September 6, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 169: Oh Monday. PiC took the 630-930 am shift so I could take JB to school and then try to get some work done. I’m doing my best to stay focused in the time we have when Smol Acrobat is asleep. They had a rough go of it with the first nap, waking up after half an hour and crying inconsolably for an hour. Literally inconsolable, I changed their diaper, changed their sleep sack to a warmer one, offered a bottle, patted them, sang to them, rocked them, nothing. None of it helped. Eventually they physically pushed me away and I had to let them work it out on their own in the crib. I could only watch helplessly on the monitor. Thankfully they were clearly safe and just really tired, and eventually did pass out.
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I’m worried for my friends, near and far, affected by horrible COVID-related policies and threatened by wildfires. I miss my friend who is fighting a serious mental health battle and I worry about them. I’m worried for a loved one who seems to be making the same mistakes that have been a pattern all their life. I’m worried about my own sanity – my work has (temporarily) tripled and it’s not like there were enough hours in the day for the original work, which is piled atop my worries for JB’s safety at school and whatever is going to happen with this recall. There’s a lot of emotional turmoil and I’m trying to find moments of less turmoil rather than relief since I’ll just get angrier when I’m not relieved. I just want to stress bake cookies.
The emotion breaks out at odd times. Yesterday, I was stretching and just burst into tears. Smol Acrobat watched me with intent interest for a while and then started to laugh because faces are funny. Which in turn made me laugh a little.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was stretching today but the emotion surge was less intense.
Insomnia still plagues me intermittently through each night. I can catch a little sleep in naps now and again but I keep waking up and struggling to go back to sleep. Sleeping like a baby, indeed.
Year 2, Day 170: I’m starting to turtle up emotionally. It’s been too much turmoil and worry, too much racism and fascism and sexism.
*****
Smol’s daytime schedule seemed to be shifting to dropping the third nap, which worked out a bit better in giving us longer stretches at night. We were trying to go 3 hours between naps, it worked for a couple of days, then they reverted again to shorter naps during the day and needing three again. Which in turn meant less sleep at night and waking up at 5 am again. That’s truly what the doctor ordered! /sarcasm
PiC speculated that it’s to do with their brain development. They do seem to be trying to achieve another level of mobility which I’m absolutely not ready for.
***** (more…)
August 30, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 162: We’re still cautious about in person school but we’re also well aware that unlike our friends across the country, our district has at least some of the most needed mitigation strategies in place: universal mask mandate, they claim to have updated all the ventilation and to have an air purifier in every room (the latter two I want to see with my own eyes before believing it).
Naturally, Republican Californians had to try to make this darkest timeline even worse with the ridiculous recall election. Newsom is not the best governor ever but at least we have mask mandates. Not a single one of the candidates on the ballot inspires anything but disdain or disgust.
*****
I’m on Day 4 of not getting good sleep. At least last night was just interrupted sleep but not as pain-riddled as the previous 3 days. I had finally escalated to the heavy duty pain meds and that helped enough so that when I slept, it was relatively decent. But not nearly enough. I can usually function on moderate sleep deprivation. It gets tougher when it hits high sleep deprivation like it has now. I took a long rest both Saturday and Sunday but clearly I need another rest today.
It makes me wonder if I should try caffeine but that’s not going to give me more energy. It’ll just stave off sleepiness, which isn’t the issue, so that doesn’t help anything. Right? That’s how caffeine works?
*****
Because just doing my own work at twice the speed anyone else would isn’t enough, I had staffers out today so I had to cover for them. I made a couple executive decisions: I’d take care of most of their stuff, within reason, most of my stuff, and bump the rest to tomorrow. And I’m taking a short rest today. I’m not going to kill myself for work. I’m not going to use up my last dregs of energy and then be a growling monster at my family because I’m clean out of patience. Priorities.
*****
Meanwhile, in Smolville, Smol Acrobat done lost their little infant sleeping mind. They were showing all the signs of sleepiness, including doing their yelling at me that they do when it’s naptime. I comply and go through the whole routine. Do they sleep? They do not. They holler for 55 minutes. We tried three times to resettle them, finally feeding them some more formula, before they finally passed out. I do not know what broke there but it was a whole lot of mess.
