Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (136)
January 9, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 288: Gas is below $5/gallon. I checked our records and it went below $5.25 around Thanksgiving weekend. What a difference it makes to each fill up total! We’d been nudging $100 for a 3/4 tank at those prices. *shiver*
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We have a break between storms today and I’m trying to make the most of it. I ran out of steam yesterday. We’ve got two more loads of laundry, I’ve got some donations to ship to Allen Youth Center, and I’d like to get Sera a doggy sweater.
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Huzzah! Nicole and Maggie’s comment fixed my problem. Well, got me to fix it. When the block editor was first rolled out, we were able to pick which editor to use for new posts. Then they took that choice away. So I went into the settings but my toggle to turn off block editor was greyed out.
I checked again this week and the toggle is functional! I can write new posts in classic editor! š
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I noticed on Twitter that a player collapsed on the field during the Bills/Bengals game, and the NFL didn’t immediately, or very quickly after, cancel the game. I don’t follow football but this is the kind of stuff that floats up to my attention because it’s something my circles are interested in. It was both not at all surprising that the NFL didn’t have what it took (morality? souls?) to immediately cancel the game and apparently expected both teams to take the field again shortly after, without knowing if a fellow player was ok. I heard that the teams and the team reps told the NFL that the game wouldn’t go on (buzzfeed article). There’s something deeply wrong with parts of our society for that not to be an immediate decision, IMO. And football is such a dangerous game.
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Inspired by the vacation that very much wasn’t, I designed a couple new tees: small body, big feelings (guess who?), big heart big feelings. Tickled by silliness about people being more charmed than sensible: skritches get stitches.
Year 3, Day 289: What a zigzag feeling kind of day. Smol woke up at 1:30 am, and settled down immediately after I tucked them back in. I did not. After reading 2 books, at 5 am, I gave up and went to work until everyone started waking up for work and school. I ran completely out of steam at 8:30 but had to hang in there until just after 9, after getting everyone out the door. Sera and I napped for a couple hours before I got back to work, muscles still heavy and burning.
I’ve got to pace myself while catching up on work today: I need to cook some chicken adobo and rice for dinner, and I need to take JB to their class this afternoon. My energies are a precious resource and they’re dwindling rapidly.
Actually! I’ve marinated the chicken for adobo but I noticed that we have two entrees in the freezer from last month. I’ll cook this for later in the week tomorrow, we can have one of those frozen entrees tonight. That’s more energy-saving.
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We had a power outage this week which helped me prioritize our most critical backup power needs in real time. I had a scattered mental list, and one in here somewhere, but that didn’t take for the purposes of buying our power stations in November. This coming November, we’d better have a plan in place to shop the sales!:
1. Power for the phones: currently covered by the small power packs we have, and just have to remember to keep charged).
2. Power for the router and server: not currently covered, important for any daytime outage of any length of time, less critical at night
3. Power for the fridges: not currently covered, important after several hours during the day, critical once we get past the first day.
4. Power for the garage door: not currently covered, important to get in and out if PiC isn’t around to reach the door doohickey.
We’re ok for short outages but anything longer than a few hours starts to get iffy depending on what time of day it is.
This is especially relevant because we’re expecting another massive storm. The last one, a few days ago, was called historic and this one’s expected to be similar. This is big enough that I’m checking to see if we need to worry about floods. This is not usually a thing I have to worry about!
Year 3, Day 290: This was the third night in a row where I could not sleep. It’s making for some very tired mornings and days.
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Privacy/security thing: @CrownePrints says “Adobe has opted your art into building AI systems without telling you. You have to log into your Adobe Account to turn it off.
This is maddening. I don’t know why all these places feel entitled to use our work for free.”
If you go to account.adobe.com/privacy, you can toggle that switch off. I have to use it for work and found that it was toggled on. That’s not ok!
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The massive storm combination of the bomb cyclone and the atmospheric river hit tonight. We were pounded with heavy rains for a few hours, and luckily I caught a brief break in the clouds to run Sera outside in the evening for a quick trot.
Year 3, Day 291: Lots of catching up accounting left over from the holidays.
I went through all the accumulated mail, shredded confidential stuff, added new addresses to our address book from Christmas cards, paid the utility bills, transferred funds from one account to another. Submitted reimbursements, and mentally noted that we’ll need to submit 3 months of daycare receipts to max out this year’s Dependent Daycare FSA in March. Caught my mistake with the 2022 DD FSA and fixed that.
Sera’s annual exam is scheduled for January. Making another mental note to schedule my annual physical for February. Also hoping that blogging the note will make the mental note stick. Oh heck, I better write this down. I’m trying to put most of our annual medical/dental/vet/vision etc visits in the first half of the year so that it’s not a huge clump of appointments at the end of the year when I’m already feeling the pre-holiday squeeze.
PLUS PiC’s company incentivizes healthy choices such as having an annual exam so you betcha I’m going to get that done early so I can claim my prize.
Year 3, Day 292: My massive DUH moment: I’ve been off my feed for weeks. It’s not even a lack of appetite issue, it’s that even if there is food and even if I am hungry, I just don’t feel like eating more than the bare minimum. By the time I get to bed, I’m actively hungry and grouchy about it. Then I am even grouchier because I’m hungry and tired, but also really cold and unable to sleep.
The synapses finally fired yesterday and the logic train came into the station. Since I’m not eating much, I don’t have enough fuel to get warm. So if I caved and ate a late snack or meal, I’d be able to at least retain some warmth enough to sleep.
It worked. š¤¦š»āāļø
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The two days of pounding rains mostly washed our sidewalks. I love that one benefit as much as I despise the dog owners who have been coming through our neighborhood lately, not picking up my after their dogs. It’s disgusting, rude, and unhygienic.
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While reading to Smol Acrobat at bedtime, they tried to flop onto me and ended up piledriving their elbow into my face. That’s gonna leave a mark.
I guess that’s fair. I did take them to get their bivalent booster today (YAY) so now we both have a mark for the weekend.
