Tag: friends

Happy Spring!

Disclaimer: My keyboard is still broken so please excuse anything that should be capitalized and isn’t it only responds to the shift keys when it wants to.

It’s March, late March, and it’s Spring. This is what’s going on in my world.

I am working on a few goals this year;

1. getting a garden going for real this time,

2. becoming a “Fuck Yeah!” friend,

3. getting more movement into my days, (as I sit here blogging like a slug…)

4. eating more veg,

5. becoming more competent at my job, and

6. Decluttering!

There is some progress in all areas, however slight. The beds are in as of last Fall and I hope to get planting (with guidance) soonish. I am saying “Fuck Yeah!” as much as seems safe to friends asking if I want to do stuff. I am on my feet more for sure even if my phone isn’t showing the steps. It, like my little laptop, has issues and it dies a lot. I am eating slightly more veg and focusing on just making sure it happens every day. Tougher than I thought it would be. At work I am taking on some new responsibility, nothing huge, just helping cover while my boss is out on maternity leave. I am practicing to get better at commcat, trouble-shooting when there are issues with computers and printers, planning for Summer Reading as best I can. I also keep signing up for webinars but I have been missing most of them. I am just so burnt out on zoom and all that. I have a few coming up that I plan to actually attend and I intend to view the recordings of the ones I’ve missed. Decluttering is still stupid and complicated because my usual drop off places are still not taking things. meh. I do have some stuff ready to go and I will do more when it makes sense to.

One of my niece’s just got married! ^_^ YAY! So nice to have something to celebrate. She and her new husband looked gorgeous and I was so glad that we could at least be there remotely. My eldest daughter is taking a couple of online classes and doing well. My middlest is getting a little money in with a kind of online gig type thing and took over dish washing and it really helping me out. My youngest is in the final stretch of his senior year and is doing well, sticking with it, getting ready to ease into the future. My husband is still working remotely but is finally scheduled for his first vaccine. (YAY!) We will be celebrating 24 years together later this week. WOW.

Gaming is still the main source of entertainment around here, I think we are in and/or running about… 6-7 games. I am using Pathfinder 2e to run my husband in a one-on-one game. We used to run one-on-one a LOT when we lived far from anyone and had a young child. I’ve missed it like crazy and apparently he has too. ^_^ So I am still struggling with constructing encounters that won’t kill him. LOL. Even with all the charts and whatnot encounters are so brutal. I think I have been thinking about it wrong, like my math is somehow backward or twisted. I’ll get it sorted out. One-on-one is not a thing Pathfinder is super designed for so I am pretty much making my own “adventure path.” It’s fun and challenging and I am enjoying all the prep work. I have part one pretty well finished and have started part two. I’m not sure how many parts it will have. I was thinking two, taking the PC from level one to… 8? 9? 10? But I might keep it going. Have the main quest die down for a while, let him “Witcher” it up monster hunting all over Golarion and then bring the main quest back later. I don’t know, we’ll see how he likes the main quest as he hasn’t even started on it yet. He’s travelling to investigate a rumored event and I’ll have to see if he likes it or if it’s too weird for him. I can do grim and gritty just fine but it’s always leavened with chaos and whimsy which he doesn’t always “get.” If he doesn’t like it I know some people who will so I’ll just save it and rework it for them later and cook something else up for him. I love him so much.

Anyway, I need to get ready for work.

XXXOOO

Thankful

I’m sitting here with my tea, planning my day, watching my husband doggedly keep trying to secure a PS5 for Christmas, and I feel deeply grateful that if he lucks out and bags one of those things we can afford it. We are both somehow still employed during a nightmare scenario for this country. We still have food, shelter, warmth, (thank you wood stove)and the plausibility of a new gaming platform. A whole lot had to go right for us to get here.

