May 5, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (257)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 6, Day 7: I started making lists of consumables to stock up on a little bit. Who knows how long we’re going to be impacted by tariff related shipping failures.

I’ve wanted a deep freezer for years, but we’ve only now got room for one – if I’m willing to commit to it. Really a bad time to be waffly. My hesitation is the commitment is threefold: deep freezer, backup generator, and then the more trivial by comparison cost of filling it up. It doesn’t happen very often but if we have another 2-3 day outage, our one generator can’t keep everything going long enough to save the contents of the fridge and freezer and what’s the point of filling up a freezer and losing it all to an outage? But I hesitate. Even if I hadn’t just donated four figures worth of cash to so many people in need two months in a row, and had to cobble together a professional mini wardrobe, the costs of both a freezer and a generator would still be a solid hit. As it is, it’s a lot. We’re also circling back to the roof work. We got so busy earlier in the year, we never got that work started. That gave me time to save, thankfully, but this feels like the year of all the money going out the door while our investments are completely bonkers.

Year 6, Day 8: My psyche is still healing from the bruising on Friday. I can tell because my dreams have been especially weird and revolve a lot around people and betrayal. Getting booked for 6 meetings over the next two weeks also messes with my psyche. I hate meetings. I especially hate more than one meeting a week, that eats deeply into my solo working time and management time. All of them have a legit need, still doesn’t make them any more palatable.

Very annoyed I was too tired and busy this weekend to complete the Christmas presents book order for Independent bookstore weekend. Or day. Whichever it was, bookshop had their annual free shipping event and that might be the last one we get for a while. I may have to go browse our local bookstore which I love but I just can’t find the energy to try to make that happen.

Year 6, Day 9: The jeans arrived! While the nice soft sweaters I tried with them make me look odd and lumpy, I’ve finally sized up appropriately and have jeans that fit. I know I said this before, was it a few months ago?, but that fitting was so wrong. I’m up to an 8P, the 00P and 2P days are well in the back mirror. I’d clearly forgotten what it felt like to have jeans that fit right. Also I snagged a pair of cargo pants that also fit for $13. I’m assuming that this is the last of the new clothes I’ll buy for several years, barring business pants if I can find just one pair that fit. That should be enough for the level of business professional I’m willing to present. If nothing else, COVID, bearing 2 kids, and hitting 40 should have sufficiently aged my face so that I no longer look like a child and don’t need makeup and full professional attire to be taken seriously. Plus my “I’m too old for this shit” facial expression ought to carry me nicely.

Forced myself to do all the sets of pushups scheduled for one day today, then forced myself to work late. My brain and arms are floppy noodles.

Year 6, Day 10: We’re seeing a lot of this absolutely ridiculous “just farm / hunt your own food” stuff on Bluesky in response to the slashing of the FDA and food standards. A whole lot of people forget that today’s foods and other consumables are only what they say they are on the packaging because of regulations and inspections and all that, don’t they? And a whole lot more swallow TikTok or whatever trad wife nonsense is spouting the “homesteading is easy” line without a lick of sense. I tell you, if we had to farm, just us right now the way our home is, for survival, we’d starve. Even if I put real effort into it, if we had to do that on top of our normal lives, we’d never make it. Even if we had actual farmland, weather and weeds that don’t sprout, and pests and predators and insects could easily devastate whatever crops you grow before you managed to harvest anything! How about we don’t let go of the wonders of modern life with foods that are available year round even during the starving time, and foods that are what they say they are, and medications that are what they’re intended to be, and clean water and air? Good grief. All these ignorant hateful people romanticize a fake perfect past that never existed and we all have to suffer for it.

Year 6, Day 11: The flippin ants are back!! Argh!! I’ll have to add boric acid to the mix. It’s somewhere around here.

I was on edge most of the day and couldn’t figure out why until I realized that it was a week ago today that my staff’s parting gift was a knife in the back. Right. Even though that’s likely in the rearview, it’s still haunting me with the ghosts of “having to trust new bosses to know my integrity and back me up” which historically is a thing I don’t, and they didn’t, do. I spent the day, and the weekend, primed to defend myself against the boss and HR. Turns out my boss didn’t want to see the proof that I documented of all the ways I provided Benedict Arnold support, they just wanted to know if I was ok and to apologize that I went through that alone with HR, without them. That was deeply unsettling. I’m not ready to extend trust to them yet but apparently my reputation, and my dealings with them directly, were enough for them to know that I’d never do what Benedict claimed in their call to HR, and that I would have gone above and beyond for them like I do any of my team. It’s true, I just didn’t expect to be treated like it was true, or humanely, after HR.

