covid diary: day 173

 This is exhausting. 

Every day, there's some new evil being perpetrated by this administration. Every day, roughly a thousand of my fellow Americans die and there's barely a ripple nationally. And the lies. The blame shifting. The gaslighting. Up is down and left is pink and everything takes so much EFFORT.

And that's on purpose. We're on year four of a chaos campaign designed to distract us with maximum outrage, to keep us fighting on so many fronts that we can't tell what day it is or what direction the next attack will come from. 

It didn't have to be this way. Not just in an abstract sense, but in a concrete one. It wasn't supposed to be this way. New evidence comes out every week that details things like how corrupt reporters leaked exit polls to the Trump campaign on Election Day 2016 indicating where he was going to lose, then between the phone call at 5 p.m. and the polls closing a couple hours later, miraculously JUST ENOUGH votes were cast to give Trump enough swing states to win the Electoral College. New evidence comes out all the time, including a report from the Republican Senate, that Trump did in fact collude with Russia to win the election. And he's going to do his best to do it again this year.

I'm not sure what the remedy is here. All the guardrails and checks and balances have failed, and we are in the direst of straits. Biden calls it a "battle for the soul of our nation," but I think of it more like "last chance to keep a democracy, morons."

Trump supporters talk casually about the potential for a second civil war if he doesn't win this election, but what they might not realize is that it's already been happening across the nation in a very personal way. Take me, for example. I can understand how some members of my family voted for Trump the first time, thinking he would be better than Clinton, thinking the Supreme Court was the most important thing and that checks and balances would keep Trump in line with the norms of government. What I cannot and will not ever understand is that some of those people are still Trump supporters after four years. This is what they wanted? Kids in cages, hundreds of thousands dead in a pandemic with no effective response, endless lawbreaking, graft happening before our eyes, rights being taken away from Dreamers and immigrants and citizens alike? 

No. Anyone who still supports this administration does not care about me or my family, or this nation. Certain of my family members will profess their love for us all, but continue to support an administration that would continue to gut rights and access to opportunity for my Black great-nephew, for my gay cousins, for me. And guess what? That's not love, and I want no part of it. I feel like I'm constantly grieving people I used to admire these days. I will never be able to forget that these people stood against our family and still professed their love for us. It's never "just politics."

I realize there's not much light and hope in this post, but that's because there's not much light and hope in the country right now. There are little things. My great-nephew E spent the day with us Friday. My parents brought the boys new school shoes, along with hanging baskets of pansies for me and Mike. There hasn't been a huge outbreak at our school yet, so we're thinking we will send the boys back to in-person school after fall break. There are 64 more days to get through before the election.

But in the meantime, we're tired. So, so tired.

covid diary: day 169

 Get Shit Done Week continues! Today, it's literal shit. I called on Monday to ask how often we should get our septic tank emptied, and it turns out the right answer is every two years, which means we're due. Did I just randomly think of this? No, I did not. I would have just continued merrily flush-flush-flushing along if left to my own devices. Luckily, my dad thinks of things like this, and he told me it was time to start thinking about getting it done. I didn't expect it to happen quite so soon because the guy at the excavation company told me he would just fit it in whenever he had time. Welp, apparently he had time this afternoon, so that's another thing I can cross off my list.

Today I also got Liam signed up to take the SAT (gulp). Naturally, this was the last day to sign up for the test here in Plymouth, so we had to rush through the process together. It's WAY more involved than I remember it being! So many questions just to take a test. And then we had to take a photo because he has to have a ticket to get in, and that ticket has to have his picture on it, and that picture has to meet certain guidelines specified by the College Board. After three tries, we finally got one he was happy with. (Along with his nearsightedness and his propensity to get migraines, poor Liam definitely gets that messy hair from me. Luckily, most of the rest is Mike.)

I'm working another split shift today, which means working 7-12 this morning and then 7-10 tonight. And then getting up in the morning to start again at 7. Someday I'll detail how stressful my job is right now, but that day is not today. 

covid diary: day 168

 

I'm getting it back together. I hope.

