición 🤠😴… Que lindos #koalas 🥰 pic.twitter.com/SWw4LMymNN
— Bióloga Carmen Gutierrez (@biologacarmen) October 22, 2022
Ugh, taking kids to things! When my daughter started getting into dancing lessons that meant my 2-year-old drove her to the center and then sat in a waiting room for an hour or so away from the rest of the family, I rebelled. I hired a friend to come to our home and teach us “family dance lessons”. The neighbors came over, too, and we learned swing and stick dances and had lots of fun together — in our garage, and then when it got too cold, in the basement. Definite memories there. Boo on too much driving so that kids can have fun while parents play the chauffeur.
Hah . . . whoops: my two-year-old *and I* drove her. That two-year-old is now 22, and still doesn’t drive.
Hah, that was a neat solution! I can handle two days a week, at a time that no one would be home otherwise anyway, for a good reason but no more than that.
try asking your doctor for a prescription for zofran for the nausea
I was starting to think I needed to, but it’s been a nausea free handful of days so I’m going to hope that maybe it’s stopped?