April 28, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (256)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 365: Had a heck of a pain flare up last night thanks to an unexpected hike on the weekend. I think the Celebrex might have helped around midnight. It’s harder to tell if it’s the medication because the pain got a lot worse before it got better. I also didn’t get full relief the way I did with other meds but it was enough to let me sleep without the horrible nausea side effects. If that’s really the med, I can accept that compromise.

I tried on a bunch of clothes today. Out of 6 blazers, none fit. The oversize “boyfriend” look will probably never work for me. Before, that long and large fit overwhelmed my slight frame. Now that I’m 30 lbs heavier, but still short, it overwhelms in a dumpy sort of way. Highlights the belly I’m not trying to showcase. Of the 12 shirts, only four may work. I need to try them on with appropriate pants now, though.

Year 6, Day 1: My emotional burnout is pretty fierce. We had a situation develop with a friend, they’re in crisis, and none of us knew to what extent they were struggling until this week. When some? most? all? of the truth came out, it hit me like a freight train. I had a near panic attack. The similarity to the way my parents variably hid developing bad situations from me until it was nearly impossible for any single person to fix, and then I had to fix it, whew. It was so clear that even I had a good idea of why I was shaking like a leaf. I turned to a more grounded friend who helped me through the responsibility spiral. It wasn’t my fault for not knowing what was going on before it got this bad, and it isn’t entirely on me to fix – I can’t. It’s too much for any single person. After texting a few friends who were closer, to the person and to the situation, thankfully they were able to let me know they had the first steps of handling the crisis in hand. I am taking a step back to assess what I can actually handle without mentally or physically crippling myself. It’s probably not a coincidence that my hands swelled up today shortly after the news came out, just like the good ole days!

Year 6, Day 2: In more trivial matters, I’ve been holding on to my jeans that are uncomfortably too small out of a silly stubbornness which means that I haven’t been wearing them at all for months, it’s too uncomfortable! Duh. I found a sale that brought the price down to less than $20 so I’m picking up a couple pairs in hopes that they’re the right size and that I’ll actually be able to wear them. The too small pairs will be put away for handing down. After finally adjusting my thinking on too small clothes, I’m starting to look forward to having pants that fit.

Year 6, Day 3: We’ve got package accords with a neighbor: when one of us travels, we ask the other to pick up any packages left at their door. Sometimes if we see strangers roaming the neighborhood, it’s not often but a pack of roughhousing teens we don’t recognize that have started displaying slightly questionable behaviors like wrestling in the middle of the street (it’s not a safe street for this), or worse, random adults going from house to house to house looking for someone without identifying themselves, we grab each other’s packages first and tell them later. I appreciate having this extra bit of caution and mutual community action on a small scale. They texted us this week to grab a package for their teen I’d seen it when cleaning the front yard and meant to ask if they were home or not. PiC popped over and picked up three.

Neighbor groaned: I only knew they bought one thing, I have no idea what the others are.

I guess we’ve reached that stage of teens ordering things without asking first. Obviously their parents seem fine with it, but it definitely got me wondering: in today’s society, when are parents letting their kids buy things on their own? Especially ordering online? I’m not sure where I am with it. I seem to recall buying some things on my own, self funded, when I was about 15, but I didn’t start ordering online til I was 17.5 and that was only because I needed to try to find books for college for better prices than the college bookstore. I’ve definitely not yet let JB experience online shopping.

Year 6, Day 4: What a completely shit day at work. I’m still decompressing from the choices people made today in a vain attempt to game a system for personal gain, at my expense. I can’t quite say it shakes my faith in humanity, first you have to have faith, but I am definitely regretting the months and months of care, compassion and flexibility. They outright lied, saying we had done nothing for their needs. The things we did do to be flexible for them? Well, they spun as retaliation. It’s absurd but our HR only cares about how things look and not how things are. Never mind that I have reams of documentation of the support, and their enthusiastic agreement with that support, in writing. That doesn’t matter to them. As far as they’re concerned, I screwed up on this person’s say-so. That stings. And the people who know me best and trust me implicitly are no longer in charge. I know where I made mistakes in the bureaucratic processes now, but they were not mistakes in the things that mattered.  Anyway, my error is trivial compared to the shock of learning they had weaponized all of the work we put into supporting them to play the victim. I’m hurt, angry, and bitter. I’ve vented to friends and my therapist and shed really angry tears. I want to throw things. (My therapist is happy that I’m so openly angry and sad and hurt. Apparently, therapeutically, this is healthy.)

This will teach me to go the extra marathons for people. I wish them all the consequences they were happy to inflict on other people with their lies. Selfish bastards.

April 21, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (255)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 358: I went into the weekend with one goal: to cut my hair (again). I’ve been taking 2-3 inches off at a time since I’m a novice and have no idea what it’ll look like each time I chop it. It feels like about 4 more inches off the back would be right.

