Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (28)
December 15, 2020
Week 38 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 38, Day 263: A friend mentioned it was a good time to do the Mins Challenge again – where each day you get rid of the same number of things as the day of the month it is. So December 1, purge 1 thing, December 2, purge 2 things and so on.
I love all motivation to purge and declutter but I never feel like that particular challenge works the way I work. I wish it did. I love the idea.
But I am a clean in spurts sort. I tend to go weeks and then burst out in a flurry of cleaning and decluttering. I’ll stick with what works for me and cheer on everyone else with their version of the Mins Challenge.
Week 38, Day 264: Our neighbors are being deeply frustrating and I am reminded of the one reason living in a suburban neighborhood sucks. People. I can’t stand people.
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I am still baffled by the market that just keeps going up and I wonder why I’m taken aback by it. Probably because it’s so dissonant with the deadly pandemic going on. I have to keep gritting my teeth and putting money in the market because waiting for it to go down and make sense is a losing strategy (I am guessing. Aren’t we all guessing?).
Week 38, Day 265: I don’t know why I forgot to check whether Carter’s would deliver to a PO box, but I did forget and placed an order for curbside pickup for our Lakota Family. Um, hello, they DO deliver to PO boxes and this will save precious space in the flat rate box I am working on packing up for the family with postpartum and other new baby goods that we have on hand which can’t be shipped direct from a store. Thank goodness PiC reminded me to double check that. We sent the warm clothes and blankets using free shipping direct and saved ourselves an errand (and exposure to humans).
Week 38, Day 266: It’s that time of year when unanticipated boxes start showing up on our doorstep and I get to be curious what they’re going to be when I see tracking information in the Informed Delivery update.
There are a few more than usual this year since we won’t be seeing family and friends for the holidays.
I’m doubly glad that I’ve completed nearly all our holiday stuff. There remains just one set of gifts to wrap and deliver for local friends.
We did an Advent Calendar for jams this year, it’s our first one and we’re already behind on opening one a day. You wouldn’t think one ounce of new jam a day would be a challenge to work through but here we are, suppiled with enough jams to
Week 38, Day 267: I’m trying my darnedest to look at the neighbor conflicts as a short term annoyance. It might be more difficult because I’m physically and mentally exhausted, each bit of aggravation is amplified by a lot more than it might normally be. But it’s also difficult because they keep coming up with new reasons to pick fights. If we can just get the last details squared away, we can hopefully not speak to them again for the next ohhh forever.
The whole thing came about because of a misunderstanding. We had no way to know it was a problem until it was too late, and they are absolutely dedicated to making it be our fault instead of finding a way forward that we’re both ok with. Their attitude has made an unfortunate situation far worse than it has to be. They’ve also been petty and rude about every single detail despite our best efforts to remain neutral and polite.
I hate people so much.
I never thought that the pandemic isolation would feel insufficient. I want to put up ten foot walls and a moat and never talk to people again after dealing with these rude and nasty neighbors. And this is even despite PiC taking point on nearly all communications with them to spare me the angst. Grrrrr.
Caveat: I’m pretty sure my reaction encompasses all that remembered frustration with the previous horrible neighbor situation. I probably shouldn’t be trying to up stakes and move based on this one set of interactions.
I feel envy when people talk about their lovely relationships with neighbors, but you certainly show the other side of the coin, and it does feel like random luck!
I live on a short street that connects two longer neighborhood streets (think of me as the cross-bar on a H), so I have one across the street neighbor and one side neighbor. My back yard touches 3 other yards. We all have little to no interaction, which is a little sad, but I know it could be worse.
To be fair, I’m not easy to randomly interact with – since I WFH and used to have an active out-of-the-house social life, I’d either be buried in my office or hopping in my car to go do stuff. If I truly want to be social with my neighbors, I have to a) make an effort (not likely – not sure how receptive they’d be); b) start a front-yard time-consuming gardening project (not likely); c) get a dog to walk frequently (also… not likely). So I stick to the occasional friendly wave.
I don’t interact very much either, despite having dogs, and even less so now. But it sure does stink that we seem to have the worst luck with neighbors so far. We seem to always have at least one absolutely terrible one if we get any good ones at all. It’s also making me wonder if WE are the common denominator here … !
Are WE terrible neighbors???
The mins challenge would work better in reverse for me. Start strong getting rid of a bunch of crap then taper back to making real decisions about what stays and what goes.
I am very lucky with my neighbours thank goodness because in this hundred year old neighbourhood I could probably reach out and touch their house and we share a backyard pathway. By which I mean we walk through their yard to get to our yard!
I agree! That is actually how I clean – large boluses first (of the easy pickings) and then tapering.
Yay that you have decent neighbors!
My old neighborhood was really lovely for neighbor relationships. There were quite a few people that I looked forward to running into. Some got all up in arms about things, some were slightly oddball… but the ones I knew were all reasonably nice people. It was a suburban development of cul-de-sacs and a ton of kids running around. And a good playground at the center of the houses with walking paths leading to/from it.
My current home isn’t in what I would call a neighborhood. There are a bunch of houses on a street, but the houses are all far apart and there are no sidewalks. We’ve been here almost 3 years and I don’t know any of the neighbors’ names or wouldn’t be able to recognize them if I walked past them. I miss the old neighborhood, even the pessimist who always had something to complain about.
That sounds like you had quite a nice old neighborhood! I wish you still had something like that.