Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (122)
October 3, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 192: Mondays are always hard with the combo of solo-parenting plus working but today my brain decided to up the ante with stress nightmares that woke me at 3 am and then the pain kicked in at high force so I couldn’t go back to sleep for hours. Ruff. PiC took the kids in the morning so I could rest a tiny bit longer at least. He also ended up staying home to help me get through the day.
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This post landing in my inbox was perfect timing. I’d recently gone through a pile of foreign currency and was pondering how to exchange it all: HOW TO EXCHANGE OLD BRITISH POUNDS FROM THE U.S.
I wonder if I can do the same with other foreign currency.
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πππ pic.twitter.com/dISZyhujYb
β tunde olaniran (@tundeolaniran) September 24, 2022
Year 3, Day 193: A most annoying discovery: our wood underbed storage can’t be in contact with fabric or it’ll start to mildew. Mildew EVERYWHERE. I gathered all the jumbo bags that came our way over the years and put everything I’d begun to store there in sealed plastic bags, but it’s still not enough for that space to be truly useful. Grump. I avoid accumulating new plastic wherever possible but it doesn’t seem avoidable in this case. Either we don’t use the space I need at all or we buy more jumbo plastic bags. It’s not a tall space, it’s about 6-8 inches tall, so bins won’t fit. I’m sitting on a Target order in hopes there’s a better idea that will come.
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I’ve been reading up on some mask research, trying to decide how to upgrade our masks now that Biden’s declared that COVID is over while we’re still getting COVID case and exposure notices from school and daycare. Plus, we’ll have to fly in the next twelve months.
I hate the idea of flying. Being locked in with a load of strangers (some of whom will certainly be germy and not just COVID but obviously that’s my biggest concern), having little to no room to move around or lay down, with a pair of squirrel children (one of whom is still super picky), and oh the delays. My friend recently flew across country and the delay stories she shared just put me right on edge. Delays aren’t always terrible but with two young children? πππ Zero enthusiasm.
Saved these two twitter threads to peruse at a later date.
A story that could have gone another way but turned out sweet: my 5yo and I were walking to a beach to hunt for shark teeth. Weβre in an Airbnb and the neighborhood is private, so when a car stopped next to us, I stiffened by instinct. Iβd seen some flags. I braced myself. 1/9
β Audrey Burges (@Audrey_Burges) September 24, 2022
Year 3, Day 194: I finished a truckload of work early enough to have a free half hour to armor myself with Yet Another PF Blog‘s comment (usually how I feel too, but currently having sentimentality issues) about clothes I haven’t worn in a few years. The business clothes aren’t appropriate for children (they’re sized 00P and smaller), but the other casual clothes in good shape that can work for most ages are bagged up.
I also cleared the pantry of aging treats and quite old herbal teas meant to assist in nursing the first child. That can’t be good anymore. There were a lot of angsty feelings tied up with that period of life and how hard nursing was but it’s well past time to get them out. I would have sent them to people who could have used it better much earlier but they were pushed to the back of deep cabinets and forgotten.
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Does anyone else have work-senioritis? Mine gets so much stronger with the onset of fall/winter weather than it does in the spring/summer. I just want to hibernate.
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I have watched this a million times pic.twitter.com/snkswPQDXc
β Voldemort (@ib_2cute) September 25, 2022
Year 3, Day 195: “They’re getting better at washing their lunch things.” I knew it would happen eventually, but I still felt vindicated in my insistence that JB wash up their own lunch things every day they bring lunch this year. They were pretty bad at it at first. They were also pretty bad at remembering to do it. They’re still not GOOD at either but they’re improving a little at a time on both fronts. Maybe by the end of the school year, they’ll actually be good at doing it without a reminder?
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With reckless disregard for how I brought on COVID in Jan 2020 by complaining I neither wanted to see or talk to people for at least three months, the double whammy of my griping to a friend that I didn’t want to work and then that I didn’t want to cook dinner (but I did go and start it!) yielded an unexpected power outage of four hours. Whoops. Thankfully I’d already finished my time sensitive work, so I used that time to pack up a new box of hand me downs for the Allen Youth Center and then rest! Glorious rest!
The unfortunate side effect of the rest was that I don’t want to get back up again to take JB to self defense class. Also: my pork roast had to sit in the oven marinating instead of slow roasting and PiC had to come back earlier to liberate the car from the garage because I’m too short to manually open it.
This is a reminder that I should get that garage battery backup and the UPS for our modem for future outages. The list of things to do feels endless! No wonder I’m tired.
Let me tell you a story.
I had just been medically retired. I was weak, still healing, walked with a cane, and could barely lift a small basket of groceries, let alone defend myself.
I had mustered up the courage to go to the store by myself one day, and so off I tottered. Aisle
β Pumpkin Spice Godzilla (@LeftistGodzilla) September 25, 2022
Year 3, Day 196: Yikes. PiC has an e-bike on loan which he’s been using to commute to work and daycare for the past couple of weeks. This has been good for both him and Smol, but we just discovered the back tire is flat. Yar! Flat tires always fill me with dread because I have no experience in fixing them. Thankfully, PiC does. He says it’ll be a pain, but it might be patchable if we’re lucky.
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Black Girls Code is still short of their fundraising goal.
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I think the Dahmer documentary is sick, and from the sounds of it, so is “Blonde”. I very much enjoyed this anti-Blonde Twitter thread instead:
in honor of never watching the monstrosity that is blonde here is a thread of some of my favorite pictures of marilyn just being herself π€β¨ pic.twitter.com/kNtjft0lSD
β marilyn monroeβs publicist (@riverindale) September 28, 2022
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who needs a Corgi puppy? pic.twitter.com/6eKxAUznZ5
β α΄α΄α΄ Κα΄α΄ α΄Κα΄ α΄α΄ΚΙ’Ιͺ (@PAVGOD) September 22, 2022
So much going on! Like you, I’m getting rid of some clothes, getting ready to fly (solo, not with kids, though), and dealing with work fog. Unlike you, though, I’m compensating by letting the blog stuff fall way, way down on the list-0-stuff-to-do. I’m grateful and [as always] impressed for all your detail.
Way to go, JB, with lunch cleanup! Persistence and consistency for the win.
The eternal (seeming) juggle! π I’m lucky that the blog is a good mental release valve, and that my long time readers/ commenters are such good internet company, it doesn’t feel like just another to do.