23 years ago we were living in subsidised housing, with food stamps, WIC, and assistance with heating. We worked hard to get out of poverty, no doubt, I thrifted like a master, he educated himself one certificate at a time to make the move from retail to tech. Yes, we worked hard, but our biggest help was connections, no question about it, connections to people in a position to help us were 100% critical. The first big jump was helped along by a dear friend who highly recommended him as an addition to an IT department for a little nonprofit she worked at. He had a fistful of certificates and some natural talent with computers and he walked into a department in chaos from long neglect. It wasn’t long before he was in charge. Another friend fiercely fought for him to get into the organization he’s in now. Again, he ended up in charge of that department in fairly short order because he worked hard and kept learning but he wouldn’t have gotten either of these breaks without the help of friends.

We’ve also received monetary help at times in the form of loans and gifts. We’ve had relatives buy us major furniture, pitch in on home repairs, buy clothes for our kids, lend us cars when our car was in the shop, hook us up with a friends and family discount on a new car! These are all important things, substantial things, that helped us get here. Our many connections, along with our advantages, made a pretty strong ladder for us to climb up out of poverty on and I am thankful that we could take advantage of all of it. People without well placed, decently well off friends and relatives, who didn’t go through well funded, well maintained schools, who lived in food deserts, have to work much harder than we did to make a fraction of our progress, or even just to avoid winding up on the streets. I don’t think we should rest until we, as a country, fix this unequal, broken system so that all folks can live with dignity and have their biggest holiday worry be that they won’t get the new gaming platform and their kids will be marginally disappointed. That’s the dream.

Banner credit: “Traditional Cornucopia — Leanne and David Kesler, Floral Design Institute, Inc., in Portland, Ore.” by Flower Factor is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

just forget the world…

I’ve done all I can and I need a break from stress and worry so I’m here to talk about things that are bringing me joy in some way, things that take me out of myself and distract me, all that sort of stuff. So, onto that! First things first: Books. They are my sanctuary, my education, my consolation, and my many, many other lives.

Current/Recent Reads:

  • The Ballad of Black Tom; by Victor LaValle (fantastic mythos-related story)
  • Adventures in Opting Out; by Cait Flanders
  • Disfigured; On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space; by Amanda LeDuc
  • The Library of the Unwritten; by A.J. Hackwith
  • The Only Good Indians; by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Dirt to Soil; by Gabe Brown
  • A Deadly Education; by Naomi Novik (The latest Fantastic Stangelings Bookclub read)
  • Beowulf; by Maria Dahvana Headley
  • A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; by Becky Chambers

There are other books, of course, but these are all the ones seriously in the flow at the moment. Other wonderful things I like to fill up my senses with: Shows!

  • Community. (Hulu & Netflix) My current comfort watch. Brilliant show with a ton of laughs and lots of heart.
  • The Haunting of Bly Manor. (Netflix) Pure gold so far. Atmospheric, subtle horror, perfect storytelling. I think I’m on episode #5 and I am having such fun. As always, my brain is whirring on ahead of the story making guesses and trying to expose the whole picture. I spotted a few things before they were revealed but, wow, there is so much here to unpack and it is glorious.
  • Liziqi. (YouTube) My ultimate escape from my own reality mixed with my ultimate life goals. Somehow relaxing and inspiring at the same time.
  • Good Omens. (Amazon Prime) We’re on our own side. Perfect.
  • Vienna Blood. (Dvd from the library) Very cool, entertaining, a bit like a Sherlock Holmes homage. Victorian Vienna. Hitting a bit close to reality with the superior race nonsense but a good crime procedural with interesting characters. Some absolutely stunning voices among the cast; loads of deep gravel in varying flavors. Particularly the lead detective and his rival. (I’m a sucker for a really good voice)
  • Shetland. (Dvds from library) Love, love, love this. I love the way this show is paced, the slow unraveling of the clues, the deep sense of Place. The landscape as another ever-present character. I have sadly finished all the available seasons of this and…
  • Vera. (Dvds) The same author wrote the books this series and the series Shetland are based on. Brilliant TV, just brilliant.
  • Videos of babies laughing hysterically, goofy pets, etc.