Year 2, Day 163: Boy, I thought the past few days were rough. They were. But then last night was the worst. I caught two hours of sleep, then was stuck awake for the next five because of painsomnia and anxiety. I’m guessing the fatigue is why I spent most of the work day (counted only as the time spent in front of the computer, not the time I was minding Smol) in a state of being poised for flight. I just wanted to run away screaming. Pandemic normal, right?
***** (more…)
August 23, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 155: Yesterday was such a bad day with JB that the funk has followed me into today. I just want to lay my head down and be left alone for hours. Naturally, I cannot. We have school drop-off, work, more work, Smol to take care of, more MORE work, Smol to settle down for a nap, work, school pick up, JB’s after school lessons that will stand in for some version of aftercare to schedule.
I don’t know if it’s tempting fate but I filled almost in the rest of the school year’s dates on our calendar for JB. Who knows if these dates will stand. But I will want to know them later and what better time to do that then when I’m stressed and looking for administrative mindless scutwork?
I did sort out their tutoring and Spanish scheduling too, so I was able to start booking those out for a few weeks. This gives me a (faux) sense of control over something. Look at me! Planning things!
*****
I finished our two direct aid projects for friends and did tell myself that I’m not allowed to pick up another project for at least 24 hours. Will I be able to do that? WE. SHALL. SEE.
*****
We donated to the Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay to support their refugee resettlement efforts. This situation in Afghanistan hits really close to home. Our family had to escape their homeland after the US withdrew their troops after the fall of Saigon. One uncle who worked with the CIA disappeared forever, leaving behind his wife and three kids. No one has seen or heard from him since 1975. Another uncle was thrown into jail for decades for fighting for the “wrong” side. Most of my family had to flee under cover of night, embarking on a dangerous journey they were lucky to survive.
People deserve a safe place to live and I think we have a moral responsibility to extend that safety (dubious though it may feel when I look around at how citizens of this country have behaved in recent years).
Year 2, Day 156: I am forcing myself to wait at least until tomorrow before starting up another project. I do have plenty of work to do, I just don’t want to do it and I am clearly using these projects to help me feel a tiny bit better about a world that I strongly resent and dislike.
I’m realizing that I’m simmering at a high amount of rage every day. I haven’t been in this emotional space for a long time and I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until this weekend when JB and I had the worst most terrible-parenting interaction I’ve ever had and it’s finally sunk in that I’m so overtaxed, so filled with anger at the world, that I have lost every reservoir of patience.
I had to meet someone that a loved one has been seeing for a while and it was immediate red flags and I just want to yell nooooo but they won’t listen so there’s no point. Having been their near-daily support for years through similar bad situations, it was so hard to watch what appears to be them walking down the same path again. I’m also furious with some family because GET YOUR SHOT AUGH. The refugee situation in Afghanistan pushes some very personal buttons, as my family including my generation, were refugees after a war. (more…)
August 16, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 148: Each Monday seems to take the preceding Monday as a challenge of one-upsmanship.
I was juggling time zones, time critical problems with our systems, onboarding new people, hiring new people, my regular work, and dealing with the school board trying to get the information we need to make the least-worst decision for JB’s upcoming school year. PiC had to take the bulk of parenting today as I was in deep for hours and only emerged to shovel several bites of food down around lunchtime and get back to work. I’m also juggling the ongoing tracking and orders for our latest Lakota family and organizing contributions for a former PF blogger who was recently diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. Oh and I still need to wrap up the last part of JB’s teacher appreciation gifts before our 5 pm meeting with the superintendent, and our 6 pm call with the school.
My urge to stress shop at JetPens is rising.
My urge to stress eat cheesecake is definitely rising.
We didn’t wrap up the night until well after 9, and it felt like it’d been a week in a day.
