July 14, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 77: It’s backlog city at work, with pretty rough waters ahead. No one is loving this. Nor am I loving how many times the blog has been acting up this week. This is very annoying.
Also annoying: The house maintenance is still not done. We’re through 78% of the interior work and I’m so fed up, I don’t WANT to do the last 22%. It doesn’t have to be done right away, thank goodness, because that’s another $5000 and 2 weeks of disruption when we do get to it but *deepest disgruntled sigh* I am tired of living in drywall bits and dodging plastic covering. Can we please just have everything back to normal for a while?
Background listening: the Magnum PI reboot.
Higgins: Oh no, he looks angry.
Magnum: That’s just his face, isn’t it?
#ItMe
Year 6, Day 78: I’m stressed to my very marrow with deadlines, impossible KPIs, and … well. Need there be more? Oh yes, and working myself into the ground, late in the wee hours every night. I finally had to take a night “off”. It was off in the sense that I didn’t do actual productive work. It was not off in the sense of having turned off the stress meter.
I decided to combat stress with “stress”: Examining our tax spreadsheets closely to better understand each line of each Schedule. This sort of thing usually starts with frowning but over time as I pore over the instructions, it forces my brain to let go of the things I can do absolutely nothing more about and focus on learning something. This time: SALT. I didn’t realize that I’d been slowly mentally miscategorizing what actually falls under the SALT deduction and today’s close examination cleared that up. It’s comprised of the state and local taxes we pay (on our W2s), state and local real estate taxes, and state and local personal property taxes. The italics were necessary for my brain to actually absorb what specific taxes they’re talking about. Now I know where my car license registration deduction belongs (personal property tax)! I reorganized our spreadsheet to follow the exact order of Schedule A. Honestly it hasn’t really mattered since 2017, because of the $10,000 cap but if the cap has really changed to $40,000, then getting these numbers all right will matter this year.
I do still need to figure out which part of the property tax payments fall into the 2025 tax year because ours are split weirdly across years and it’s too late for my brain to take this information and do anything useful with it: “Only taxes paid in 2024 and assessed prior to 2025 can be deducted for 2024. State or local law determines whether and when a property tax is assessed, which is generally when the taxpayer becomes liable for the property tax imposed.”
Year 6, Day 79: HOOOOboy. 7 hours of meetings. What a crap day. I did manage (thanks to Costco readymade foods) to put dinner on the table in reasonably short order: scalloped potatoes, beef kebabs, sauteed green beans and broccoli. I was disappointed in this bag of green beans, though. We normally handpick every green bean from a local produce market but I was in a hurry at Costco and threw a bag of their prepackaged green beans into the cart. I should have noticed the condensation that was going to lead to bad beans.
I bought the last two items our Lakota sponsee requested recently. Once I send the shipping information, sadly, I’m going to end our sponsorship. The organization asks that we send packages 4-6 times a year and talk to the individual to build a relationship. I started off strong at first, sending packages every 4-6 weeks but, without judgment – this is purely observational – the sponsee’s communication is very sporadic. It’s tough under normal circumstances, it takes a lot of effort to get enough information to work with but it’s feeling impossible now. These past 24 months, my work has increased exponentially. I can barely manage to throw hot food on the table twice a day for the people I live with. Chasing down my sponsee to get more than a few words now and again takes time that I simply don’t have anymore. This also feels crappy because the point of a sponsorship is to build a relationship. I hate failing at that but I’ve already been failing them from this aspect. So rather than beating myself over the head with guilt for not being able to be five people at once, I’m going to need to step away.
Year 6, Day 80: I still hold close a daydream of a time when I’ll have the time, money, energy and stamina to ride horses again. It’s what I’m working towards every single time I do a few minutes of exercises. That, and the ability to heft a large dog over 55-60 lbs into the car. I can’t adopt a dog I can’t lift since I’m the primary dog caretaker. It’s my own personal rule, I hate being dependent on other people to care for my own, even if it’s PiC. Sometimes that’s just pure practicality, it’s easier for me to break away and take the dog to the vet than for him. He handles more of the kids back and forthing, I handle the dogs’. No idea when all the planets will align.