There are many more shows I could list that are excellent distractions but these are the ones I’m currently living inside. I’m also playing RPGs, of course. I am currently playing in; Hell’s Rebels (Pathfinder) on most Tuesdays, Azartia (a friend’s homebrew D&D) on Thursdays, and Age of Ashes, (Pathfinder) on Sundays. I am also running; Extinction Curse, (Pathfinder) on Saturdays and The Slithering, (Pathfinder) randomly, and my hubby is running the teens from the library through Age of Ashes as well. I’m playing 2 Human Druids and one Gnome Bard multi-classing into Druid and experiencing whiplash between characters. My bard is level… 12? 14? Something, and in Pathfinder which is designed for characters to be heroic. She is a blast to play, and absolutely good time. My Pathfinder Druid is low level, fun but kind of a letdown after playing the high level bard. The D&D Druid is… fine. She has a few pretty great spells that are fun/effective but… D&D 5e is just, well, it’s awful. Simple to play? Try; Over simplified, broken, frustrating. Cat, my druid, is level 9 with a 15 AC… The champion in our party has only a 20 AC. We get hit constantly, just absolutely constantly. The game is just not on a heroic scale at all. It’s dumbed down to the point of, why am I playing this? But yeah, it’s a distraction for a a few hours a week and time spent with friends. There are a lot of laughs as we play. Many laughs come from failed saving throws.

Other:

  • Knitting: one big project for a present, over half done now. ^_^
  • Work: 2-3 shifts a week, busy, on my feet, frustrating with Covid restrictions but, hey, I love it anyway and I’m lucky to have a job at all.
  • Baking/cooking: my daily chore and sometimes creative outlet.
  • Macrame’. I just got supplies to start doing this. I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, since like the 70s. Just getting around to it!
  • Holiday planning: well underway, constantly on my mind, so much to do!
  • De-cluttering. On the back burner but always on my mind. I want to get the excess out of here and have a semi-orderly, uncrowded, welcoming home.
  • Writing. Blogging here, jotting down ideas that keep coming to me, writing for work, which is fun and cool that I get to write for work at all. It’s mostly instructions for craft kits I make up or promotional writing for said craft kits, but still.

Sigh, and now the world is calling, I’m afraid, and I must answer. Stay well, be safe, see you soon.

Banner photo credit: “Contemplation – Dartmoor, Devon” by Faborsky Photography is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Allergies or Plague?

I’ve been fighting a headache for a few days and woke up this morning with a runny nose, sneezing jags, a scratchy throat and my current usual amount of coughing. Ugh. I reported my symptoms like a good citizen and my Director said not to come in tomorrow. Ah well, better safe than sorry. It might be allergies or it might be a cold or flu or covid-19, who knows? Such a lovely time to be alive, isn’t it?

At least I got to run my game last night. That went well! At one point the halfling sorceress grabbed a chalice that was clearly meant to be left alone, waking the clay golem and causing a panicked and disorganized retreat through the dungeon. Not everyone had a light source and we were using the lighting on Roll20 so the poor half-orc barbarian, who had the lowest initiative, got left alone in a room with a homicidal golem in pitch darkness. Since all players have their own screens they can each have a unique, separate view of things so after the first PC ran out of the room the second one would have no idea which way they went, which hallway they took or if they had ducked into a room to hide or something. At one point the cleric took a wrong turn and strayed into a room they hadn’t been to yet and woke up another golem-like creature, this time made of stone. The whole thing was hilarious and the halfling kept wailing; “I’m Sorry!!!!!!” as she ran through the dungeon. A good night’s gaming!

for when you’re overwhelmed

I’m overwhelmed and tired. How about you? I see a lot of my friends and acquaintances posting about their struggles. Struggles to get things done, to feel any sense of accomplishment, feelings of restlessness, trouble sleeping, etc. The extroverts are going nuts in isolation and even the introverts are starting to get sick of it. I recommend library curbside pick up to folks who tell me they’re bored and I hear odd things like: “I’ve already read some books, I’m tired of books.” … I’m sorry, I know all of those words but they don’t make any sense in that order. I do understand, even I can’t read all the time. People who are more active and sporty than me want to get out to DO THINGS. They want to play tennis, or rollerblade or something.

