Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (145)
March 13, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 347: Guess who has two thumbs and didn’t sleep until 5 am? This guy!
Thanks to painsomnia at its worst. It wasn’t even at the most severe levels of pain, it was just persistent and blocked my ability to find that falling asleep feeling. I did read three books trying to get there.
Needless to say, I was an entire zombie today. Sluggish and drooping at my desk, again grateful that I work remotely and don’t have to care what anyone sees or thinks of me.
I got my work done, answered a dozen texts from family and friends, picked up JB from school, walked Sera, and crawled into bed after making sure that JB knew what their chores were. Since they had scored two rainbow baskets at Target yesterday on the condition that they clean up the mess on their dresser, they were 100% cooperative and cleaned independently while I dozed, Sera at my feet.
Even Smol was a lot more cooperative than usual at dinner because tartar sauce has magical properties. Plop a good blob on their plate for dipping and Smol will willingly eat piles of broccoli. They plowed through a whole proper serving of broccoli entirely under their own steam. Bless that sauce.
Year 3, Day 348: Smol woke up, hysterical, a few hours into the night. PiC went to them and they became MORE hysterical, demanding me. This is unnerving. They get equal time with the two of us, and generally everyone wants PiC. Why am I in such high demand? Anyway, we three ended up passing out in Smol’s room which made for a less than ideal night of sleep.
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My brain is, as usual, in search of dopamine. Naturally, I search for it through money and checking off the to do list. MyPoints, I’m about 250 points away from a $25 gift card redemption. Swagbucks, I’m 2200 points away from a $25 gift card redemption. Bing, 2000 points away from a $100 gift card redemption (in 4 increments, I’m just holding out for the multiple redemptions all at once). No joy there.
I did finally wrap up the warranty claim for the second of the kids’ water bottles, and that has shipped. I’m still waiting for the movie tickets trade-in to arrive. That’s due this week. Fingers crossed! You know what I’d really like – to organize a gift area better. I currently use a bin but that’s only good for the gifts without an intended recipient. Maybe it’s time to clear a shelf for the gifts that can be wrapped and bagged up for distribution.
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Lakota Reservation: My friend has gathered a literal truckload of new or like new clothes for us to donate to the Lakota reservation. One box goes to a family and then we’ll have multiple boxes to ship directly. We can use their $20 Giving Box prepaid shipping labels (up to 70 lbs per box, which is a great deal) for the large community donations but I’m running low on the reserved pool of cash to pay for shipping these boxes of clothes. We have enough to send one or two boxes now, I’ll know once I’ve gotten the box for the current family together. For the preservation of sanity, I think we have to limit the number of boxes that we try to ship.
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Have you heard Orville Peck sing? A friend introduced me. THAT VOICE!
Year 3, Day 349: Grumble. I sent our tax preparer our stack of documents (digitally speaking) last weekend. She said she’d download everything on Monday. Yay. I’ve been doing my best not to bother her for a week. Today she asked me for access to the files. Which means she hasn’t worked on them at all! Which means I have to restart the clock on being patient all over again. Darnit! I really wanted to know what the damages were.
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After reading Paladin’s Hope (affiliate link, LOVE the book/series) again, and also finally agreeing we’d go on a family obligations thing for Spring Break (all work, no fun, barf), my nightmares are out of control. SMH.
I’m going to work on packing while my subconscious does its anxiety thing.
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There are a lot of people in the comments ruffled at Tracee Ellis Ross’s privilege but that’s ignoring the point that her message isn’t wrong. It’s true that money lets you actually slow down in a lot of ways. But the lack of money doesn’t mean you should ignore the underlying message.
This line in particular struck home: “I give big, so I have to restore big.” I give big and restore none, most days. I feel that imbalance deeply. This is a habit forged in the worst days of my life. Even if I couldn’t financially afford to stop and take a day off, I could have been learning to put up better boundaries, to value myself as someone worth protecting, or just not to give away everything that’s in me without a thought for replenishment.
All rich women speak like this. I just want someone to be honest about how money allows you to slow down. https://t.co/PX3VsnZVDX
— depresso expresso (@saintKorayi) March 3, 2023
Year 3, Day 350: It’s been extra nippy and damp in between the multiple atmospheric rivers flowing through CA. Another one is meant to come through this weekend and stick around all week. I’m starting to wonder whether my cough and congestion or the weather will clear up first. This is about to hit two months of coughing/congestion and that’s not a record I was looking to set.
