January 2, 2023

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (135)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 281: Sharing a Donors Choose project: Clothing Closet.

My stomach has been excessively grouchy for the last few weeks. I respond by eating less and less because everything irritates it to some degree and it seems logical to give it less to be annoyed by. Maybe it’s stress related. This reminds me of my childhood where I was constantly having stomachaches and no one knew why. The doctor just diagnosed me with a (never ending) stomach flu and gave my mom a hundred amoxicillin to treat it. Pretty sure he was wrong on both counts. Today I suspect this is and was all stress related.

Year 3, Day 282: Someone wished us a Happy New Year today and I was thoroughly confused. I still don’t feel like Christmas has happened yet so it’s too soon for that. But it’s not actually. Phew. Weird times.

Just took my fourth COVID test in two weeks. Negative still. I have had an intensely sore throat for several days and my sense of taste just suddenly dropped out so I figured I should check. I’d be more certain with a PCR test but we won’t be able to get an appointment for a few days yet.

Year 3, Day 283: Another negative test today which means once again probably I just feel terrible because my body is broken.

Big storms are predicted for the Bay Area but I’m still unclear whether that includes our little bit of it or not. I love rain but not so much flooding.

This was Smol chomping on my face and my shoulder today (image of Fritz the hippo at the Cincinnati zoo chomping a larger hippo). WHY SMOL WHY. (Weekend note: Upon meeting a new to them doll from the hand me down basket, they greeted said doll with a nose chomp. Again, I ask you: WHY?!)

Year 3, Day 284: I’m still impatiently waiting for updates about the under 5 bivalent booster. While Smol Acrobat is catching everything under the sun and bringing it home to me, I’d very much like to continue to dodge COVID for as long as possible.

My throat is a little less painful, after two weeks of testing and meds, and I’m still guessing it was related to exhaustion. Except the fatigue and causes thereof are still high, so it’s unclear why it’s less painful. Not complaining about that, mind you, just observing. Perhaps a more perceptive mind than mine will spot a pattern.

My cough has only gotten worse, though. No congestion, just a dry cough, but a hacking deep cough that frequently nearly induces vomiting which is a whole other dimension of fun.

Year 3, Day 285: I’ve avoided using the WordPress app block editor for ages by copying old templates but whenever I start a new post, I have to use it. I hate it so much! I need to set up a way to dodge it on new posts too.

Also hate: when I run into someone who reminds me of my biodad in some ways but clearly leads a totally different life in some important ways. It brings up much hated guilt over how his life could have should have been better, grief for the father I thought I had but never truly did, sadness that my kids will never have the grandparents that I also wished for as a child.

I shared some of this on Twitter and long time reader friends and Twitter friends provided support that is objective enough that even I can’t argue that I should be to blame.

I’ve also updated our Giving Page here to carry us into the new year. It feels slightly impossible with Twitter falling apart but I’m going to hold hope that people will continue to share and donate through the year.

December 26, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (134)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 274: Fluh. Smol is finally through hand foot mouth and then immediately caught another virus. *Slump*

They’re grouchy as all get out and I’m still tired as hell because my cold thing still hasn’t gone on its merry way. JB is sniffling a bit, too, may it go no further. We’re quite the merry band.

I have got exactly zero holiday spirit at this point in the week. Maybe it’ll change as we go along but I’m skeptical.

*****

What’s the opposite of self preservation instinct? I caught myself feeling today as if I were not rested, but as if I had enough of a break that I should start thinking about how we could possibly fundraise in 2023 without a functional Twitter. I don’t have much reach here on the blog, I don’t want to spam email folks. But I also don’t want to let the Lakota Giving Project wither away.

I asked a friend to holler at me to settle down if I try to start hatching plans too early. I really do need a real break before diving headfirst into new iterations of the project.

But surely brainstorming ideas isn’t doing anything?? I don’t want to use a fundraising platform, I’d stick to the easy and informal setup we have now with Ruth. Put together a page on the Giving page again and ask friends to share it? Maybe offer small rewards when someone gets us over a fundraising milestone? I wonder if that makes sense. Thoughts?

Year 3, Day 275: Smol was screechily excited to meet our friend’s cats, they’re already friends with JB, but that delight was their downfall. They’re really good at petting cats gently but they can’t help their squeal of excitement once petting commences and that squeal absolutely terrifies the cats who take off running. We practiced doing shh shh shh with a finger over our lips, they imitated that, but the second contact was made: *delighted cackle* and off goes the cat. I can’t fault their joy but it was working against them.