Let’s just agree that we all thought, or at least hoped, this shit would be over by now. It isn’t and it isn’t going to be any time soon. As schools and colleges are opening cases are spreading. Weddings and funerals are helping too, hordes of maskless partiers, beach-goers, and folks visiting bars and restaurants are helping too. Not to mention indoor, maskless political rallies. Oh, and we can’t forget all the folks who refuse to wear masks in public. I don’t know exactly what our next moves as a country should be but a nationwide mandate for masks and social distancing is probably step 1. Enforced with serious fines and possibly jail time for repeat offenders. It would have to be in conjunction with masks being freely distributed to all of course.

Over here on the homestead, we are prepared to stay hunkered down as best we can until it is actually safe again. My husband and I are both working, me in a closed library providing curbside pick-up and take-home crafts etc, my husband mostly remotely. He does go to his office a few times a week, after hours when no one is likely to be around, so he can do all the things he can’t do from home. It’s gone pretty well so far. He has been coughing kind of a lot the past few day, me too, I think it’s just allergies probably but it’s hard not to worry. In any case, we are not going out to eat, we are not attending weddings, funerals, or gatherings of any kind. Our social life continues to be exclusively online gaming and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. It’s not what we want but this is where we are. Anyway, I was talking about being overwhelmed…

Virtually everyone I know is having some problems with the enormity of everything, with overwhelm, with depression and/or anxiety. One of my friends posted something about how making massive to-do lists and not getting much or anything done is such a disheartening experience. We make the lists because we have a lot to do and we don’t want to forget to do any of it. Crossing things off gives us a little boost, it makes us feel like we’re making progress. I have a thing I do when I am having a bad time, when I am overwhelmed and super tired, out-of-spoons. I make a Done List. I write down things after I do them and cross them out. If I build up a little momentum I might write a single task down just before I begin it and cross it off when I’m done. It probably sounds silly, but it’s a way I get myself started.

Even like today, I have a headache, woke up with the damn thing, so today is a good day to do this. I do have things I really need to get done today and all I want to do is lie here with an ice pack or a heating pad on my head, maybe both, so to get myself going I will write down some little things I have already done, even if they are things I wouldn’t normally put on any to-do list.

  • feed cats
  • make tea
  • wash dishes
  • make breakfast
  • trash & recycling

That last one there I haven’t done yet but for me putting there at the end of a list of “accomplishments” gives me maybe 1/4 Cup of encouragement to get up and get it done. I look at all the struck through items and it makes that last one look smaller, easier, more doable. Anyway, feel free to use this little trick if you think it might help you. Another little psychological trick I use on myself is paying my bills from most expensive to least expensive. I write the big check for our mortgage first, followed usually by our stupid-high electric bill, on down through whatever bills we have for the month till I write the last one, the smallest bill. It feels slightly better that way. A bit like coasting down a hill instead of laboring up it. It helps that we can pay all our bills. That hasn’t always been the case. When we were really struggling I was agonizing over which bills to pay and which would have to wait, juggling to keep those we owed happy enough so they wouldn’t shut off the lights or whatever. I’m grateful not to be there at this time but I know we could be there again with a little bad luck. Those are my 2 tricks for now. My head is getting worse so I am going to try to get the trash run done. I’ll tell you more tricks when my head feels better and I can think straight.