I found a local barn today and got overexcited considering all the lesson options they have. I know how to ride but my body has to do the slow and steady rebuilding of foundational rides again before I can even think about asking to jump. I miss it so much it hurts (but what doesn’t?) and I feel that urge to be cruel to myself for my body’s shortcomings. Now that I know what it is, it’s easier to redirect and not fall into the negativity spiral.
Anyway, barns made me think of boots and I went looking for work boots. Used to be, I could buy a work boot style for $20 at Payless and they’d last me several years, protecting my toes from mischievous hooves. Now, browsing Boot Barn, there’s nothing with a heel and steel/reinforced toe under $100 and ranging up to $250. I’m looking for something like this. I’d also need a helmet and comfortable riding pants, when the time comes.
Year 6, Day 81: Every day I end my day trying to remind myself that we can only do what we can do and I can only do so much. I’ve already wrecked myself twice this week trying to do more than my body can handle.
Some things are getting better at work but not enough and not fast enough, so it’s back to feeling like I can’t get enough done in any single, even 18 hour day, anymore. I don’t like this at all.
July 7, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 70: We’re scrambling to get everything financially important done today. I hate when month end, quarter end, and first half of the year all clang together like four sets of cymbals. Yes, like the seasonal time changes, this happens every year but like every year, this one feels like the worst.
I did, however, set a small record for myself in how many records I managed to approve/process within the business day. Self congratulatory pats.
Year 6, Day 71: My Synology photos app went off the rails and it’s taken 3 hours to figure out how to fix it. It kept claiming that there was no network connection. If there’s no network connection, how am I connecting to the Internet with every other app?? It wasn’t Synology itself, I can access that and upload/download files easily. It’s not Photos the program, PiC’s mobile connection using the iOS app was updating just fine. It’s just mine that’s being a jerk. Sigh. I hunted through article after article trying to find the fix but nothing posted in the past four years with similar keywords made sense. I finally tried logging out and logging back in. It’s the logical first troubleshooting step. But it wouldn’t let me log back in. 🤦🏻♀️ I had to change the password, reset the whole thing from the desktop app, change the password on the app and finally got access again. But it refused to update any of my pictures taken this week. Ugh.
Year 6, Day 72: I have this beautiful row of cucumber plants about 6-8 inches tall but none of them show any inclination to put out flowers of any kind. The one sugar snap pea plant that managed to grow at all, by contrast, is suddenly popping out flowers today. I count 8 flower clusters, and two of them are already shedding the petals as the wee tiny peas are starting to peek out. Exciting! The green bean plants have remained rather spindly so I was losing hope that they would make any beans but today I spotted the world’s tiniest green bean budding from the top of one of the plants.
I’ve checked the watering system and found a couple nozzles had fallen out of the planters so I’ve reset them so we’re not losing precious water to the ground.
Year 6, Day 73: I normally never order fish at a restaurant, aside from fish and chips. American restaurants generally over season or over-something-it like they’re trying to hide that they’re preparing fish, and all that effort takes away from the fundamental deliciousness of the fish itself. My one exception is made for Italian restaurants. They’ll serve a whole deboned fish that always lets the actual fish shine.
I still have happy memories of picking a whole fish to be roasted and deboned at the table in a small hole in the wall place in Florence two decades ago; I’m not so secretly always hoping to repeat that experience. We rarely eat out these days but I recently had the choice between a filet mignon or a whole branzino and jumped at the branzino. Scrumptious.
Year 6, Day 74: I had to rescue a friend, temporarily, from the airport. Their flight delays made me think they’re even more cursed than Nicole and Maggie! Two flights were delayed several times and finally cancelled and the third was delayed. It must have taken 42 hours end to end. I felt so bad for them. All I could do was bring them a snack and keep them company for a bit when it was safe for them to leave the airport. They apologized for messing up any July 4th plans we might have had but I assured them that this year in particular, there’s nothing to celebrate about Independence Day in America. I wish there were.