Year 2, Day 149: We had our dry run walk to the school today with the whole family in the morning to see how early we have to leave. We can make it in ten minutes handily which is good because I’ve got a bum ankle from yesterday and now a bum shoulder today.
Half the day was school prep. We had the meeting with the teacher, we had to cut filters for JB’s masks, we had to organize their to-go area by the door so that they won’t waste all morning running around trying to figure out what they need. I wrote a list to be posted on the wall and made them a backpack tag with the same list so they can check their belongings when they leave the house and check again before they leave school. All day I was stressed but I realized midday that I’d gone to Ice Mode. I desperately wanted to break down and cry but I literally could not show any emotion. Except some anger. Which I repressed. Of course.
I’m highly conflicted. I have no way to assess the risk in numerical terms. We have gotten a lot of last minute information about the mitigation layers. They have said that all classrooms will have a portable air filter, that hand sanitizer will be supplied, the desks aren’t spaced apart but they do still have little barriers up, the doors and windows are supposed to stay open unless it’s raining, everyone is to be masked indoors and outdoors. They will be eating outdoors unless it’s raining. It all sounds like it should be reasonable measures except for the part where they’re going to be indoors with 24 other people for 5-6 hours a day and that’s a lot of people who are seeing a lot of people who are also seeing a lot of people. They have also confirmed that it’s actually always been a legal requirement for them to inform parents of close contacts within classrooms so the principal was being shady as hell acting like they didn’t know what that protocol was. It’s unfortunate but this school is one of the preferred schools in the district for this age and she clearly knows it and acts accordingly. I have been completely unimpressed by her leadership through this pandemic.
(more…)
August 9, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 141: What a day. We had all kinds of cleaning up to do. PiC and JB worked on three loads of laundry, I worked on reconciling a bunch of bills, filing a tax amendment, contacting the school because two weeks out we still have zero information beyond “everyone will be required to mask”. The planner in me hates this school district. I cleared away some time critical work, and sent important personal emails.
Then as a soul cleanser, I tackled our next Lakota family’s list. I didn’t mean to dive in already but I spotted, buried in the requests, a mom with a newborn and no car seat. We had to get on that!
Naturally I then had to go on and take care of the rest of the family too while I was at it. It took a few hours to sort out an order that would actually ship to Pine Ridge. I completed half the categories of the list: car seat for baby and clothes for the older kids. I added some household things for mom because she didn’t ask for anything for herself and I’m sure that she could use a basic hygiene kit. I’m trying to remember what I’d wanted in those postpartum days. The other half of the list, baby clothes and school supplies for the older kids, will go out later this week.
Year 2, Day 142: Another heavy work day with exponential stress. Lots of scheduling conflicts and people having bad personal stuff going on which require accommodations and trying to make sure enough gears keep turning at partial staffing. The only good thing out of this moment is the timing is good to make a push for a staffing change I’ve been wanting for a long time that will help us long term.
I assigned the rest of the laundry to JB for the afternoon, they were allowed to take reading breaks as they wanted, and so by the early evening all the laundry was put away with minimal fuss.
I was happy to finish up the school supplies order for the kids and then while I organized a new basket to hold books for the kids and organized Smol’s clothes, I pulled out armloads of their outgrown clothes to ship a bundle for the new baby. I need to replenish my flat rate boxes stash!
BUMMER. The car seat I ordered yesterday from Target has been cancelled. They say there’s a problem with the shipping address, and they can’t charge my credit card. Um, since you have charged it 16 times today, and shipped 11 packages there already, I would say both those objections are bunk. I reordered it.
Year 2, Day 143: Would you believe that the second car seat has been cancelled?? I finally went to Amazon to order it because it’s a time critical item and they’re taking TWO WEEKS to ship it even with Prime. What is this nonsense? So amid my fight with the school district, my inbox, and my towering to do list at work, I am on chat with Target demanding an explanation for why on earth this item cannot be shipped. It’s really really annoying. (more…)
August 2, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 134: I woke myself up shouting at a neighbor for dismissing her kid’s attempt to murder my baby as “that’s just what kids do” and that really set the tone for my day. I won’t say it exactly went downhill from there, it just kept circling the drain as Smol struggled to nap, JB’s class started unexpectedly late and I had to scramble to get some Spanish activities together so they weren’t just wasting time, then JB couldn’t get themselves together enough to knock off 2 minutes of chores in under 20 minutes. I definitely lost my temper at the 15th distraction and shouted. I normally don’t shout but zero of the firm non shouting reminders or stern warnings worked.