After two weeks of nonstop deadlines, I'm finally digging out. Oh, and did I mention that this is the third week of school? It's a LOT to work full time (and then some) and oversee three kids doing everything they need to do for school. I get emails on emails on emails from teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and even colleges (most of Liam's classes are dual credit college courses). I talk on the phone with teachers, check all the many, many different apps and websites for the appropriate schedule and grade and attendance information. I follow up on homework and make sure everyone has what they need when they need it. It's exhausting.

And today is particularly tiring. I was up at 4:45 to go to the pool, then home and showered and working at 7. I worked until 9:45, then I took the boys to the optometrist for their annual exams. Henry's got great vision, Max has a slight astigmatism but not enough for glasses, and Liam's eyes are slightly worse but the exam showed no physical cause for his ocular migraines, so I guess he can just thank my side of the gene pool for both of those things. So it's new glasses for Liam, plus contacts whenever they get trial packs in again (who knows in these pandemic times when that will be). Then we grabbed lunch at DQ (the boys were VERY excited about that) and came home so the boys could get back to school and I could work a little bit more.

And then.

For some reason, I've designated this Get Shit Done Week. Sunday my dad came over and rewired some things so we could move the modem and router to my office to give me a hard line to the internet to take some of the strain off the Wi-Fi that came from four of us using it at once. (Haha, joke's on us, because while the new placement is great for me, it means Liam has no signal in his basement work area, so for now I have a 100-foot ethernet cable strung from my office down into the basement. Very classy.) And today the plumbers are here because we've had a small leak for months now in our laundry room. The leak is caused by a valve in the shower upstairs in the master bath, and naturally, they couldn't replace that valve without having access to it ... so they cut a hole in the bedroom wall. Side note: Seriously, does nobody design a house with the foresight to consider that they might want to have access to the plumbing? Come on now.

The plumbers finished just in time for me to rush Liam to the tennis courts for a home match tonight that I won't be able to watch because I have to go back to work 6-10 since I took off earlier to take the boys to the optometrist. I guess I'm ready to go? Ugh.

In short, life is progressing apace. Tennis is being played, casts are being worn, and school is happening with some reluctance and more than a little effort.

Carry on.

P.S. I'm done tracking numbers because this is only going in one direction. It's bad, bad, bad. So just assume for now on that it's worse than it was yesterday, and maybe a little bit better than it will be tomorrow. 

covid diary: day 153, again

painted lady, on a cosmo in the pasture

if you've been following along, you know holli and liam got their covid test results in amazingly rapid fashion for the non-rapid test, and they were both negative. i let out an enormous sigh of relief, right after they did. 2020 has been the longest, worstest year ever, but at least this turned out well. for now.

so tennis continues. school starts virtually on wednesday, with the district reevaluating whether to return to in-school instruction after a couple of weeks. i wonder how things around the country are going in areas where in-person school has already started?

how about in greenfield, IN? oh no.

Just hours into the first day of classes on Thursday, a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus.

ok, so that's just some bad luck. i'm sure everything else is going fine. wait, what?

Last week, schools in Corinth, Miss., welcomed back hundreds of students. By Friday, one high-schooler tested positive for the novel coronavirus. By early this week, the count rose to six students and one staff member infected. Now, 116 students have been sent home to quarantine, a spokeswoman for the school district confirmed.

dammit. well, i'm sure you saw the pictures from those students in north paulding high school in metro atlanta, where barely any of the kids in the packed hallways were wearing masks or practicing (or even able to practice) social distancing. you know, those pics the kids were suspended for posting on social media? (yeah, because it wasn't them exposing the school for its terrible adherence to proper coronavirus practices, it was because they posted on social media during school.)

very few of those kids had masks on. i'm sure it will all turn out ok. no problem...oh crap.

The Paulding County high school that became infamous for hallways crowded with unmasked students will retreat online for at least a couple days this week after revealing that a half-dozen students and three staffers were diagnosed with COVID-19.