3 Ring Circus

Though it often feels to me as if we lead boring lives in which very little happens the reality is a little different. Here is our year so far:

January: Happy New Year! First few days I see at least a dozen memes on FB about how right around every year “20” there is a terrible plague. heh, cute. Coincidentally, we start hearing that there’s something going on with a virus in China. Within a short time we’re still hearing everything is under control with the virus, but we’re seeing images of people in hazmat suits disinfecting the streets and the first city or province gets shut down. I begin stocking the house up a little more than usual; extra pasta, meat for the freezer, beans, rice, etc. (I always keep a good supply of food etc on hand in case of emergencies. I just increase our stores a little, fill in gaps.) Our tenant lets us know she is moving out and can’t pay February’s rent, we remind her she already paid when she moved in so, no worries. She tells us she is pregnant and moving in with her boyfriend.

February: I continue buying extra and stocking up, the news out of China isn’t good, the virus has spread to other countries, it is inevitable it will come here. I begin to get nervous about our son’s upcoming wisdom tooth extraction. It’s supposed to happen in March, he’s in pain, he needs it, but we’re starting to get a little nervous about going out in public, we’re wondering if we actually are going to have to isolate ourselves at home to stay safe. As the numbers everywhere start racking up, we wonder When do we pull the trigger? how do we decide it’s time to stay home? I get sick, it seems to be the flu, Tamiflu puts me right. We wonder how we will deal with the loss of rental income as we have no intention of looking for a new tenant as this virus continues to spread.

March: The boy has his wisdom teeth out, all goes well, yay. My husband gets ill, really ill, the doctor won’t see him. They prescribe over the phone, he takes breathing treatments 3 times a day, he takes pills. I worry. The doctors say they are assuming he is Covid-19 positive. My boss tells me not to come in. Our daughter works at a pharmacy and they aren’t taking precautions, she quits. Schools close. We are all home now. We don’t go out. We clean, we cook, we play video games and catch up on our reading. I worry about my husband, he’s exhausted. I begin working from home as best I can. My husband’s work won’t wait, they text and call, he begins working remotely through coughing fits. It’s unreal. He’s starting to feel better! His work hours keep expanding. We’re lucky, we both still have jobs, many don’t.

April: We mail our tax stuff in. We keep working. There’s hardly any traffic going by. I cook, a LOT, I start baking again. My husband is doing better, still coughing, but better. We start gaming more, lots of RPGs are started or picked back up where we’d left off. Isolation isn’t so bad. We meet online with friends to play Cards Against Humanity. We get groceries delivered! Huzzah! We’re using the empty apartment as a work space/art space/extra video game space. I turn the shed into an art studio/space to get away from the kids with my hubby.

May: Everything is still weird. We’re working from home, gaming online, getting groceries delivered, etc. This is the month we start to hear that people at only a small remove from us have gotten Covid-19, friends of friends… it’s scary. My husband’s aunt gets it, some of our friends get it. We stay home. We try not be paranoid about it, but we are not going to get this damn thing. The list of symptoms keeps growing, the ages and health condition of people getting this and suffering horribly from it keeps expanding.

June: We celebrate our son’s 18th birthday at home with cake and few presents we’ve gotten him online. It’s low key. We play an RPG, eat pizza and drink root beer. We finally begin to feel the sting of not seeing our friends and family in person. We keep working remotely. Our lives have something of a rhythm now, the kids are learning remotely. Our daughter gets her associate’s degree, our son passes all his 11th grade classes. My boss starts talking about the library reopening. Eventually I hear we will be back in the building in July. I am not happy about this, I don’t feel ready, I worry we will reopen to the public too fast.

July: I go back to work. It’s surreal working in an empty library. We do curbside pick up and delivery now. I devise and assemble take home crafts. Our budget is slashed way down but we all still have our jobs. I buy a few books for the collection. We struggle to keep up with cleaning all the books and other materials after their 3 day quarantine in the Community Room. Everything is confusing and different. Everyone is overwhelmed. We start feeling pressure from some people to loosen up our restrictions, to visit, to have lunch outside and “socially distanced.” My husband gets pressure from his job: What would make him feel safe so he can return to campus? Nothing, he tells them, honestly nothing. It’s an international boarding school and we’ve been hearing how many more enquiries they are getting from Texas, California, and Florida… You don’t say? How shocking that the uber-wealthy living in states where the virus is completely out of control want to send their kids to the relative safety of our neck of the woods! We promise we are 100% shocked by this. My uncle is diagnosed with cancer…