June 30, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 63: There’s one thing I hate about our neighborhood. Behind many houses, there’s an easement. Only some backyards actually have access to it. I don’t know if there’s any intentional planting, but I can tell that the birds have spread seeds from some neighbors’ fruit plants along with whatever was there to begin with. There are all KINDS of plants growing behind the fences and they keep coming through the fence and over the fence and *deep sigh* You know what? I paid a hell of a lot of money for a very low maintenance backyard suited to my health needs. Why do I still have to spend a full weekend day trimming back and ripping out the growth that’s not even mine several times a year?? A couple hours of actual work but that took the entire rest of the day and night (plus pain meds, plus a really hot shower, plus a nap, plus more pain meds) to recover. Adding insult to injury, this weekend I find that the deep dark forest behind our fence has put so much pressure on the fence that it’s snapped a board in half. Also, it’s creepy.
My other complaint is less about our specific neighborhood. JB’s summer camp this week requires me to take the twistiest, windiest roads, and I hate them so much. Twice a day, every day this week. Why did I do this to myself. This is probably the last, or next to last, year that JB can do the easy summer camp that PiC can do the dropoff and pickups for.
Year 6, Day 64: I didn’t realize this until I started commenting at Hawaii Planner‘s. I thought we were on 6 months with my trainer, and patting myself on my back for this longest record of consistently doing exercise every week since the fibro took over, ever. Even though I have over 40 weeks of records – that math simply didn’t work out in my head. It’s actually coming up on 11 months of consistently working out minus about 4 really bad weeks where I couldn’t do as much as half of my planned workout. It’ll be a year in August. Seeing as how all my previous attempts to work out in the past twenty+ years has ended up with me bedridden for weeks at a time, this is pretty cool.
I’m trying to get all our FSA claims in order and had to ask a pharmacy for a duplicate RX printout for a couple meds that were accidentally shredded in a moment of overzealous cleaning. They offered to fax them to me. I don’t have a fax number, folks, I’m just a normal person.
Year 6, Day 65: Every so often, even after I have eaten a balanced lunch, my glucose levels suddenly crash and it’s a frantic race to get sugar and protein into me before I collapse. This can happen when I’m at home or working at another site, and when I’m out of the house, it’s a real scramble if I didn’t bring snacks for the kids that I could eat. I finally bought a case of protein bars at Costco as an easy/lazy solution to getting caught without calories.
I loaded two bars in every bag I carry, feeling slightly silly about the whole thing. Since then, every single person except me has devoured one or more of those bars already. PiC scarfed one, SmolAc has had two, JB has had two. I’ve taken to carrying three with me at a time now so that there will still be one left for me. My own Devouring Horde.
This whole week has been unsettled. I’m preparing for a big deal work conference, training new people, trying to get my flood of work done, and we keep having people show up at the house with not a lot of warning to work on various bits and pieces. We need the work done and we have some advance notice but it’s still weirdly(?) disruptive having people show up at random times, coming and going, and having to oversee a little of it at least to make sure they’re doing what we asked for. I will be so relieved to have peace and quiet when this is over. I’m mildly annoyed we didn’t schedule this better – during the school year when I have little to no expectation of peace and quiet. I’m supposed to enjoy a few days of a few weeks of uninterrupted quiet!
We had three sets of tradespeople coming and going today and it was just too much. I need peace and quiet, and I need it now please.
Year 6, Day 66: As much as I complain about this week’s summer camp and the twisty windy roads, it IS a nice thing for my brain that I’ve finally mostly memorized the directions to a new place. I have trouble with my memory with the CFS and it’s reassuring when I can learn a new thing and keep it in the noggin.
This mental map won’t be particularly useful to me later, we’re unlikely to do this camp again because the low price tag was accompanied by a rather sad and unimaginative program where the camp managers would either send the kids outside to eat lunch and just “play outside” for 3+ hours at a time but not let them back inside when it was too cold, or send the kids to sit around bored for almost an hour before camp pickup time. I don’t object to kids sitting around bored in principle, but I do object to not providing any sports equipment for them to DO something with that time and energy otherwise why did we pay money for what I could do to them at home? Also it was meant to be a pool-focused program and the kids weren’t getting nearly enough pool time some days, nor did they follow through on activities they advertised.
