June 23, 2025

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (264)

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

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (263)

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

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (262)

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.