August: My husband continues to work from home, he digs in his heels, he is high risk. We get a note from his Dr. stating he is high risk for this virus and must be allowed to work remotely. The school continues to pressure him, suggests more isolated offices but when he starts to say that one in particular might actually work they say; ‘oh, you can’t have that one. A person that won’t even be teaching needs to use that room to write their book… ” because the huge free house they have all to themselves … doesn’t have room? As happens from time to time, my husband is contacted by a headhunter. Would he like to work in the field he just got a degree for? My husband starts seriously contemplating leaving this job. My uncle is rushed to the hospital and dies 2 days later on his daughter’s birthday. My husband is interviewed for a very cool job. He gets a second interview. We contemplate what life would be like if he actually liked/loved his job. We get the apartment ready so a friend can move in. We talk about having less money with the new job. We talk about how much notice he ought to give if he is offered this new job. I see a glimpse of a less stressed-out version of my husband.

September: Today, the first of the month, my husband’s assistant quits. He does not want to go onto campus either. He will work the next 2 weeks if he can do so remotely. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be the boots on the ground so that doesn’t help at all. How does one hire someone during a pandemic? How does one train someone remotely? We’re not sure. We are about to find out. We hope very much to receive an offer from the company my husband has been interviewed by because what is going to happen to the school is going to be an absolute shit-show. OMG. FUBAR. Our friend/new tenant is moving in today! The apartment is clean and shiny, the weather is good, I can’t wait. I know we can’t hang out like we want to but she’ll be here and we can sit outside and talk maybe? ^_^ Our son starts his senior year next week. My library may open at the end of the month and I have mixed feelings about that. I’m still worried about the virus numbers spiking a few weeks after school resumes.

And that’s pretty much our year so far. (Banner credit: “circus” by fsse8info is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

a very nothing update…

The summer vacation that wasn’t is all but over now. Our Bug starts his senior year of highschool, virtual only, next week. He’s/We’ve been stuck home virtually 100% since early March so days have no meaning for him, time has very little meaning as well. It will be a weird adjustment for him to make having to wake up and login to his classes every weekday. I think he’s looking forward to having a schedule again though. This has all be so disastrously weird. We’ve all been stuck in a kind of limbo and it doesn’t seem like it will be ending anytime soon.

Once in a while something goes right and the amazing cleaner, Therese, made time for us today so the apartment is pretty much clean and shiny for our new tenant moving in tomorrow. I’m airing it out now too, it’s been closed up for months. I replaced the worst ceiling tile but it was a terrible pain. I will definitely pay someone who knows how to do that next time. Hopefully our new tenant will love living there and the pandemic will end and then we can all hang out together. She’s a similar kind of weirdo to us and we all game together online. Someday we will all BBQ together and stuff.

Work is still very odd. No one is allowed into the library except for specific little time slots to use computers. We still do curbside pick up and take home crafts but there’s no browsing for books and no in person programming. I’m trying to come up with take home crafts and activities for fall with no budget so that’s interesting. I need to figure out things for the teens and tweens to make from the supplies we already have. It’s kind of awkward. Putting together the bags is fun and everyone appreciated them so much. It’s so weird not having people in the library… but it will also be 100% weird when they start coming back in. Strange days we’re living in.

Mostly Okay Sorta Sorta

So, I’ve been to the docs 3 times this week and I’m right now waiting for a call from them. I’ve been exhausted and not sleeping well, hurting all over, especially my joints, for some time. I’ve had a lot of blood drawn for tests this week and they actually might have found something. Something is weird with my liver. Huzzah! Yes, I am sounding positive about something that is probably bad because I’ve been struggling for years and kept being told I was fine when it is clear that I am not. So yes, I am happy there is something to freaking look at, now maybe we can get me healthy and fully functioning again. On the other hand, I need my liver, it does really important things for me and I am still using it, so hopefully whatever is going on is fixable. It would be great if I had to change my diet and eat healthier, that would cool, extra motivation. We’ll see, I guess, don’t know if doc is waiting for yesterday’s blood tests to come in before calling me.