The district said it needs time to disinfect the North Paulding High School building and look for other potentially infected individuals.

ugh. so schools are proving to be an ideal place for covid to spread. i guess we shouldn't be surprised, as every reputable expert and public health official (and the cdc, whatever that's worth anymore) strongly recommends NOT opening in-person school until infection rates are way down, which they are nowhere near being.

maybe other public gatherings are doing better than the schools. how about the churches?

A man with Covid-19 went to church in mid-June, then 91 other people got sick, including 53 who were at the service, according to Ohio's governor.

"It spread like wildfire, wildfire. Very, very scary," Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday. "We know that our faith-based leaders want nothing more than to protect those who come to worship."

rats. i suppose it's possible the christians offended their god by, i don't know, not persecuting the homos enough or something. but i'm sure other religious sects are doing fine, right?

The rabbi of a suburban New York synagogue grappling with the coronavirus outbreak has tested positive for the illness, as the number of cases related to an infected congregant climbed higher Friday.

Rabbi Reuven Fink, of the Young Israel of New Rochelle temple, is among the 44 confirmed cases in the state, according to a statement posted Friday on the website of Yeshiva University, where Fink teaches two courses. The state confirmed 22 new cases Friday, doubling the number from a day earlier.

well, what the hell. i guess the lesson to be learned is that public gatherings are excellent places to spread a highly contagious virus, so we probably shouldn't allow such events to take place. in fact, the worst idea would be to allow a huge rally to take place, where social distancing was nonexistent and the attendees were disdainful of wearing masks or doing anything to prevent the transmission of a killer global pandemic virus.

good thing nothing like that is happening...oh, are you fucking kidding me?

main street sturgis, yesterday

so the sturgis, SD motorcycle rally is on, starting friday and running for nine days. this annual biker congregation usually attracts 500,000 to 750,000 motorcycle enthusiasts a year, but they are only expecting 250,000 this year. obviously, only the dumbest and least aware of current events are planning to attend. but gawd, there's a lot of them.

what kind of idiots are attending this rally? this kind:

“On my way I ain’t scared of the media flue or as we call it round here election flue see ya soon sd,” J.F. Watson of Ohio said.

impressive spelling, jf. you might want to check your chimney flue, i think the fumes are backing up into your house.

the local citizens are against having the rally. really, it's only common sense, as why would you want 250,000 people from around the country to congregate in a small town, share their viruses among themselves and the various small business operators of the town. of course, the small business operators desperately rely on the rally to be able to continue to operate their businesses into the future, so they're kinda stuck in this situation. 

hey, as our fearless sociopathic leader says, it is what it is (with over 160,000 coronavirus deaths being what it is). until about three weeks from now, when the results of forcibly opening the schools and allowing sturgis spikes coronavirus cases through the roof.

so what's happening here? who cares. school starts virtually wednesday, max gets a new cast thursday, holli is buried with work, i have to work sunday, blah blah blah. i would put some biker rock video here at the end of the post, but i don't want to. so in honor of max's poor thumb, it's dylan. deal with it.

covid diary: day 153

 Update: We got our test results. How's that for some Hoosier efficiency?

We are both negative. Life can resume as before.

covid diary: day 152

 We interrupt this deadline-induced hiatus with a special news brief. 

One of my cousins has tested positive, so Liam and I went to get tested today. We have both only had minimal direct exposure to her (a ride home from tennis for Liam, a walk on the pasture trails for me), BUT her mom and I share rides to and from tennis practice, and her brother plays tennis with Liam. So we thought it would be the safest thing to go get tested.

Which leaves us in an interesting quandary, because now what do we do about tennis while we wait for results? His risk seems quite low, but it also seems pretty irresponsible to send him to practice while he's got a test pending. I have a dentist appointment Tuesday, but I can reschedule that for later. And Mike will have to take Max to get his cast put on, and in the meantime, Liam and I will have to stay away from Mike and Max and Henry. Ugh. This whole thing is a quagmire.

