Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (185)
December 18, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 258: My three sweet potato sprouts are dead. Unexpected cold got them, maybe. More slips are growing in the garage, we’ll try again after January. My onions are still going strong, though, the green tops show no sign of going yellow and flopping over. Here’s hoping they continue to grow another month so we don’t have to worry about them right in the middle of holiday stuff.
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JB lost a specific set of screentime privileges and has to earn it back by setting the table ten times in a row without being told. They have failed to do this 9 times out of ten so far, and that tenth time they only managed it because I wasn’t home to tell them. Every night, I have to tell them to do it which means they don’t get to check the box that says “I set the table X times without being told.” The whole point of this exercise is to train them to remember we eat dinner every single night and to set the table without my having to tell them what to do and clearly I have failed to set them up for success. Open to suggestions.
Year 4, Day 259: This may have been brought on by being mostly awake since 3 am but I’m having an existential … not-crisis … hiccup? I feel like I’m in a bubble of not-being. Or rather a bubble separated from who I am. In the big picture, this hiccup doesn’t matter because I have a dog to walk, the recycling to take out, paperwork to process, kids to pick up and feed. These things are going to happen whether or not I feel wholly at home in my skin or part of my/any community.
I also feel disconnected from so many people right now even as the holiday cards roll in. Maybe they’re a reminder that I’ve felt so isolated all this year and there’s some guilt over that as well as frustration about having wasted an entire year battling a nonstop circus of viruses. It sucked feeling sick all the time for a whole year. I got nothing done. What a waste.
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There is something really grounding about running into a neighbor with their puppy that likes Sera, though! They “played” which was the puppy trying to roll under Sera while she grumpily snarled at them to submit and then getting mad when the puppy kicked her. I gave them both treats and they settled right down.
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Had to grab impromptu takeout for dinner because the chicken wasn’t defrosted in time for me to cook it. We used to limit our eating out to twice a week and it was usually $27 after tax and tip. These days it’s more like $55-65 after tax and tip to feed four, usually with some leftovers.
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I’ve had to shop Amazon this fall for a number of items we can’t get elsewhere. Just heard that if you tell your Echo device or Alexa app “Thank my driver” they’ll give your driver a $5 bonus. Echo and Alexa are not allowed in my house but if you search “Thank Driver” in the app, you can do it that way too. This little message appears at the top of my app screen:
Amazon should just pay generous cash bonuses and cover the taxes, along with real living wages, but since I can’t make that happen, I’ll do this as long as they have it.
Of course I’m a little suspicious why they have it going, because they’re not to be trusted generally but unfortunately they’re the only source for a number of things we need to buy right now.
Year 4, Day 260: Do you consider your statements to be commitments? Suppose you say “I’ll pick up the potatoes today after work.” Would that be a solid commitment in your mind, or do you assume that it’s automatically hedged with “if I can”?
We have a difference of opinions here. I think if you make a declarative “I will” statement then you’re committing to the thing so either be upfront with your known limitations/conditions (if I have time, if that meeting doesn’t run long, etc) or say you’ll try and leave it at that. PiC thinks treating a statement as a promise is too . I say his way leads to chaos. Disclaimer, this isn’t a huge problem for us. It’s just one of those things we disagree on the basic premise for and I’m curious if it’s just us or if other people see it differently as well.
I see this playing out with JB now. He’ll say “we’ll take a ride on Xday”, so they expect a ride to happen come hell or high water on Xday. And then if something comes up, they’re not just disappointed, they’re also confused about how the statement of fact became false: we were going to ride but we didn’t.
I explained that extenuating circumstances happen and they happened in this case. But as kids will do, they fixated on when when when will we take that promised ride?
How do you receive these statements?
Year 4, Day 261: Now that TV ads are a thing on our streaming services again, I’m seeing those holiday car commercials “Lease a BMW for $699 a month!”. It got me thinking I can’t imagine having a giant monthly payment ever seeming like a good thing to take on again. But on the other side of it, the idea of saving that same amount each month in preparation for buying something large seems totally reasonable. Both are taking money out of the paycheck, but the perspectives feel completely different.
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This is my fourth day trying out Dear Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream in what feels like a probably fruitless attempt to calm down my rosacea redness. The redness annoys me and this is the first time I’m trying a product to combat it. Maybe it takes a week or two for this sort of thing to work if it’s going to help? Maybe it can only help reduce redness temporarily, it’s not like it’s curing anything.
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Out of four pairs of Old Navy jeans, boot cut and straight cut, in dark wash and black, only the black pairs fit and the straight cut fits best. Drat. I don’t love boot cut like I used to. They’re all the same size but the dark wash was a struggle to pull on. The working theory is the dark wash jeans were made at a different factory. The takeaway: buy two of each of everything when trying to figure out what size you are to have a chance at having two pairs of something fit well.