I just want the house to myself for two hours. Just two hours that’s all I’m asking. Instead we’re getting ready to attend a far away funeral and it’s going to be time for me to be trapped in a car with a severely undersocialized extrovert for 9 hours and I think I will truly lose my mind. Bye-bye mind. Bye-bye.
*****
Over the weekend, I finally downloaded the last pictures up to the present time from our phones and cleared out the Google Drives so they’re no longer threatening to shut down. That’s Phase 1.
Phase 2 is renaming a whole hell of a lot of files and editing their metadata so they’re as correct as possible. That’s going to suck where I have old files that have been through multiple programs and lost the right file metadata. Phase 3 is deleting the 2 years worth of files I already uploaded to the NAS. Phase 4 is uploading all the completed files that have all the corrected file metadata to our NAS.
I’m giving myself a small break before I start Phase 2.
Actually, a small break and an interim task. I’m going to create the private shared file where I will be saving copies of our estate plan to share that and the action plan in case something happens to us. We’re going to need to change the executors of our will, and once that’s done, our executors will need easy access to the paperwork. I also want to make sure they have access to it sooner than later so we can have a conversation about what we want.
The point of this is to say: holy crap I’m doing my work so much faster when I’m JUST doing my work and not also juggling the two data streams. Also: man, I still got through all my work last week even while juggling multiple major personal projects. I’m pretty awesome.
***** (more…)
July 26, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 127: At first, I thought this was a GET THEE OUT OF THE KITCHEN kind of day.
I boiled 6 eggs to make deviled eggs. They were all boiled the same amount of time and yet 3 were soft boiled, 1 was fine, the last 2 were put back on to boil because I didn’t even want to risk it. I added three more eggs to a new pot to boil and forgot about it and burned the eggs and the pot. Then I got into a fight with the formula dispenser and spilled half a pod of formula all over the counter and the floor. By midday, point, I was just grateful that no living beings were hurt.
It turns out my ill luck was more widespread than that. Everything I touched went wrong in some way. I made bulgogi, roasted broccoli, and roasted potatoes. The bulgogi was sort of watery, the broccoli cold, the potatoes slightly underdone.
I’ve been fighting to reclaim data on Google Photos with zero luck, it won’t budge despite my having downloaded and permanently deleted several GBs of files and photos since last week. I found a folder of 2017-2019 photos in Drive taking up space so I dumped that too. Somehow, a spreadsheet I use daily to store project notes, financial research, and other important stuff was caught up in that, and permanently deleted. I had to sit with some pretty nasty feelings for a while when I saw that “file was deleted” note. So much work, gone.
And given the number of times I saw warnings about “are you sure? Deleting these files permanently means they cannot be retrieved” I know they’re gone gone.
I’ll have to recreate it from memory as best I can over time. I’ll also need to look into how to sync my Google Drive files to our NAS because if I lose any even more important spreadsheets, I really will throw up.
*****
Money things, my phone. I’m running up against a serious lack of storage again. I only took the 64 GB phone when I upgraded to the Pixel and gave PiC my iPhone a couple years back. That was foolish of me. I’m on this mega mission to move all the photos off our devices and backing them up elsewhere so if I can get that done, I will reclaim that storage. I really don’t want to have to replace my phone until next year. I just bought a new phone for PiC last year, I’d like to go a year in between phone purchases if possible.
Year 2, Day 128: Maureen’s tweets (below) very much encapsulates how I feel about the world right now and travel. I still don’t want to because THE NUMBER OF DECISIONS we have to make with every single thing we do is overwhelming. (more…)