Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (133)
December 19, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 267: If I ever have to justify why I insist on prepping for things like travel or holidays six months ahead, this is why. How I feel today and will likely feel all week is why. A viral steamroller has come through and absolutely crushed me at one of the worst possible times. December is a terrible month for my immune system and it’s inevitable that something will derail any plans to prepare at the last minute.
I’d had a bit of a sore throat last week but after so many sleepless nights, naturally it was fatigue. Saturday night I was starting to feel iffy. Sunday morning confirmed it. I had caught something. I’d had more than a few hours of sleep and still felt like I’d been completely flattened by morning. I feel like that on and off normally but combined with actual sleep and a sore throat, it’s most likely something viral. Sigh.
So I’m very glad that A) PiC was amazing and ran every single errand on Saturday, including the Costco run where he B) found a few premade foods so we can get through the week with minimal cooking from scratch. We liked their confusing but tasty ravioli lasagna, so we are going to do that more often.
Year 3, Day 268: I’m doing my best to think and wish it away but it’s possible I caught Smol’s HMF disease. I’ve got a variety of symptoms and some fit and some might fit or might be unrelated. Please be unrelated.
There was a new episode of Leverage Redemption today! YEE! It helped me through the tired and sick brain fog hump.
I recently discovered that a friend had escaped a DV/stalker situation with very few belongings and I put out the Bat signal on Twitter. I had to be discreet and protect their privacy but we raised enough to get them a winter coat and boots. Someone else is donating some gently used clothes as well. Depending on cash flow, we’ll see what else we can get together. I remember our family sheltering a cousin, when I was about 6?, from an abusive stalker ex and I hate that this is still such a problem 30+ years later. Another good friend recommended these resources. I hope you never need it but I’m sharing them here: Stalking Resource Center, SafetyNet, and NNEDV.
As a brain relaxer, I browsed things on sale at Kate Spade. There’s dopamine from looking at pretty things, and sale prices, without the danger of buying anything because I’m not paying even 60% off Kate Spade prices today. $80 after discounts on a wallet? Not today, darlin.
I do like that little nylon backpack. I have a use for something like that for day trips and errands without kids, it’s handy to have something hands free but that’s something to think about later.
Year 3, Day 269: Today’s arguably the worst day of this illness so far. My ability to remember faces and names and similar facts was just gone. That’s not super critical to my work but it’s important enough that I cancelled a meeting to conserve the few remaining functioning brain cells for the critical stuff. While angrily griping to myself mid morning that I still wasn’t better, I caught myself. I’d done nothing to help me get better. I’ve been popping pain meds around the clock for days to ignore the sore throat and other symptoms, and doing the bare minimum at work and at parenting, but that’s not actually resting. Oops. I moved myself to work from bed, since I still had to get through some things, and took a lot more breaks.
I wrote JB’s teacher a thank you for doing a unit on a variety of fall and winter holidays, instead of Christmassing it up, because that is important to us. Finished up my last handwritten letter of the year to my senior friend and put that in the mail. We’re not sending Christmas / family cards again this year. I enjoy getting them but have simply not been up to the task of getting any together for us. Maybe in the spring I’ll throw together a tiny 4 year look back. One picture from each year we’ve missed since 2020. That’s a lot of ground to cover.
Minor food victory: I helped Smol eat a little bit of salad with dressing, and then they chose to eat a little bit more on their own. They can be a very reluctant eater most of the time, and reject veggies a lot, so these tiny wins feel big.
Year 3, Day 270: We’re having a really rough time with JB this week in particular but this situation has been developing for some time. They’re staying up later and later, I can hear them singing some nights, and waking up very late the next morning which almost always means they’re dragging their feet and having to be told to get through a routine they already know. At the start of the school year, they were getting up on time, on their own, and getting completely ready without a word from us.
They tell me that they’re really tired in the morning, which I can see and am unsurprised by, because there are a lot of nights they’re up singing to themselves late into the night. They claim a dry throat is why they’re getting up in the middle of the night too. Gee, correlation?
Parenting remains frustrating.
*****
Seeing Scalzi’s offer to write a short story to get Locus Magazine to their fundraising goal made me think, gosh, it’s too bad I don’t have any talent or skill that I can offer as incentive when we do these giving things that come up every so often or…every year. I’m good at a few things that are useful but nothing at all useful to offer up as a prize of sorts.
Year 3, Day 271: I’m admiring stamps again. I still want the elephant stamps. Also the women cryptologist stamps. The red fox ones look very cute but I’m not sure I have a real need for 40¢ stamps. Charles M Schulz ones are cute. Next year they’re coming out with the Tomie daPaola and John Lewis stamps.
I’m not a philatelist, of course, I just love using neat stamps when I send people letters and cards.
Smol Acrobat slept hard today, sleeping in until 8:30. It’s been a rough week for them too, I think. But happily they were so enthused about breakfast, I didn’t have to fight with them at all. They asked for two helpings of eggs, ate them all!, half a banana, and a whole waffle. Amazing.
My headache is still a constant companion, as is the iffy throat and congestion.
I hope actually resting a little was fruitful for you.
You could offer custom sized zipper bags! I offered a cake once as part of a friend’s fund-raising. I don’t think my clearly homemade and rudimentarily-decorated cake was what the winner envisioned but … oh well! Note that I’m not saying you ought to offer – but you do have skills. I’d also bid for one of your homemade meals.
It was a good choice even if it didn’t put more than a little dent in the exhaustion. At least I keep telling myself that and doing my best to keep choosing rest more.
Huh, I never would have considered that being a worthwhile skill for this sort of thing but I’m going to let it rumble around my brain a little bit, see if I can throw more ideas out and see what y’all think?