Year 6, Day 67: TIL that swapping out oil for melted butter, adding an egg, and swapping out water for milk will vastly improve the result of a boxed cake mix! New knowledge brought to you by complaining on Bluesky that Betty Crocker cake mix just doesn’t do the trick for me these days. The cake always tastes like it’s missing something.
I’ve been spending the week glaring at the long list of reimbursements that were processed but still haven’t landed in our bank account. Come on! Land!
June 23, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 56: It’s my first glorious summer day with both kids away at camp and daycare – fabulous delicious solitude and silence! It’s amazing. There were interruptions. The roofer unexpectedly dropped by. Gave myself 18 minutes to add Miracle-Gro to the garden before planting the basil plants I impulse-bought over the weekend. I even cooked dinner! A pork sirloin roast, scalloped potatoes (cheater style, the Costco premade potatoes which are super cheesy), and green beans with Penzey’s Justice seasoning. Even with half a day of meetings and all those interruptions, this day felt SO GOOD because of the alone time. It would have been better with dogs but the lack of humans in the house for the workday period is so critical to my mental health.
JB is reunited with their former daycare compatriots so they’re also loving that. It’s a bit sad though, the kids are aging out of that summer camp program so this may be their last year together.
Year 6, Day 57: It’s really time we replaced our meat thermometer. Yesterday’s roast was slightly overdone to my taste. Everyone else protested it was fine but I suspect they just felt bad I’d done all the dinner prep while they were out having fun.
We accidentally destroyed our meat thermometer two summers back and I’ve been cooking by guesswork since. Alas, that usually results in my overcooking meat a little by way of overcompensating because I worry about food poisoning. The IKEA lingonberry sauce made a very good addition to the pork, though, lucky we had that on hand.
There was a boatload of stress today, but we still limped over the finish line (dinner, bath, bedtime) somewhat worse for wear.
Year 6, Day 58: It’s been a wild week… month… 👀 Yes I’m going to have to limit this to the start of June. We had two electrical breakers blow so we couldn’t use parts of the house for several days. Thank goodness for the Yeti saving our bacon (literally, the bacon, eggs, and the rest of our food). We attempted to fix it ourselves but that was a no go because under the main panel’s door was a mess the likes of which I cannot adequately describe. Second “thank goodness”: we already needed a tradesperson out to fix several other long-standing problems and so we had them fix this too. Total cost: $25 at Home Depot because I impulse bought more plants and ??? for the tradespeople to fix the thing. We’ll have to return the supplies we didn’t end up needing ($85).
I spent half the day juggling the messages from the tradespeople to PiC and back because he couldn’t be here and needed to make decisions. I could make them but I didn’t want to. I care much much less than he does about the details, so if (when) I get the decision wrong, he’d have to live with the mistakes and I’d have to live with him. One key to a reasonable marriage? The person who cares most about the thing gets to make the decisions about the thing. I have opinions but they’re broader in scope, they’re never about the tiny details.
Year 6, Day 59: This is the first year we’ve all had Juneteenth off and it feels a little like a vacation day. A real one, not one where I have to plan and schedule and pack and pay and organize and whatever else before doing the day which turns out to be exhausting. Possibly also fun, but definitely exhausting. We also expect to have workers here for the whole day to get some maintenance done so my vague notions of going to the zoo or something went out the window before they took real form.
My very tired legs agree that’s for the best. I’d pushed myself to do a good chunk of my workouts earlier in the week and I’ve been feeling it every day since.
PiC even got to sleep in today, his belated Father’s Day gift. It was accidental, SmolAc got him up at 6, but when he fell back asleep SmolAc just carried on reading to themself until I went to the office.
Year 6, Day 60: Well, shoot. It’s a good thing that things shook out the way they did this week because after the tradesfolks started work, they found oh so much dryrot. That’s going to add to the estimate. O_O
June 16, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 49: Summer’s here and one parent friend is already sick of it. The kids are driving her up the wall with their drama; her dogs escaped the house and went on unauthorized walkabout; her pipes burst. I’m personally not looking forward to the work portions of summer, I’m back to working too late every night, or the bills for summer camp. But compared to this one friend, I’m doing pretty well. I’m hoping the rest of life stuff will be tolerable or manageable. I’ll take either one!