*****

Oh hey, I made a sale on Kindle Direct Publishing! A little book that I designed was bought by someone! That’s very exciting! I hope they like it.

Year 3, Day 276: I thought my congestion had finally moved to a clear mucus stage but no. Alas. Not yet.

I had stocked up on kids; medications, thinking we’d have enough to get through the end of the year before I had to worry and of course the Imp of the Illnesses overheard my nonsense. Bam, we’re halfway through the medication supply, no end of their illness in sight, and not a medication to be had from any store.

My dear friend happened to be around. He checked all the local stores I hadn’t checked (because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have it either and I was right) and then ran over with some from their own supply because his partner had stocked up before the shortage without any notion a shortage was coming. That buys us about 7-8 more days, I think. Haven’t quite figured out the math on volume to doses to how long a single 4 oz bottle will last.

*****

I’m organizing all our receipts for the tax year. I’d dated several of them incorrectly and had to download another dozen or so. Usually I’m a lot better about keeping up with all the paperwork as we go through the year. This makes me mildly paranoid that I’ve forgotten to either record the donations or to download the receipt, or both, for others. For the moment, so far as I know, I’ve gotten that all together.

Year 3, Day 277: This time of year feels BEYOND hectic but there are some small bright spots. We got to visit with a very good friend. She was talking about buying me some clothes but I didn’t want them to go to the trouble, so I redirected with my current need I’ve been pondering: what kind of wallet can I switch to? My debate is between two fundamentally different shapes: a long slim zip around, vs a thick squat sort of shape. Having had both, I couldn’t decide.

She happened to have an old but never used wallet in their closet and so I have now inherited that. Perfect! It saved me the trouble of overthinking this for the next six to twelve months! But it didn’t ultimately deter them from buying me clothes which was the point. Whoops. But they were awfully nice sweaters and I’d just discovered four holes in one of my two turtlenecks so it worked out in the end.

*****

A Black professor I follow talked about how she grew up surrounded by Black people and was loved growing up, enough so that she was surprised by anti-Black racism when she encountered it as an adult. She was talking about this in relation to people disbelieving Meghan Markle’s not realizing how very very racist the UK was going to be towards her. I had a similar experience growing up within Asian culture. Asians have a real problem with anti-Blackness, that wasn’t a surprise to me but I learned to see it for what it was because I grew up playing with Black kids and anti-Blackness was easier to identify as wrong. I was surprised by Asians claiming to be superior Asians to others. I was, of course in this scenario, the inferior Asian. A boy I dated told me his mother would just have to deal with the fact that I was “an inferior Asian race” (paraphrased). She only wanted him dating the superior Asian races. Of course. I was offended but I was more surprised than anything at first because what? What’s your problem??

Year 3, Day 278: Smol’s whatever they’ve got, and my cough, seems to be finally on the mend so naturally, OF COURSE, JB spiked a fever of 104. They went from playing at top speed and top volume, of course, to dragging, no appetite, burning up, and exhausted with a headache and sore throat. I put them to bed at 7 pm and crossed my fingers.

That’s about all I can take of this week. I hope everyone’s holiday weekend will have gone well by the time you read this.

*****

Help! Our lovely elderly neighbor we have said hello to most mornings for the past few years as she passes by gave us an unexpected Christmas gift and a $25 gift card. I consider that a not-small present, especially when we don’t know them beyond 2-3 minute conversations. Our kids/grandkids don’t play together.

I have trouble with feeling transactional about gifts of any kind, it’s taken me 20 years to shut up and accept gifts from chosen family that are greater than what I can give them, so this throws me on a bit of a loop. What’s expected in a situation like this? Do I need to get them something? Do I not commit to a gift giving cycle and send them a warm thank you note? Would it be unforgiveably rude not to gift back to them? I really don’t know if there’s an etiquette for this.

*****

Thanks to Nicole and Maggie for highlighting these Donors Choose campaigns to support trans kids that only have a couple or a few funders and may not fund in time. Can we help them out?

We Don’t Ban Books – We Read Them – yay this has funded!

Reading without Barriers This has until Jan 28 to fund.

December 19, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (133)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 267: If I ever have to justify why I insist on prepping for things like travel or holidays six months ahead, this is why. How I feel today and will likely feel all week is why. A viral steamroller has come through and absolutely crushed me at one of the worst possible times. December is a terrible month for my immune system and it’s inevitable that something will derail any plans to prepare at the last minute.