What I did instead: a rescue run to drop off stuff at the pool, filled up gas, therapy, set up a new spreadsheet to track some data, took everyone to the optometrist, ordered two pairs of glasses, picked up a pair, got one eye exam, went to 2 grocery stores, 3 loads of laundry, took the kids on a 4 hour adventure into the city via BART (by myself! I never take them on adventures by myself), yelled at our Senators about the SAVE act, ICE and illegal deportations and the Democratic leadership’s general uselessness fighting this fascism and laid in bed regretting at least a few of my decisions. No coincidence, I’m giving the Celebrex a test run. This is the new pain med my pain pharmacist prescribed to use instead of tramadol which makes me sick sick sick.

Maybe the hair will go next weekend.

Year 5, Day 359: I still need to set up time for an ADHD diagnosis, which is more for the kids than me at this point because I have new! improved! (maybe?) coping mechanisms. Upping my depression meds helped. Adding sixteen alarms to my life helped. Adding lots more organizing pouches to my bags helped.

This post at Nicole and Maggie‘s had me thinking: did I have lifelong symptoms? I dunno, how would I remember? Maybe. I remember being socially awkward all my life. I get on best with ND folks generally, NT people confuse and annoy me more than not. Like when they have an issue but don’t address it directly. Or spend a lot of time on chitchat before finally getting to the point. But is that ADHD or “I’m fecking BUSY, people, come on?” I’ve learned to read some social cues by mimicking the humans in my life who are comfortable with other humans. I hyperfocus or popcorn work: I’m either 100% locked in or spend 1-3 minutes at a time on 15 different projects.

I had RSD like whoa for most of my life. I’ve been actively working on diminishing its power over me.

Year 5, Day 360: I’m not feeling good today, but am noticeably less wrecked than Monday and Tuesday. I was testing my Celebrex for pain on Sunday and Monday night. Is it just coincidence that fatigue was extra high the day after taking them? Or is it a side effect? Maybe I was just feeling like a million pounds slug because pain was high enough to try my newest heavy hitter. That’s also logical.

Work is both wildly unsettling and settling down in various (and maybe opposite) ways. We have been working really hard at hiring people we hope will be good and long-term fits for my department. Now we’re deep in the thick of training which is the even more painful (because it takes so long) part. While handling that micro-level stuff, I’m also working on (juggling) several projects that will change policies for the whole company. Then I have to build business strategies to keep my people employed through the rise of fascism in America and that’s about where my brain goes squeeeeee squeeeee squeeeeee like a DSL modem. I’ve advised my non-US counterparts that this “weird Americans are being weird again” is really a deeply dangerous version that threatens the fabric of our democracy, and we may not come back from that. Let’s strategize around that, y’all. The folks who don’t live here (that I know) truly don’t understand how bad this really is, they think it’s business as usual with the volume turned up a bit.

Year 5, Day 361: This is a complaint. I have to find some presentable professional wear clothes by summer. a) I don’t WANT to and b) have absolutely no clothes look like they’d be both presentable AND comfortable at the same time. I’ve combed through my usual resources of a reliable petite fashion blogger to get ideas and after hours of searching and brainstorming, everything in me is rebelling. A couple hours of light online shopping later, I hate even the idea of clothing. Also I seem to have gone from a 00P to a 0-2?? (which I made my peace with post-first-pregnancy, mostly) to 10/Medium?? At least that’s what the size charts say.

I will deal with the numbers shifting, it’s mostly unsettling living in this body that still doesn’t feel like mine yet, but the idea of having to build a professional wardrobe again, urkk. My brain and my performance is completely unrelated to the clothes I wear but well, no, not true. The more comfortable I am (sweatpants and hoodie!) the better work I do. But what I feel good in is the barest nod to decency. I change out of my sleep sweats into my work sweats. I DO wish I could roll up in my existing wardrobe, either indoors sloth or geek comfort chic, but instead I’ll have to spend real money on business clothes that, if I’m lucky, I only have to wear once a year. No matter how much I’ve proven myself, I really doubt the new to me higher-ups are going to look at sloth-me and say yeah, let’s trust her decisions will yield multi-million dollar revenues. Humph.

Alright. Having gotten that off my chest: maybe it’ll be enough to find 2 blazers and 2-3 trousers to mix and match with casual tops and shoes. Keywords: Machine wash, and “never wrinkles”. Fingers crossed!

Year 5, Day 362: This was a 3 days of workouts week, we alternate between 3-day and 4-day weeks, but it still felt quite challenging to get through them all. I still have quite a bit to do by tomorrow. He’s planning to move me off the regular planks once I can achieve 3 1-minute planks but it feels like cheating if we do that before I can do them all three in a row. I break up my exercise sets across days, have never done 3 planks in a row, and as I tell JB, cheating in exercises is only cheating yourself. I’m not actually stronger if I’m cheating!