Smol Acrobat and I are feeling mildly under the weather though, that might be the stress and fatigue. They complain of a sore throat and my head hadn’t stopped aching all day no matter what I throw at it.
I did finally find cord locks that might work for SmolAc’s masks, fingers crossed.
Year 6, Day 50: We did our annual local pickup of the outerwear left behind and thankfully this year some enterprising individuals had already washed nearly everything by the time we turned up. Huge relief for me as the pickup only took about 30 minutes. I’d been bracing myself to do multiple runs this week to gather everything and wash it all while somehow still getting work done.
Back at home, I set up a temporary work station for JB. I was in charge of constructing taped up boxes, opening and hauling the giant bags. JB was in charge of stuffing the boxes full. They forgot to keep count so I only know we have four enormous boxes full of donated books and outerwear. We’ve got one half load to wash and pack up left.
Today was extra tough on that point, I had meeting after meeting after meeting which ate half my day. The donations ate a quarter of the day leaving me with very few hours to work so I squeezed some in waiting for JB to finish their activities and then logged many late night hours. Not fun.
Year 6, Day 51: My back twanged when I got up this morning, because apparently sleeping is an Olympic sport, and my left index finger tendon was strained. Just the one finger. No idea why.
Perfect timing for my free weights to arrive! They have been unpacked and relocated to their home for now.
The kids usually want scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast (yes I feel a faint twinge of guilt for supporting Big Egg but that’s not a place where I can focus energy right now) so I generally oblige even though it’s not my favorite egg prep. Usually all versions get a “yum” of approval but today’s were so sublime, SmolAc had to stop eating and come to my office to specially say “thank you for the eggs, they were delicious!”
Year 6, Day 52: SmolAc’s daycare had a moving up ceremony for the kids going to their TK program in the fall. They were completely uninterested in it, examining their chair the entire time while other kids bounced in their seats or sang.
Father’s Day is this weekend and I have utterly dropped the ball on that – AUGH. I assigned a craft to JB to do while I assigned the photo printing part to me. It would be great if the Walgreens photo site actually worked, ahem! CVS is too far out of my way to squeeze in a run there before Sunday. Especially since my pain decided to spike today. Maybe JB’s got the right idea to start planning for their next birthday the day after their last one. That’s what I should do for these holidays that happen every single year. O_O
Year 6, Day 53: The final quotes aren’t in yet but we’re looking at a ballpark of $30k+ on repairs between the roof and the maintenance that’s piled up in the last eightish years. Plus another $$$$? for the painting that we’ve procrastinated on this entire time. I’ve got about $24k set aside for this purpose so we’re going to have to make a few adjustments to close that gap.
Now that I’m in the neighborhood of 6 months with a trainer and not quitting, I’ve proven to Financial Me that I’m taking this seriously enough that it’s ok to spend money on equipment. I am excited (emotionally) to use the new hand weights and resistance bands I finally bought but physically I’m about to become one with the floor so actual use will be exciting next week.
June 9, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 42: I’ve got an executive level meeting invite for a 3 hour meeting this month that requires 14-16 hours of travel. That doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not a key contributor at this level. I’m very much inclined to skip it since the timing is absolutely terrible for our family. It’s during the one week that I have JB signed up for a camp that requires me to drop off and pick up, it’s right before an exceptionally busy week, it’s right after we onboard another new hire. We cannot have me gallivanting all over the place when my team and my family both need me to be fully present.
In personal news, the whole ICE situation is overwhelming and frustrating. Details have been sparse and unclear. I’m getting information second- and third-hand and can’t be sure that all the information is accurate. Right now it seems like ICE is hopscotching him from state to state without any notifications to the family or letting him call home. I suspect this is intentional to stay ahead of any court orders that his lawyer might be able to file. His lawyer doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough to catch up. I’m not judging the lawyer, I have no idea what’s needed to get motions filed.
