Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (130)
November 28, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 248: What a freakin’ day.
PiC had an 8 am meeting so morning runs were on me again. After a thankfully slightly less rough night with Smol Acrobat’s and their friend, THE FEVER, we were off to the races. We had to drop off JB, drop off Smol Acrobat in their new classroom, drop off thank you cakes to their own classroom, drop off a return at the UPS store, run to the butcher for our Thanksgiving main entree, and run to Trader Joe’s for other groceries. We made it back before lunch but only just.
Cousin saved my bacon doing the last grocery run that I didn’t have the time or energy for. She’s saved my bacon for the past few days, doing the menu planning, cooking and helping with the kids. This tells me that our lives would be MARKEDLY better if we had a full adult available to cover the cooking and all related to cooking activities. Even with that, we still feel stretched to our limits with all the other things we’re managing.
I think our original ratio of 2-4 adults to one kid remains ideal. I don’t know what we’d do if it was flipped the other way and I don’t want to find out.
Anyway, all the work, still!
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving Daily update
Incoming money! Kohl’s Cash! I’ll need to use this within a specific timeframe, starting on Saturday. I can do that.
This takes a little pressure off. I’ve been feeling the need to make the most of our last few hundred in the “right” way. The most perfect last orders, as if there is such a thing. The knowledge that I’m not going to be able to keep fundraising like we did on Twitter weighs so heavily on me right now. It’s possible that by this time next year we’ll have something new and effective in place, but we might not. Maybe I’ll have to do less, which would be sad. We don’t know what a year from now will look like.
So this moment from Leverage:Redemption really spoke to my soul in this moment in time.
Year 3, Day 249: I suspect “what a day” is going to be the theme going forward until January. I wish it weren’t highly likely.
I FINALLY cracked down (and found the time thanks to Cousin’s help) to place two orders for things we need, and returned two of the three things that I have to return. The last one is getting packaged today but I am loathe to attempt going back to the UPS store which was chaotic the last time I was there. I also started a new card for elder friend who I haven’t written to in a few weeks.
Smol is getting more symptomatic, runny nose and coughing, and I’m starting to really fade from lack of sleep. They woke up 4 times last night whimpering and crying.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving: Daily update
I have to recuse myself from the Holiday Okini this year for the sake of sanity but if anyone is interested in buying gifts for kids who won’t otherwise get any, they’re adding families to the list now.
Year 3, Day 250: One more day til Thanksgiving! I was hoping to get loads of work done before today and make it a light one but my shoulders are up by my ears with how much I didn’t make it to my self declared finish line.
This was, in part, because we had a dear friend over for lunch and we all enjoyed her company for many hours. It was worth it, we don’t see her often, and we treasure the time we have with her.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving: Daily update
I’m reconciling orders and shipments and tracking numbers and reimbursements as orders ship and arrive at their destination. It’s not, by itself, a lot of work but it is a ton of details to stay on top of and it’s in addition to everything else. I expect tomorrow and Friday to be my big shopping days, depending on how cooking goes.
Year 3, Day 251: We had a plan. Things did not go accordingly. We wanted a 3 pm sit-down and started cooking an hour earlier than initially plotted, but the numerous derailings by two children (one of whom is still a bit sick and therefore quite cranky) and two dogs, of all sorts, was too much. They were cute but so chaotic.
We managed to get everything on the table by 530 but I mismanaged the side dishes and they were served cold. That was disappointing given we’d cooked, baked, and roasted all day but it was all tasty and cooked well. Oh but my turkey was uncharacteristically a bit too salty. Not at all dry and excellent with cranberry sauce but still. Imperfect. I was overzealous when brining. I heavily salted it on Tuesday, when I normally brine just one day in advance, and so didn’t account for the effect of the extra time. Next time, less salt or less time.
We usually spend part of dinner talking about the real history of the holiday and the mistreatment of indigenous people but we’ve talked about that all month. I let JB help me pick out blankets to buy for our Lakota families instead. Knowing the truth is good but doing something to help is more good.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving: Daily update
Yay more money came in! Just in time for me to do some budget allocations and increase my order of women’s gloves. JB and I discussed our next order, and they suggested that we now focus on bedding. I agreed so we started shopping and talking through how to balance price and quality. We don’t want to pay very little for poor quality. We can’t pay a lot for luxury quality. We need to pay a moderate amount for good to excellent quality that will last. It’s not kind to send people junk.
Year 3, Day 252: A much needed day off. We tended to the kids, had a couple more cooking projects, and thanks to Smol Acrobat napping very heavily, I had my first afternoon liedown in two weeks.
Sadly, they woke up with a new fever. Big sigh. I don’t know what they’ve got. They’ve all had their flu vaccines, but this has got staying power. I’m doing my best to rest between night wakings so I don’t fall victim to this thing too.
PiC took advantage of the quiet to run several errands that’ll help us this coming week and we’re slowly starting to mentally regroup in the aftermath of the holiday. This is a very brief respite. It starts again on Monday in earnest, with appointments for COVID testing, dentist appointments and my massage appointment and planning office events (remote only!). We only have two more weeks before we have to be completely ready for the end of the year which is going to feel, in some ways, like a tsunami.
Pine Ridge / Lakota giving: Daily update
I shopped in earnest today! Updates to come. Brain tired.
:: I hope you had a good holiday weekend if you celebrate US holidays and a good weekend if you don’t.
Instead of brining, we do the America’s Test Kitchen method of putting butter and herbs/salt/etc. under the skin of the turkey. (I think they introduced the method with chickens, but it also works with turkeys… I think their official stance on Turkey is to salt instead of brine and to spatchcock and we don’t do that.)
I have had good luck with Overstock for bedding.
Re: food– are there any freezer meals that your family can do? We have turned into the Morgendorfers after finding a frozen lasagna we liked. (Well, three of us like it.)
My cooking friend recommends spatchcocking as well, but my hands won’t stand for that.
Have you got any favorite bedding brands? I may try them again later this year.
Freezer food: We buy the frozen Indian meals from Trader Joe’s. I also plan to cook larger batches when I do cook and freeze half, but those go quick.
Nope– I literally just buy whatever looks like it’s a good deal on overstock whenever we need something new. One thing to be careful about is how they define thread count (I don’t remember the details but you want it threads in the actual weave and not just like wrapped around each other or something).
You’ve now made me realize I don’t actually understand thread count AT ALL.