I’d had a bit of a sore throat last week but after so many sleepless nights, naturally it was fatigue. Saturday night I was starting to feel iffy. Sunday morning confirmed it. I had caught something. I’d had more than a few hours of sleep and still felt like I’d been completely flattened by morning. I feel like that on and off normally but combined with actual sleep and a sore throat, it’s most likely something viral. Sigh.

So I’m very glad that A) PiC was amazing and ran every single errand on Saturday, including the Costco run where he B) found a few premade foods so we can get through the week with minimal cooking from scratch. We liked their confusing but tasty ravioli lasagna, so we are going to do that more often.

Year 3, Day 268: I’m doing my best to think and wish it away but it’s possible I caught Smol’s HMF disease. I’ve got a variety of symptoms and some fit and some might fit or might be unrelated. Please be unrelated.

There was a new episode of Leverage Redemption today! YEE! It helped me through the tired and sick brain fog hump.

I recently discovered that a friend had escaped a DV/stalker situation with very few belongings and I put out the Bat signal on Twitter. I had to be discreet and protect their privacy but we raised enough to get them a winter coat and boots. Someone else is donating some gently used clothes as well. Depending on cash flow, we’ll see what else we can get together. I remember our family sheltering a cousin, when I was about 6?, from an abusive stalker ex and I hate that this is still such a problem 30+ years later. Another good friend recommended these resources. I hope you never need it but I’m sharing them here: Stalking Resource Center, SafetyNet, and NNEDV.

As a brain relaxer, I browsed things on sale at Kate Spade. There’s dopamine from looking at pretty things, and sale prices, without the danger of buying anything because I’m not paying even 60% off Kate Spade prices today. $80 after discounts on a wallet? Not today, darlin.

I do like that little nylon backpack. I have a use for something like that for day trips and errands without kids, it’s handy to have something hands free but that’s something to think about later.

Year 3, Day 269: Today’s arguably the worst day of this illness so far. My ability to remember faces and names and similar facts was just gone. That’s not super critical to my work but it’s important enough that I cancelled a meeting to conserve the few remaining functioning brain cells for the critical stuff. While angrily griping to myself mid morning that I still wasn’t better, I caught myself. I’d done nothing to help me get better. I’ve been popping pain meds around the clock for days to ignore the sore throat and other symptoms, and doing the bare minimum at work and at parenting, but that’s not actually resting. Oops. I moved myself to work from bed, since I still had to get through some things, and took a lot more breaks.

I wrote JB’s teacher a thank you for doing a unit on a variety of fall and winter holidays, instead of Christmassing it up, because that is important to us. Finished up my last handwritten letter of the year to my senior friend and put that in the mail. We’re not sending Christmas / family cards again this year. I enjoy getting them but have simply not been up to the task of getting any together for us. Maybe in the spring I’ll throw together a tiny 4 year look back. One picture from each year we’ve missed since 2020. That’s a lot of ground to cover.

Minor food victory: I helped Smol eat a little bit of salad with dressing, and then they chose to eat a little bit more on their own. They can be a very reluctant eater most of the time, and reject veggies a lot, so these tiny wins feel big.

Year 3, Day 270: We’re having a really rough time with JB this week in particular but this situation has been developing for some time. They’re staying up later and later, I can hear them singing some nights, and waking up very late the next morning which almost always means they’re dragging their feet and having to be told to get through a routine they already know. At the start of the school year, they were getting up on time, on their own, and getting completely ready without a word from us.

They tell me that they’re really tired in the morning, which I can see and am unsurprised by, because there are a lot of nights they’re up singing to themselves late into the night. They claim a dry throat is why they’re getting up in the middle of the night too. Gee, correlation?

Parenting remains frustrating.

*****

Seeing Scalzi’s offer to write a short story to get Locus Magazine to their fundraising goal made me think, gosh, it’s too bad I don’t have any talent or skill that I can offer as incentive when we do these giving things that come up every so often or…every year. I’m good at a few things that are useful but nothing at all useful to offer up as a prize of sorts.

Year 3, Day 271: I’m admiring stamps again. I still want the elephant stamps. Also the women cryptologist stamps. The red fox ones look very cute but I’m not sure I have a real need for 40¢ stamps. Charles M Schulz ones are cute. Next year they’re coming out with the Tomie daPaola and John Lewis stamps.

I’m not a philatelist, of course, I just love using neat stamps when I send people letters and cards.

Smol Acrobat slept hard today, sleeping in until 8:30. It’s been a rough week for them too, I think. But happily they were so enthused about breakfast, I didn’t have to fight with them at all. They asked for two helpings of eggs, ate them all!, half a banana, and a whole waffle. Amazing.

My headache is still a constant companion, as is the iffy throat and congestion.