I had really hoped that I could at least leave the legal stuff (filings and advice) to the lawyer. The underage child keeps texting me asking for advice that should be directed to the lawyer, IMO. I’ve been pretty clear that I am learning as we go as well and that my only expertise here is in communications. But that only works if I can get information and a lot of the time I’m working with a quarter deck.
Year 6, Day 43: ICE situation: It’s been like pulling teeth to get any of the adults in the family to respond to me or to take actions the past few days. And when they do take actions, they often don’t update me so I have no clue where we are on anything. They were originally responsive but have defaulted to directing everyone to me even when that’s not practical.
I composed termination notices to their scammy lawyers for them to send but they didn’t send it because “we thought you were going to”. Well, no, I cannot cancel contracts on your behalf. So then they finally follow directions to contact the scammy lawyers and panic when the scammy lawyers call them back. “No I won’t talk to you, you go call Revanche.” But I’m not available …. ! We set them up with the press, I got a local reporter interested in doing an exclusive with the family, but they needed to decide who would talk to him. We got them in contact with our Senators’ offices caseworkers, they needed to sign releases to let those staffers get to work.
I’m not family, so I have no standing to be making unilateral decisions for them. Even though I was orchestrating everything for them, I need information and input from them before I can make an informed decision. But I have to ask questions multiple times and the only person responding to me is friend’s underage child. And when they do reply, it’s incomplete or lacks comprehension. I see that they are leaning on me to do what their remaining parent isn’t: making decisions, making judgement calls, figuring out how to bring their missing parent back. I’m not angry or resentful. I’m just recognizing what an impossible position I’m in. I offered them my time and energy in fighting this terrible situation but I always want to be respectful of their autonomy and their right to make the necessary decisions. Unfortunately, and I do understand – there’s a language barrier and likely a legitimate fear of ICE coming after them too, it feels like they’re hoping that I will do everything on their behalf. It’s just that I can’t.
Year 6, Day 44: ICE situation: It looks like we’ve lost this fight. He’s no longer in the ICE database and the family is telling me that he’s now in his home country where he is not safe. I don’t know what else we can do. Once they’ve gotten him out of the USA, they can bar him from reentry for years. I am honestly at a loss. And his kid is distraught, of course. He was their primary breadwinner so this is devastating for him and them both. I knew we faced some really long odds but, still, the final reality is like a cold lump in my stomach. It’s even more disheartening that this is the reality for so many people, regardless of their actual status. The legal retainers have cost them at least $4000, unless they were able to get some of the scammy lawyer’s retainer back, and that was a tough stretch. Even more so now that it looks like he won’t be able to resume working here.
Talking about this with my friends who are also children of immigrants, we feel such shame and indignity and fury at the attitudes that have led us here, particularly from other immigrants. We can just about understand white supremacists, but refugees / immigrants supporting this BS? After they benefited from whatever policies allowed them to come here? Slamming the door in the faces of people who have the same needs that they once faced? That’s hypocrisy and selfishness to the highest degree. It’s shameful. And maybe it’s not guilt precisely that I feel when I reflect on my/our failing to save him from deportation over an administrative error that could have easily been corrected if he had a little more access to his rights and to bilingual assistance; maybe this is survivor’s guilt that it could have been us and it was him and his family. I hate this so much. We’re gathering money to assist the family through this rough patch while they try to navigate their new reality.
There’s going to be a whole lot of hypernormalization going on as we have to keep living our lives knowing this is happening to many families. I’ll be donating money to the local community organization that did help, and looking into sharing the ICE related materials from the Rapid Response network.
Year 6, Day 45: We’ve been cramming our necessities into two 2009-era carry-on suitcases. Carry on size-limits have changed since, I’m sure. I looked up the capacity of carry on bags and it’s somewhere between 37-47L. We’ve needed more and/or larger luggage for years as the kids got older but I handwaved it because dropping diapers would open up space. It’s true we don’t have to pack diapers anymore but nevertheless both suitcases are stuffed to the brim when we have to travel for more than 3 days. If we pick up odds and ends while traveling, even expanded it’s not possible to fit everything into the cases anymore.