Other than my liver, my doc put me on a muscle relaxer so my sleep has been better for 3 nights running. Fingers crossed that trend continues! Because my liver is involved I have stopped taking Tylenol for the moment, a nurse suggested it might not be helping, to see if that might give my liver a break. Poor thing, I get so many headaches and struggle with chronic pain, I take a LOT of Tylenol. Well, generics and store brands, but same thing. Lets see if I can make it through today without taking any, I haven’t in … 2 days? I should get an award. 😉

Being so tired means I am reading a lot. Finished So you Want to Talk About Race, The Simple Life, and Sherlock Holmes and the Stuff of Nightmares, so far this week. All very good and recommended books. Now I am reading Touch of the Demon, and This is my America, along with The Color of Law. I’ve got three more books in the demon series after this one, and a few books still to find and read in the Lady Sherlock series, as well as an unknown number of books in the Lovergrove Sherlock Holmes series, so I can hum along happily for a while and not worry about what I’ll be reading next. Actually, my TBR (to be read) pile is staggering. I’ve got a ton of fairy tale novels, horror novels, and nonfiction too. Sheesh.

Best coolness of the past 30 days: I discovered The Bloggess has her own bookstore and book club and I decided to try it. We read Mexican Gothic as our first book and it was creepy and wonderful. Yay! The next book is on its way here:  Crossings, by Alex Landragin. I can hardly wait. I let book club books ‘jump the line’ in my TBR pile, the only books that take priority over them are library books with rapidly approaching due dates. I wonder how many library books I have ordered…

I have been cooking a bit more this week. Last week was not a great week as I was particularly tired and sore. I’m making a tomato based pasta sauce for everyone else, they can use it while I’m at work some evening. My son seemed very appreciative that I’m making this effort. He said something like ‘Homemade pasta sauce, that is supposed to make a big difference, taking it to the next level.’ He made his impressed face too. ^_^ I’m hoping to finish making it today so they can have it tonight. We’ll see, my hands hurt and I’m pretty wrung out and still need to go to work tonight.

Nothing is going on with the hippie fort. I have plans for the next improvements and would like to be spending time out there. It’s just been too hot for hanging out in all the uninsulated glory and we don’t want workers here if we can avoid it, at least till the pandemic is under better control. We haven’t had work done on the apartment yet either. So much to do and so much not getting done.

Global pandemic has meant our apartment has been empty since February. How could we rent it out when we can’t interview potential renters? Or show them the place? Well, it turns out a friend has been desperately, and quietly, wanting a change of address, so that happens September 1st. We won’t be able to hang out really, not until things settle down rampant disease-wise, but it will be good to have the place going to better use again and we’ll be able to maybe sit outside with masks and chat of an evening or something. I know it will be great, she’s such an awesome person, I can’t wait to get to know her even better. She’s a creative type too so there will be much arting going on in the near future. Dare I dream? Collaboration? ^_^ All those happy thoughts aside, I am convinced we will be going into lockdown shortly after schools resume this fall. There’s too much in person stuff happening and Covid is going to get out of control again in a hurry. I saw an add for PPE for kids for back to school and it nearly broke me. Face shields with cute stickers on them… what messed up dystopian novel are we in? Or what level of hell is this? I can’t even, I’m going to pet my kitty cat and take a shower. TTFN.

Not Digging Phasing Back to “Normal”

We’re easing back into the work routine, it’s going fairly well, despite one abusive patron already, during my second shift back. Keep it on the road lady, I haven’t used the system or tried to locate a book or dvd in months! Oof. I have caught up with making all the flyers I need to and am working on assembling materials for the take-home crafts, and packets of information for the contests I’ll be running and things like that. I’m learning all the new protocols, all the new procedures, etc, even as we wait to phase most of it out whenever that happens. I’m enjoying being back in the building, being among the books, getting to casually chat with a coworker, even at a distance and through our masks. I’ve got my new materials budget starting next month, it’s been slashed, but I will make do. I’ll hunt for what bargains there are to be had, solicit more donations of gently used books, etc. That’s all good. And yet I am still contemplating quitting my dream job.