I should be clear: No one from either family has any symptoms. We're just being cautious, because caution seems warranted in these pandemic times.

On the plus side, the test was uncomfortable but not unbearable. And if the lab doesn't get backed up, we should have results in three to five business days. 

Stay tuned.

covid diary: day 150

 Everything's fine. Max's surgery went well. He's got a half cast for a week, and then he'll get a full cast for at least a month (he's thinking of getting a hot pink one). Tennis practice continues apace. School starts next week.

I've got a hundred deadlines in the next week and there's only one me, so don't expect to hear from me for a while. It'll be a media blackout too, because there's no time for anything but getting down to business. Who knows? Mike might update you in his inimitable style ... but I wouldn't count on it.

In the meantime, enjoy this picture of our employees of the month, who will probably be the only ones checking to see that I haven't keeled over at my desk while Mike is at work. The kids *might* notice ... but only if one of them needs a ride or wants my Amazon password so they can buy something.

The ones who love me best.

covid diary: day 147

foggiest morning

Dull moments? What are those?

Today was the first day of official team tennis practice (thus far, he's been playing summer league and doing team conditioning). Laura dropped Liam and Jimmy off bright and early at 7, and I picked them up at 9. And that's where the trouble started.

About 90 minutes into practice, Liam started getting a migraine, and by the time I got there to pick them up, he was in bad shape. I dropped Jimmy off at his house and brought Liam home, and started following the protocol the pediatrician gave us: 800 mg of ibuprofen, and if that doesn't knock it out within an hour, he gets a dose of prescription migraine medicine. So he took the ibuprofen and went upstairs to lay down.

Which was great for 20 minutes, until he started vomiting. Ummmmmmm did that mean the whole protocol was out the window since the ibuprofen didn't have time to be fully ingested? I called the pediatrician's office to find out. Turns out that Nurse Jonna also suffers from migraines, so she has been my best friend today. She said to let him sleep until 11 and then call her back, and we would figure out a new plan based on where he was by then. Which, again, worked great for 20 minutes until he started vomiting again.

By 11 he was feeling a little bit better, so Nurse Jonna gave me the go-ahead to give him the prescription medicine if he could keep down a piece of toast. So I made him a piece of dry toast (he wanted it dry; I would have put butter on it, or even cinnamon sugar). Friends, I have never seen Liam eat more slowly in all his 16 years and 34 days on this earth. Not once. But he managed to get that toast down, and keep it down for 15 minutes, and I gave him the medicine, and now he's sleeping again. Hopefully when he wakes up, his head will be better. Nurse Jonna did lay down the law though, and he has to stay home from practice this afternoon because even if he feels better by 4, being out in the sun and exercising will trigger the whole thing to start over again. So I guess we wait and see how he's feeling in the morning.

Update, 9:43 p.m. Liam is back to normal! The prescription medicine knocked out his headache, and he came downstairs around 3:30 and ate a whole meal. He spent the evening plotting with his friends for the upcoming slumber party, at which there is apparently going to be an EPIC Nerf battle. He pooled together all his resources and ordered a considerable amount of Nerf weaponry to order online, and he's practically vibrating with excitement. He's under strict orders to go to bed soon though, because that early morning practice will be here before he knows it.

Nationwide cases: 4,712,405. Deaths: 155,379.

and now, a post that is about bread and not covid-related

we bought a cookbook a couple of weeks ago (pictured above), with the intention that the boys would pick a few recipes that they thought looked good and then, more importantly, would help prepare for dinner. our plan was somewhat successful. the boys went through the book and picked out a few recipes, yes, but they haven't been very good about the helping-prepare-dinner part. this is partially my fault, as i'm the main preparer-of-dinner person, and i haven't been great about holding them to our agreement. it's also partially their fault, as they will hide in their rooms, in the basement, or on the moon to avoid having to help make dinner.

anyway, it's a great book, and i highly recommend it.

as you may or may not know, i used to bake bread, and i got pretty good at it. (it was blogged here about 10-12 years ago, but i'm not looking back through the archives to find a link.) bread baking is an art. anyone can follow a simple recipe to produce a blob of baked dough, but it takes a lot of practice, experimentation, and experience to create a loaf with a crunchy crust, fluffy and chewy interior, and finger-licking taste.