We have to visit family later this summer and I finally remembered the suitcase situation in time. Macy’s had a sale on my preferred brand, Victorinox with the lifetime guarantee including wear and tear, so I ordered a large suitcase and an attachable tote. The current cases are maybe 50L? capacity. The large case is twice the capacity at about 102L and the tote gives us another 47L. This should finally be enough space to keep everything in the suitcases instead of needing 16 extra tote bags hanging off our arms and suitcase handles. Fingers crossed that packing inflation doesn’t happen. Though I sort of want to start occasionally carrying our own towels because it turns out that I’m fussy about the smell of other people’s towels.
Year 6, Day 46: The rate at which these kids are plowing through my first aid kit’s bandaids this week is much higher than usual. JB with the giant bandage needs, SmolAc with the many small bandage needs. They’re both a LOT more accident prone than usual this week.
I’m mildly annoyed that I keep getting these emails: “Great news! You are pre-qualified for a generator or battery rebate. Prepare for outages, including Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), with a $300* rebate on the purchase of a qualified generator or battery.”
But we are never eligible! They have our address, they should be able to easily tell if we are truly qualified, and yet they keep wasting my time telling me we’re pre-qualified for a thing we aren’t eligible for. And like a rube, I always go check. Of course, I would love to be eligible for a rebate on something I already want to buy for our disaster prep, but I’m just as glad not to be in a high enough threat area as required to be eligible.
We’re hosting a longtime friend this weekend and we’re all going to be so glad to see them. They are wonderful with the kids and so the kids will hog them as much as humanly possible. It’ll be a miracle if we get any actual adult time to hang out and catch up so we’re just going to plan to feed them well and thank them for being awesome. It’s been one hell of a week.
June 2, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 6, Day 35: How many times did I have to remind myself that it was Monday? So many. On the one hand, holiday. On the other hand, much needed day to deal with this truckload of absolute WTFery that landed at my doorstep Sunday. Someone we met several years ago was snatched by ICE and the family’s been at their wit’s end not knowing what to do. They’ve tried retaining lawyers and the first one just gave up and the second one was scammy and useless. I’ve known of the family but they’ve not had any occasion to be familiar with us before yesterday when I heard the news and immediately asked more knowledgeable people for a bit of advice. It’s been a whirlwind of work since: talking to various family members trying to reach a bilingual adult who could answer questions and give me enough information to reach out for help.
Yesterday’s focus was on getting in touch with elected officials’ staffers and getting sufficient information from the family to work with. I was up til midnight on calls and collating information from those calls.
Today’s focus was running down every possible lead for a new lawyer, looking for community org support in dumping the scammy lawyer, and scanning in their paperwork so they have electronic copies. I’ve worked out an agreement with the family that I’d write all the emails, they will do the follow-up phone calls.
We’ve sent out dozens of requests for legal assistance in hopes that one of these sources might have capacity to help.
I feel like a jerk for struggling to feel hope. There are just too many bad things happening in this area right now for me to feel like any of these efforts will pay off. We have to try but knowing that a raft of CA immigration judges were fired as recently as last month and knowing from our House rep’s staffer that ICE frequently deports instead of responding to information requests from Members of Congress, it’s hard to feel like any of these will pan out.
Year 6, Day 36: I spent half the day corresponding with MoC staffers and fielding the email replies from the people we contacted. One person was actually helpful.
We’re combing the area for lawyers, the ones that the local Rapid Response team recommended aren’t answering their phones or if they do answer, they’re too busy to help. The local immigration activist org helped a little. They looked at documents and gave us some basic assessment advice but they’re too overloaded to help. One of the three local attorneys recommended by the Rapid Response team had someone answering phones, everyone else’s numbers just went to voicemail, and I did an intake with them for the family. Then we got a response from a highly recommended firm, that one seemed very promising and we set up an appointment for tomorrow. The local attorney finally got back to us – they’re too busy to take the case. Figures. It’s a hellscape. We’re all on tenterhooks.
Year 6, Day 37: Our neighbor is currently obsessed with the Cascadia Subduction Zone. She’s not concerned for herself, she’s worried for her next two generations. I’ve known and worried about this myself but to the point of buying earthquake insurance, not to the point where she is now: she’s pushing her adult children to sell their homes and move somewhere out of the subduction zone. Hawaii will sink! Alaska will too! We need to MOVE before it happens!
