Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (331)
October 5, 2026
Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 7, Day 153: The last few nights and mornings my pain did a weird reversal. Normally, pain hits me when I lay down at night and then I can’t sleep for hours with painsomnia. That’s when I do my best reading sprees. These past days, when I wake up the bones start to buzz with pain. Weird. Likely won’t last but weird.
PiC and I have been discussing sports for weeks and I think we might be starting to settle in on the idea of competitive swim for JB and swim and beginner baseball in the spring for SmolAc. The time commitment would be almost balanced between the two of them, JB would have practices 3 times a week (and we might be able to carpool with friends), SmolAc would have 1 practice and 1 game each week. The staggered start time is also helpful so that we’re not trying to juggle three sports at the same time. We can ease into it. After the cast is off.
Year 7, Day 154: All I wanted for my birthday was… Well. A lot of things. The replacement of no less than 10 key Republicans in power across all three branches of government, a billion dollars to spend on people and animals (I get to keep 2-3M to shore up our accounts, pay off the mortgage, and whatever I’ve forgotten but the rest of the cash can go into making life sustainable again for folks), to not be exhausted anymore. To be cured of my fibro and CFS. To have all the clutter and dust and dirt cleared out of the house in one fell swoop without having to Pay A Price (physically). A horse and two dogs. Two horses if we’re wishing for the stars. For the kids to stop being obnoxious.
More realistically, I got a short nap, vacuumed under furniture that usually doesn’t get moved but haunts me since I moved it two weeks ago and saw all the yuck under there, spent 3 hours organizing the donations and orders for the Red Shirt village on Pine Ridge, and decluttered a fraction of a corner of the office. Also there was a slice of cake. It worked ok for the reality we do live in.
Year 7, Day 155: I made a simplified (no herbs, no cheese) version of this chicken zucchini stirfry and other than the zucchini getting too soft too fast (note to self, next time, cook them for 30 seconds max), it was quite good. I wonder if I swap out for a veggie that doesn’t soften too much, maybe that might be better. I’ve had a huge hankering for cauliflower lately and that could hold up nicely in this recipe.
I also want to make Mediterranean cauliflower with sumac one of these days. Or is it better with za’atar? I’m not sure! I’ve seen recipes both ways.
Year 7, Day 155: The first two of four new camping lanterns arrived. I’ve charged and labeled them. The next two should arrive later this week. I don’t know how much runtime we get from the small lights but I feel better knowing we have 4 big lanterns with 12 hours each in addition to the 4 smalls. Judicious use of both sets should give us a reasonable light supply for any 2+ day power outages.
I’m pondering on how many Ilona Andrews worlds I’m emotionally invested in that I crave more of: Innkeeper, Kate Daniels (Wilmington), Iron Covenant, Blood Heir, Inheritance. Maggie is good but I’m just not as invested in that world right now. Probably a time thing? It’s new and all the others have had time to sink into my marrow. Although Inheritance is also pretty new and I very much want more of that.
I think we got really lucky with the full ten books for Kate Daniels, I keep wanting that much of everything else but trilogies are more the thing now. Sadly. Ponders brought to you by all the rereading I’ve been doing.
Year 7, Day 157: My throat has been a problem since August but it really spiked a doozy these past few days. It went from sore and hard to swallow to referred ear pain, feels like swallowing knives when I eat or drink, and even breathing hurts. No idea why it escalated so quickly when I’ve been on my maintenance meds without a break but this is the worst.
It’s not been this bad since 3 years ago when I finally got it sort of diagnosed and was prescribed antivirals that helped most of the time but not all the time.
I finally caved and called the doctor. Ultimately ended up spending 5.5 hours between the primary care and specialist to get it scoped and scraped until he got blood from the sore (frickin OW) and blood drawn for labwork but honestly the ENT isn’t sure what to do or think after he went through the whole list of types of stomatitis. That’s the drawback to asking for help, medically, I have to spend the whole damn day or three worth of energy to get maybe some of the right questions asked but more than likely no answers.
We have a plan to refer out of Kaiser if these tests come up with nothing. That’s going to be a whole new complicated mess that I very much don’t want to deal with.