Year 4, Day 262: A friend insisted on giving me a Christmas gift, despite my protests she’s already been so generous to us, so I caved and admitted I would love an ebook from any of my comfort reading series that I’ve only given the library money for (Murderbot, Toby Daye, Kate Daniels). I’ll pick up the others myself, probably slowly, but she can start me off with the first one. I have some of the Innkeeper books and some of the Incryptid series already, when I found sales a few years back.
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I planted two sets of onions from sprouts. The six sprouts from the first set are still going strong. One of the three from the second set turned yellow and flopped over which is how you know they’re ready to harvest, except that it was just dead. Eight possible onions left! 🤞
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Friday food! This was very much a make-do week. Monday we had the fundraiser burgers. Tuesday we grabbed Chinese on the way home from activities because the chicken was still frozen. Wednesday must have been leftovers, and I also threw together a diced chicken and Chinese broccoli slivers stir fry with a packet of leftover bulgogi sauce. Thursday, PiC and Smol got home first so they started prepping breakfast for dinner. Friday I tried to place an order to the taqueria for pickup four times online before I finally gave up and sent PiC in my place. I’ve taken to adding a pozole to my order so we’d have a warm delicious soup for dinner or for leftovers.
The three remaining packets of chicken thighs were still kind of frozen so they had to wait for weekend cooking.
As far as I am concerned, a statement with no qualifiers IS a promise. It is a commitment to do the thing. If it is something that affects me (e.g.,”I will pick up the potatoes” or “I will be home by 6 tonight.”), then I, the listener, will count on that thing happening. If the plan changes, I would then expect a timely heads up, so that I can adapt accordingly. On the other hand, if the person said “I’ll put gas in the car tomorrow morning if I get out of here on time” then I would take that as a plan, but not a promise.
Any plans I expressed to small children would have lots of “maybe’s” attached to avoid disappointing them if the plan has to be changed.
That’s all in line with how I hear things!
Rosacea!!! Yes, the struggle is real. Mine is the absolute worst post-shower, it’s like I have a red mask on my face. Any luck with that product?
For JB: can you attach the setting-of-the-table to something they already do in that space? I’m thinking – afternoon snack, sit down, eat it, set the table, go do other things. It’s not only that they don’t remember, but that time passing probably seems squishy, and suddenly they blew it and you’re annoyed and they still don’t have screen time. Also 10 seems like a lot to complete if they can’t even do one table-setting though it’s possibly too late to back down from that.
I agree with the commenter above about the statement being a promise, and some have bigger impacts than others. If a person said they’d bring home a major component of dinner, it would be a lot more bothersome than if they said they’d bring home some staple we can do without for a few more days.
Rosacea: YES, after showers is the worst for mine too! Just the worst. I was trying to figure out if it’s heat or sun related but can’t tell. I’ll give it another week and report back!
I bet you’re right about the time thing. Maybe the missing element is an alarm. The ten was partly in hopes of building that muscle but I need to break it down further, probably. I appreciate the input, let’s see how I can redo this.
Ohh good observation actually. I think part of the disagreement in perspectives hinges on the impact of the thing.
If I were brave enough to try a cold shower I could confirm or eliminate that as a factor, but … I’m not. I will say I’m in the PNW and have spent a few days without going outside at all. I’m pretty sure it’s the heat of the shower that is the factor for me. Maybe I could do a cold face rinse. If I try that I’ll update.
Lots of stuff to comment on here.
Let me know if you ever figure out how to get your kid to do chores without being asked. We’re still working on having our college kid empty the plates and glasses from the dishwasher either without being asked or within like I dunno 20 min of being asked.
On the one hand, I remember those years of early daycare and being sick all the time. On the other hand, you have gotten a ton of stuff done even so. You have proof just from this blog.
Do you never use the microwave to defrost chicken?
Re: the statements… Oddly you’re from Southern California so I can’t just say the “if the stars align” thing is something people from LA do. I mean, it *is* something people from LA do. But not you! But lots of people, especially from the Valley and those who work in the Industry. I think the important thing is just to get the communication right and make sure that you each know what the other means rather than trying to change a person’s entire culture. (Which may mean talking to each other differently than one talks to everyone else.) People from LA vs. the midwest will say the exact same thing but mean different things and if you both know that in advance, you can get things figured out.
Ditto rosacea. I don’t do anything for mine– just live with a red face. My mom has tried all sorts of things short of a prescription and nothing worked, but who knows how much science has advanced since then.
nicoleandmaggie recently posted…Ask the grumpies: What would you differently in college search?
Honestly, I thought / hoped YOU would have the answer to the chores question. XD I will continue to experiment and report back. The thing is, they DO spontaneously do chores without close management sometimes. I am trying to think of how to tap into that more naturally.
Endless daycare plague is THE PITS. I guess it blurs the memories just enough to feel like all I did was get through one day after the next.