I get it. The worst case scenario is really bad. But we have no idea when this might hit and the impossibility of getting a timeline makes that uprooting feel almost unreasonable. They have jobs, multiple kids thriving in different schools, all involved in their various activities. They’d have to start all over if they were to pick up and leave. I’m not arguing with her, I just see that it’s really hard to justify that level of change in the face of a possible terrible natural disaster someday. I don’t doubt that it’s likely coming, we just have no idea when it’s happening.
I got curious and I found a recent study – it must be the press from this that has her in a lather, she hit all the highlights of this study when describing the potential of the disaster.
Year 6, Day 38: We got to the point of having a real lawyer to retain and the ICE pulled a fast one. He was moved in the middle of the night without warning, and without telling notification to his kin where he’s being sent. None of the ICE detention center or field office phone numbers are in service. The locator site is vague and has no information. I’ve been at a loss for what else to do. I keep wishing I’d known about this last week thinking, look at what we’ve been able to muster in 4 days, two of which were weekend/holidays. If we had known when he’d been detained, we could have done more, faster. We were so close.
Eventually it occurred to me that this timing was suspicious. He had an appointment at the detention center with a scammy lawyer that was just there to bilk the family on Friday. We scrambled to get a legit lawyer in place before Friday so they could see him instead. What if they always would have done this? What if it only took this long for them to deport because they knew he didn’t have competent legal counsel in place, they only shipped him out now because his legal representation was supposed to show up. My reddit savvy friend said that’s very likely, they’re seeing this trend reported. And we know their flagrant disregard for due process. People who are legitimately following all the rules and showing up to immigration court are being grabbed from the courts even if they’ve had successful hearings. There is a complete disregard for anyone’s rights.
Now we’re pressing the Congressional staffers to help us find out what happened to him. Where is he??
Year 6, Day 39: I had such a good week and a half without scheduled meetings so of course they all hit all at once. Everyone needed me for a call for big and small reasons and I was scrambling from one call to the next. I didn’t manage to escape the vortex for several hours. Woof.
On the bright side, I have been going through old pictures, tagging a specific set, and remembering some good dog memories. It hurts but it’s also joy. I miss these dogs so much. They were such an integral part of the family. It feels like we have multiple dog shaped holes in our lives everywhere we go.
Frustratingly corporate is still holding up my raise. It’s taking so long I’m starting to think I should just go job-hunting to show that my salary is indeed deeply below market and I have other options. Exceeepptt it’s possible the current economy is such that I don’t have other good options. There were some earlier in the year but now? After all the federal cuts? After all the federal grants pulled across a whole lot of Bay Area specific industries? Our friends here last weekend told us they’ve got friends who have now been out of work for a year and counting, and corporate cuts are continuing to impact their circles. The Microsoft layoff was a huge one – 6000 people. Hawaii Planner has been going through the wringer, interviewing. Maybe being patient and exasperated continues to be the better bet.
I find it offensive that articles refer to these layoffs as “trims fat” btw. What the hell is wrong with y’all? Cutting people because you let crappy AI take over their jobs isn’t trimming fat. Also I’m so sick of the AI race. It’s brought nothing but garbage, fraud, more fraud, and more work for my company with zero gain. The corporation has handed down an edict that we use their crap AI tool because that’s supposed to benefit the company by 15% but it’s certified crap – it never gives the right information and it never identifies the sources of the bad information. So if you’re credulous enough to ask it for factual information and don’t fact check, you get the wrong answer every single time. The only thing worse than my sense of direction!
Sigh. Lots of ups and downs this week but mostly downs. I would really appreciate a shift in the winds.
EDIT TO ADD: I tried to answer N&M’s comment but the WordPress app is acting up. I would have to set up the GFM for fundraising and I don’t have time or bandwidth to manage that right now so if anyone would like to help out, we can use my Lakota links with the note “For Jose” for now:
Venmao: @RK-Tillman
PayPal: ruthtillman@gmail.com
Cashapp: $ruthkt