July 14, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (267)

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

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (266)

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

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (265)

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!