I used to defrost in the microwave but in this case I plain forgot about it. That answered the the other half of the equation: did I have the time and energy to microwave defrost AND cook? This week since I didn’t even remember I had a tool for defrosting, the answer was no. XD It sucks when the use of 15 minutes makes that much of a difference but I’m trying to be a little more forgiving about when I have to make that call.
Funny, I don’t recall anyone ever saying “if the stars align” but I only know a handful of people from the Valley and my friend’s been out of the Industry for years now. PiC and I have adjusted for each other, having figured out we mean different things.
Sigh. Rosacea is the pits too. Maybe that’s why I am annoyed now. Too many things that I don’t like going on with my body.
From what I can tell from the research, being impoverished and having an unstable upbringing can get kids to do chores regularly without being asked. (There was an article a few years back on why kids in the poorer regions in Latin American countries do chores unasked, though their spin was more positive than what I’m saying. I then connected it with some of the psychological research on unstable home environments I’ve been reading more recently…) Basically if it’s really necessary they’ll step up. Complaining/ignoring/forgetting is a luxury. I don’t think I want to make those tradeoffs.
nicoleandmaggie recently posted…Ask the grumpies: What would you differently in college search?
Well, crap. I had half suspected that it’d only get done if the kids were in situations where they were having to do more than they should have (me paying bills as a preteen, taking the dog to the vet as a preteen, etc). Ah well.
This weekend, I told my child I’d do two things for her, got sick and spent the day in bed, and didn’t. She was very put out! So yes, I definitely intended it as a firm commitment. However, she did understand that I was too sick, and we did it the next day.
My children must also be reminded/nagged/ coaxed to do chores. I think it never ends!
It’s nice when they’re old to understand that being sick happens. Sorry you were sick, though!
I treated my rosacea with laser sessions (I can dig up the type if you’re interested but ultimately it would be up to the dermatologist which kind would help yours). The treatment really calmed down the red (visually) and the heat. And eliminated the itch. As I got older, the symptoms seemed to increase or be present more so I decided to try laser.
Mine is triggered by exercise, showers (hot, I don’t take cold ones ever lol) and maybe alcohol (or could be “Asian flush”). What I have_had was mostly redness. I had one area on my chin that alway seemed prone to pimples but after the laser that mostly went away (I did have a flare up recently) so I think it was part of my rosacea.
I was also prescribed a something I had to order from a compounding pharmacy. I use it occasionally when I get flares. My derm called it Rosacea Plus. It may have been something they created. Again, I could find the ingredients if interested. Long ago I was prescribed something and didn’t really commit because it was daily and I’m lazy. But laser to the face is more palatable? Lol
Sorry typing on my phone so this rambles a bit lol
Stinging instead of itching is probably a better descriptor.
That’s really interesting!
Any information you’d feel comfortable sharing would be much appreciated. Right now, I think the idea of laser being more palatable actually makes sense. Applying cream morning and night might be EASY but it’s also at best temporary, if it even does anything. I don’t know how involved laser was (love to hear about your experience if you’d like to share) but that at least seems to have real results.
I don’t mind sharing! If I miss something let me know.
The type I had is called Vbeam and each session lasted 10-15 min. I think I went every 6 weeks. I’m in Orlando and paid $350/session. I think I did 6. After 5 and 6, we didn’t see much change. I think I noticed results by 2nd session, such as less frequent flares. I think my rosacea increased as I got older. Actually, itching was a symptom. Right above my right jawline. That side seems to present more symptoms.
Honestly, I was too lazy to put the Rx cream on (and I think I tried briefly and didn’t see results – but this was over a decade ago
Laser was last year).
For the compound cream, its Rosacea extra. Has invermectin (lol yup) oxymetazoline (i think based on the label, FDA approved medicine), metronidazole (pretty sure i was Rx this a decade ago). My 60 day pump cost $75 I think (actually I got 2 pumps). I use it rarely – because I don’t have much flares and/or they’re mild and I don’t notice the red bc I had it so long).
Oh, when I scheduled the appointment for evaluation, I basically said I wanted to try laser. They asked me about how I treated it before. I said, I was prescribed metronidazole, it didn’t seem to work. And they said ok. Actually, I think they gave me metro again and I never used it haha I clearly have a thing against it for some reason (I behave rationally with all other medications.)
Thank you so much! I AM curious about the laser now, because I am skeptical that creams are going to have any lasting effect. I should ask about that as well as medicated rosacea cream. I don’t remember having anything like that recommended when it was first diagnosed.
Yes I hate the itching too! The great thing, unrelated to illness prevention, about masks is the sun protection and the blocking me from scratching or poking the bumps.
[…] Karen has me thinking about whether I am irritated enough with my rosacea to go the laser route. Maybe it doesn’t fit 2024’s budget but we’ll see. PiC thinks I should at least get some consults lined up but he always thinks I should do anything and everything I want. Someone has to keep an eye on the budget! […]