I get stressed out having to go there, stressed by the extra steps we need to go through to track curbside pick up, stressed trying to talk on a phone through a mask, while the phone slips against the mask as I try to use the computer, stressed by all the cleaning, the cleaners make my skin peel, the gloves make my hands wildly sweaty and uncomfortable, I’m just very stressed by work right now and by the pace at which people are rushing to “get back to normal” without adequate time between steps to see what impact the lifting of restrictions will have on virus spread. They are just going to create a new surge of this horrible virus and we are all going to be forced to quarantine again. 😦

Stress is a big factor in my negative feelings toward working, but it isn’t the only factor. I got used to a new, softer rhythm of life, I have been able to be a better wife, better mother, better pet-mom, vastly more prolific artist, and despite all the stress of the pandemic a generally happier person in a bunch of ways. I had more time to read, more time to learn new things, I liked it. Normalcy kind of sucks. Being stressed, rushing places, having to plan dinner for my family and a stupid, sad separate dinner for myself. (usually a couple of granola bars and some water for me. bleh) Not working allowed me to reach out, online of course, and keep up with my friends more, connect in new, untried ways that have turned out to be hella cool. I feel more of a sense of community with all my friends than I did when we were all rushing out to jobs all the time, driving kids around, constantly running errands and busy, busy, busy! Not that I was idle at home, I mean now I am cause it’s a billion degrees out, but I was painting, writing, working from home, cooking a lot, reading, planning, dreaming, just living. And it was good.

We’ve been lucky, we’ve been able to continue to work from home through this nightmare, we have been getting paid when others have been laid off temporarily or permanently, lost their insurance and suffered hunger while not being able to pay their bills. We have friends who are struggling through this and it’s just so stressful. We help where we can but I wish we could do more. I want to fix all the problems and it sucks that I can’t, that I have to choose where I feel like we can make the best impact at any given time. When the virus comes roaring back and we are all forced to go back home I think it might be worse the second time around. Folks that lost jobs will probably still be out of work and how are they supposed to eat and live if our damn government doesn’t support its citizens? Doesn’t ban evictions and suspend the machinery of rent and mortgage collection and tell the greedy utilities they aren’t allowed to shut people off? If our government was more functional we would have universal health care, a strong safety net, and much else that the rest of the civilized world already has. We need to fix that!

More Bad News

So, we played games with our ailing friend’s girlfriend online last night, in an attempt to cheer and/or distract her, and found out she is ill with Covid-19 too. She’s barely eating, sleeping a ton, and “is fine” unless she stands up. If she stands up she gets short of breath. She insists she’s fine, nowhere near as bad as our friend, and she laughed when we said we were going to text her more often to make sure she’s still alright. She said other people are already doing that, like her mother, she laughed and said; “I’m afraid one morning I’ll sleep till 11:00 and wake up to paramedics breaking the door down.” We said we’ll try not to be too jumpy about it but we will be checking on her.

Also yesterday, I got an email from my boss that said in part that we might be returning to work as early as June 8th. I don’t like that at all. I think we’re going to see a spike in Covid cases shortly after that date and I don’t want to break isolation just so I can get exposed and bring this thing home to my family. This thing was scary enough before when our immediate connection to it was confined to a few elderly relatives (our relatives and friend’s relatives). Now it has actually put a friend of ours in the hospital and made another friend (his GF) ill enough to be concerning. She’s alone with their cats, under quarantine, unable to see the man she loves while he is very ill and hospitalized. All we can do is try to spend time with her online and check in and try to make sure she’s hydrating and eating. I wish I could do more to help. Gods, I hope they will both be ok.