How to Cook Everything has a simple no-knead bread recipe, and i thought i would make it to have with the chili i was planning for dinner tonight. then this morning i actually read the recipe, and it said the dough had to rest and rise for 24 hours. so i looked on the internet to find a more timely recipe, and i found this, from king arthur flour. it only took about 6 hours from start to finish, so i thought i'd try it. i still started it too late to have with the chili (which was delicious and didn't need any accompaniment), so i baked it after dinner.

and it turned out really well! with liam's help, we made two loaves, one a chubby baguette and the other a misshapen pile that looked like an amoeba that fell asleep in the sun. i sampled the baguette (which i covered with sesame seeds) and was pleased. so i called the boys to the kitchen to try the bread, and i can only describe their reaction as ravenous. they devoured the amoeba and some of the sesame baguette until i made them stop. seriously, here's what's left:

that's about a third of the bread i made, including almost all of the amoeba. they ate it plain. they ate it with butter. they made sandwiches with turkey and salami and cheese. and this was after they ate dinner.

so i guess i've found a new bread recipe to work with. i'll tweak it as time goes by, but i can't imagine a better reaction than the one i got tonight.

covid diary: day 146

Pretty Lake, August 1980. I am 5, and Bethany is a month shy of turning 4.

I miss vacations.

Mike and I spent last night talking about whether we think we'll be able to still take a trip for fall break, and if so, what would be the safest way to do it. We agonized over the safety of flying, renting a car, staying at a rental house versus in a hotel. In the end, we still don't think it's safe enough, so while we still have the plane tickets, we haven't made any reservations for lodging or car rental. I went to bed sad, knowing that I will probably spend this entire year without taking any time off. Knowing that once this situation does resolve (one way or the other), our time with the boys at home will be that much closer to an end. 

I didn't take many vacations as a kid. Once my parents got married, we took a family trip to Cedar Point, and we went camping once or twice (my mom wasn't a fan, and honestly, neither am I), but that's about it. But summers were magical anyway. My grandparents would sometimes rent a house on Pretty Lake or a couple of cabins at Potato Creek, and whoever could make it would show up. I remember swimming in lakes, taking trips on pontoon boats, riding bikes, eating slushies, and eventually reading scary books to younger cousins. Neither of those places is very far from here (Pretty Lake is maybe 15 minutes, and Potato Creek is about 30 minutes), but it didn't matter. The point was to spend time together, relaxing and exploring and talking and laughing. I know they must have planned ahead to rent the houses, but to me it felt spontaneous, a constant ebb and flow of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. 

I have that same feeling sometimes when a bunch of us stay at a state park inn, or when we went to Gatlinburg. Everyone is coming and going, and sometimes you're together but other times you're not, and it all just sort of works. The boys always say that the best trips are the trips we take with other people, and they're totally right. Every time they say it, I'm so happy that I've given them at least a little bit of that feeling I had as a kid. But I wonder if all of that is gone now.

Listen, I like holidays well enough. I know they're supposed to be about family and love and tradition. But for me, I'd much rather have a trip to a lake or a woods or a mountain or even to nowhere in particular. A place where for a little while, there aren't any responsibilities or expectations. Where we can all disconnect from the pressures of work and school and everyday life, and explore together—or not—in whatever way strikes our fancy each day. 

I keep reading about "self-care during these trying times" (gag me), but what happens when the way you do self-care isn't an option anymore? 

I guess we're going to find out.

covid diary: day 145

Welcome to level 8 of 2020. On this level, the battle of online schooltimes begins. 

It started raining very early this morning, and the sunrise afterward was just amazing. I could see the reddish light coming in the window from bed, even without my glasses on. I tried to get Mike to get up and look, but had to settle for showing him the pictures later on.