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Two small Smol yays today: At their midnight waking, they begged to sleep in the big bed with me as they’ve been demanding the past few nights. I hugged them and cuddled them and firmly said no. It took two tries but they finally settled in for the rest of the night in their own crib.
They actually walked to and from JB’s school dropoff location! Walks with them have been one of my least favorite activities because they frequently refuse to use their own perfectly good legs in the absence of a big sibling to chase. It makes a HUGE difference not having to carry 25 lbs of toddler or encourage them to keep walking every two steps, literally, for the love of sweet baby capybaras.
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Fuck white supremacy
Shoutout to the Asian family out here burning this MF down. I see y’all.
pic.twitter.com/1PaD4YlEZL— Caleb Dume’ Simian Stan Account (@pfunk1130) March 1, 2023
Year 3, Day 351: A neighbor I’ve said hi to for the past two years of kid dropoff and pickup tapped me on the shoulder to introduce herself today. I might have struck up a conversation before but she’s often with her husband who appears very standoffish and won’t even do a nod hello of acknowledgement. Didn’t seem worth the effort, so though she seemed perfectly friendly herself, I figured it was safer to just hang back and leave it at nods and hellos. What do normal people do in these situations?
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I’ve finally submitted the paperwork for PiC’s Global Entry renewal. Happily it was confirmed we really only need the physical card if driving back to the US from Canada or Mexico so it wasn’t needed for the renewal but I still sure would like to have it back where it belongs. It feels quite careless for me to have misplaced it. With the absolute wreckage that is my desk these days despite my best efforts, I feel even more pressure to get it right with the important stuff. Maybe it’s time to get one of those little business card books to store current and expired cards like this. How do you store important cards that are infrequently used?
My husband can seem standoffish because he’s hugely uncomfortable with social situations involving new people. He enjoys being sociable with people he already knows, but the getting to know you period is something he doesn’t enjoy at all. I tend to start friendships when he isn’t around, but can continue them with a “this is my husband, X,” when he is. And then he eventually starts to enter the conversations.
Which is to say that I would probably be open to more of a friendship with the friendly-seeming wife, mostly because I usually am the friendly wife. And because I feel a real dearth of local friendships myself. Plus I’m starting to be worried that my kid is going to miss out on having friends she sees outside of school if I don’t work to be an “oh, yeah, I know her mom, sure we can invite her” to their parents.
That’s a really good point. Maybe I missed it *because* I am also quite uncomfortable with social interactions and can’t tell when someone is standoffish from discomfort vs a strong disinterest in engaging. I read them both as a barrier that I should avoid. But I noticed that for the first time in the two years we’ve seen each other, when Smol hollered HIIII across the street to them last week, he actually looked up and smiled. That’s never happened before (both Smol hollering and him acknowledging that we exist). So maybe this is the sign that he’s more like your husband in this situation.
I hear you on the dearth of local friendships. Because we’re transplants, local friends tend to have a lot of family obligations that come first and it’s hard to develop much of a bond that way. We only saw a few friends during the pandemic lockdowns and didn’t come out of that with a strong for-life bond that some of my friends who had pods did.
My cards live in one of 3 places: Important and/or used frequently = kept in my everyday mini-purse. Very important but rarely used = stashed in the firesafe. Semi-important &/or semi-rarely used = stashed in a larger purse in the hall closet. So if we’re going out on our once-or-twice-a-year date, I can just grab the restaurant giftcard or movie theater loyalty card while I put on my shoes. (When I stopped leaving them buried in random dresser tops and desk drawers, it dramatically increased the odds of us actually using them. 😄)
Surprise! XD Yeah we have to get those gift cards out where you can see them otherwise they languish forever. I have ours in a specific box but I have definitely overlooked using them even with that organized reasonably well. I need something better for the other important not-gift cards. Maybe I want everything card related to be in a single place instead of four different places excluding the wallet.
I’m so sorry to hear of the painsomnia – I can’t even imagine. I love that you give big, but totally agree with you that you need to focus on restoring yourself just as much. Or at least SOME, you know!
I’m currently not really sure where my social security card is… so do not ask me about important card storage. 😬 (Ugh, I had pushed that un-fun fact out of my mind for a bit, have to deal with it soon…)
Thanks. I wish I remembered what is restorative. That’s something I need to think on.
LOL sorry! I think it’s so exceedingly rare to need the actual card, that’s one of the easiest ones to lose because of it. I hope it turns up!