Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (217)
July 29, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 117: Ok so my note on Friday was written before I saw the endorsement for Kamala Harris and all that followed. Now I’m cautiously joyful that they seem to be coming at this aggressively and correctly. Calling Trump out as a liar. Calling him out as a felon. Calling him out as totally nonsensical. Pointing out how terrible Project 2025 is. Calling the Republican party and their obsession with stealing our rights absolutely invasively weird. Yes! Keep it up! The shellacking that JD Vance is getting is icing on this cake. I hope they stick with this energy.
As to work-life: All the thumbs down. All of them. Every Monday is worse than the last and while I’d like to say surely this cannot last, there’s really no confidence in me as I say that. Grumblingly forecasting with a friend, at this rate, I’ll be so wrapped up in corporate bullshit and utter incompetence by this time next year that that’s all I’ll be doing every day at work. I hate everything. This was the perfect day to wear my I Hate People shirt.
I vented my rage on dicing chicken and potatoes (fresh dug from our very own garden!) and that actually helped a bit. Also, our tees from Primary arrived and it turns out my ability to eyeball clothing fit is completely broken. I was sure that his and my shirts were both too big but they actually fit us fine. Yay for that. I picked some fun colors for PiC: a happy yellow, a peachy sorbet, and a mellow blue.
Gave myself one hour of working late tonight and my brain wanted to play popcorn. I usually do my best when I let it popcorn all over the place but couldn’t ever get into my groove. Got stuff done of course but it was very spotty.
Year 5, Day 118: JB listened to scary stories at camp and now they can’t sleep in their own bed with the lights off. They spent one night sleeping in Smol’s room, one night sleeping with their lights on low, and tonight they’re in my room while I work late again. I don’t know if overactive imaginations are inherited but I definitely have one and still mostly avoid horror everything. I can read Cassandra Khaw (which is more gore than scary) and Ursula Vernon / Kingfisher, but not much else.
Better they learn now what their limits are with scary things? At least I hope they learn and self monitor their exposure with peers. Oh who am I kidding. They’re going to keep listening to these stories and then be scared for weeks after.
Year 5, Day 119: FINALLY our amendments to our wills and trust are done, and signed and witnessed. It took us ages to find the time to do each one more thing: telling the lawyer everything we wanted, reviewing the docs, sending edits, reviewing again, scheduling the signing, actually signing. Each single bit by itself was easy enough, it was the first part that was hard trying to think of everything we needed to include in this revision and worrying that we left something out. I’m still worrying about that, actually. But for now at least the major areas are covered.
We still need to make decisions on our end of life arrangement preferences. They need to be set for the next 15 years, then the kids can decide what they want. I just don’t want any family bullying them into doing something they don’t want to do when they’re young.
That reminds me that we owe JB a funeral for Seamus, and now Sera, too. We’ll need to do that in the fall. My heart was simply too sore to do it before and now I’m just a deep well of grief and missing my dogs so we might as well do it.
Year 5, Day 120: PiC had a close contact with someone at work who tested positive for COVID two days later. It turned out they were masked at the time of their meeting because their spouse was positive. This infuriates me. If you’re in close contact with someone positive already, why wouldn’t you change your meeting to a video call or reschedule?? People are so EFFING INCONSIDERATE.
Unrelated, I just realized my passport has expired. Drat. Not that we have any travel planned but it’s one of those things that I feel better knowing is in order. I quickly threw together the paperwork but the thing that’s going to hold this up is the picture. I’m terrible at remembering to take a good picture and printing it. I’m saying so here to try and guilt myself into getting it over with.
Year 5, Day 121: Acne in adulthood is downright insulting. We’ve done our time! (I’ve complained about this before, haven’t I?)
I’m hearing hydrocolloidal patches are the thing now. I canvassed folks I know on Bluesky who came back with a resounding, unanimous YES THE PATCHES.
So I searched and stacked sales and deals, gave up the super cute Pusheen patches that were not on sale, and ended up with a bunch of the on-sale clear patches. I hope they work! It’s going to come time for JB to need some sooner than we’d expected, I think, and of course I need them now (*disgruntled humph*).
Hurrah for wills & trusts DONE! Way to persevere.
Do you think it would help JB if you gave them the line “my parents say I can’t listen to scary stories until I’m 12 [or current age + 2 or whatever]”? Having a scripted way out might be useful, but it depends on their awareness of their limits, I guess. I can say for myself it was helpful to blame my parents since I wasn’t comfortable drawing boundaries on my own.
Did you do your passport picture yet? Readers want to know! š
Yeah they can always use me for anything they don’t want to do, I just don’t see them using it when they WANT to do something outside their limits because they’re not thinking, and then oops! nightmares for months!
*Hides face* I haven’t yet! Usually blog “shaming” myself is effective but it’s been a jam-packed few weeks. I need to keep it top of my list.
Yay wills and trusts!
nicoleandmaggie recently posted…RBOC-Money stuff again
Yes! Next I need to get confidential copies to the relevant people.