That sunrise has gone a long way in putting my head back on right after yesterday, which was a very, very long and stressful day. 

I had to get up early to take Liam to tennis conditioning, then rushed back home in time to start work at 7. I worked until 1, when I had my first ever telemed doctor's appointment. Yay for telemedicine! It took a grand total of 6 minutes for the whole appointment, and there was no stressful poking and prodding and measuring. I was lucky to be able to do it this time because it was a straightforward six-month follow-up, but next time (in February) I'll have to get blood work, so she'll probably want to see me in the office. But that's a worry for another day.

As soon as I was done with my appointment, Liam, Max, and I piled into the van to go to South Bend. Liam came along with us so he could get a couple more hours of driving time, but he ended up spending hours in the car while Max and I did various things. Poor kid.

Anyway, Max and I went in for his appointment with the hand specialist, and Max was really disappointed with the verdict, which is that he needs surgery to fix his thumb, otherwise he will end up with a permanent deformity in which his thumb turns inward. The surgeon was nice, and he tried to reassure Max, but it was still really upsetting to hear. (The surgeon also came prepared with not one but two consultations from other hand specialists, because he really didn't want to do surgery on a healthy 14-year-old during a pandemic unless he had to.) After the surgeon examined Max and gave his prognosis, we had to go to the casting room (this place was VERY well organized), where a woman gave Max a "half cast." I had to have the doctor explain that one to me since my experience with broken bones is limited to one broken toe (also Max's) that we had to splint with popsicle sticks. Anyway, one side of it is a hard cast, but the other side of it is softer material. This particular half cast allows him to keep using his other fingers, though he's not supposed to lift anything with them. I'm not sure what kind of cast they'll give him after surgery, but maybe I'll learn something new that day too.

Next up was the scheduling department, where we got the surgery scheduled. It'll be Wednesday (like four days from now!) morning. They'll put him completely under so he doesn't feel it when they put pins in to hold his bones together. He'll have the pins for four to six weeks, I think, or until the doctor is happy with the placement of the bones. Luckily, they can just pull the pins out in the office, so he doesn't have to have a second surgery. After that, I think he'll have to wear a cast for a while longer, and by Halloween, the doctor said, he "won't even remember which thumb was broken." We'll see about THAT, Doctor.

Sounds like a full day, right? BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

Because we live in a nightmare hellscape, Max needed to get a covid test before surgery, and he needed it THAT DAY. The schedulers gave us a paper order with an address and told us we had an hour to get there and get the test done before the place closed for the weekend. So Liam chauffeured us across town to get the test done, and we waited a very long time but managed to get in under the wire. I watched Max get his test, and the nose swab looked VERY uncomfortable (Max described it as a burning, "like having a lit match shoved up your nose and wiggled around). It was quite a long swab, and she had to swab for 10 seconds in each nostril, which doesn't sound like much but is really a long time when you're watching your child suffer (or when you are the child suffering). But good news! It was a rapid test, so about 30 minutes later (there was some delay because the woman after Max had a difficult test and ended up with a bloody nose; she bled all the way through her mask), we got the results, and Max DOES NOT have covid. (Whether they gave it to him on the swab or used the swab to implant a tracking device operated by The Man remains to be seen. Only time will tell.) I can't say I'm surprised that he was negative because he's barely left his room since March, but it's still nice to have confirmation.

By this time, it was dinnertime (none of us had eaten lunch) and we were all starving, and Max decided he wanted Popeye's chicken, which of course had a very long line for the drive-thru. But eventually we got the food, then picked up some hot fresh Krispy Kremes for good measure, and headed back home.

As if that's not enough to report, OH HEY, the school decided to go 100% virtual at least until August 24, and will re-evaluate once that date approaches. FINALLY, Plymouth. 

Anyway, it's the weekend, and I've got a mountain of work to plow through, and a surgery to prepare for. Good times, y'all!

Nationwide cases: 4,579,761. Deaths: 153,642.