I’m stress shopping: treats and toys for my canine and feline niblings. Three Christmas presents done, one dog and five cats to go. I might send them a bit early too, save myself some year end packing and shipping stress. I’ve got the clothing half of the presents for the human niblings and need to buy their books soon.

We also had gift cards to use up so I combined them with sales and promotions to stock up on: Shampoo and conditioner, my current favorite St Ives pink lemon and mandarin orange scrub, wrapping paper since PiC is on a gift wrap kick right now, parchment paper (kitchen), eraser pads, hair removal stuff, and dishwasher detergent. I have no idea what’s going to happen with tariffs and the cost of living but these are consumables that we always use and I feel a little bit better for having a full stock on hand at least. For now.

April 14, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (254)

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 5, Day 351: This day started with the surprise visit of a neighbor dog as happy to see me as I was him. That was really nice. Lots of kisses and skritches. Every morning should start with a dog visit until we can bring home a dog friend.

I spent 2.25 hours trying to order pet food from not-terrible places to ship to the reservations. That is way too much time for what result I got out of it: having to order one part of the shipment from PetsSmart and 2/3 of it from Amazon. I also tried to get electricity hooked up for a family but we’re going 3 rounds of email and calls trying to locate their account and we’re not there yet.

Courtney Milan did a great explainer on the tariffs. I’ve been sharing this with people who aren’t plugged into the better sources of news (not mainstream media which fails on many fronts). I’ve also been recommending that they follow Celeste Pewter on Bluesky to get good political commentary and actions to encourage them to educate themselves a bit more and to hopefully take some action.

Year 5, Day 352: What a day. I woke up with blood pressure-brain problems so I was woozy all day long. Had a 2 hour call. Had to follow up on the Lakota orders, it wasn’t certain which would ship and which wouldn’t. Had to check in with staff to assign them more work and answer questions. SO many questions. OMG.

I catch myself staring at my to do list like there’s some magical line item that I can add that will fight fascism and make this country the place it should have been but has never been, and adding precisely nothing. There are a thousand things we can do, it’s just today, in this moment, my brain is stuck. It’ll shake loose, it’s just *waves hands*.

We’re also very close to ticking over into Year 6 since COVID and I wonder if it’s time to change the titles of these posts. COVID is obviously here to stay. We’re not likely to hear much about it with this completely reckless, thieving, homicidal administration. I don’t know what to switch to, though.

Almost back on track with my workouts after the big derailing in January. My stamina still feels hollowed out, though, not sure if that feeling will go away anytime soon. Occasionally I do feel stronger, though, and I’m grateful for those few feedback moments.

Year 5, Day 353: Lucky timing, border collie friend caught me early so we had a quick game of catch. I can never pet her anymore because my only job is to PLAY and dispense TREATS. Oh well.

I’ve been in a holding pattern for so many things, for months, that it feels weird now that most of them are resolved. Is this how it feels when stress levels are reset from Excessively High to Medium? This is good! I’m just a little wobbly.

• We’ve filed our tax return, paid the state and received the federal refund (surprised and relieved).
• The raise negotiations that were held up for months concluded abruptly (got an increase. not what I deserve but in this economy I’ll take it for now). Now the waiting for the paperwork begins.
• We’ve met the minimum spend on the first churning credit card, bonus points deposited. The second churning credit card has arrived in time for us to pay for the big insurance premiums. (Our home and earthquake polices went up again, of course. Mrgh.)
• The restructure at work is almost done, we know all the essential changes and people can live with them.
• We took a day off and had an overnight trip with the kids that was pretty good. I’d been dreading the trip, worrying that SmolAc would be in Bad Traveler Grumpy mode. They were excited, though, so that helped.

I took advantage of the sun and the school minimum day to pull weeds for a quick half hour and worked up a sweat. Pretending that I can work my way up to my trainer’s level of buff. Hah!

Year 5, Day 354: My phone camera has started doing this strange thing. It strobes black vertical bars across the screen that causes the pictures to be partly blacked out. It seems to only do this indoors, but it’s cropping up at places where I’ve taken hundreds of photos and videos. I can work around it by taking a video and snapping pictures as I record but that doesn’t work for portraits. I don’t intend to buy a new phone so soon, this one’s only 3 years old! I’ll have to figure out a fix somehow.

In other phone news, PiC’s phone croaked so we ordered him a new one. Just like that, we hit the minimum spend on the card that just arrived today.

Year 5, Day 355: The slow motion ant infestation is making me lose it a little. I find them in the kitchen, put down bait. Two days later, I find them in the office, put down bait. Two days later, kitchen again. Bait, again. Two days later, bedroom. Bait. Four days later, bathroom. ARGHHHH!! It’s like they have us surrounded and every time I bait one area, they send their scouts in another room.