500,000
It finally happened this week. The 500,000th person died from COVID.
We still don't know when we'll have access to one of the vaccines. Many of my students and friends have been at their wit's end trying to get an appointment. A student in Ohio got hers at a grocery chain pharmacy, no trouble.
Meanwhile I'm making progress on hard tasks. I sent a pile of 2018 paperwork to our tax people today and I already have a question back to answer tomorrow. I sent an email today that officially kicks off The Great Big Change; asking questions that help us know where to begin.
CK is still having numbness in her lower body. Still surface based, but persistent. I sent a detailed chronology of all the weirdness she's had going on the past few weeks.
Meanwhile, I have a telemedicine session with said doctor in the morning to discuss my heart and general health. It's all been good news, but it's a recap on everything with my doctor.
Managed to capture Ursa alerted on a "Sparkle Beast”, what I dubbed a reflection on the ceiling or walls that makes his prey instinct go off. The results were hilarious
Times They Are a Changin’
Last week we received news that we're still integrating and strategizing the first steps to take in response. It will result in a significant change. We haven't talked much about it yet, not a huge amount ourselves or with others.
It hits as we approach the anniversary of shutting ourselves aways from social interaction, except a few outdoor occasions last summer. Who knows what this summer will bring, eventually our local friends and family will all manage to get vaccinated.
My Mother's birthday is next week, March 5, and it still seems to loom on the horizon like a leaden, grief balloon. I suppose it doesn't feel quite as big or heavy, but it's still there. I've been calling CK's attention to it earlier this year, so I don't suddenly collapse in a heap of anger/grief.
All of this gave me a big rush of anxiety this morning as I tried to get ready to teach. When my Dad's clock started chiming that it was 10am I jumped back into focus. Thankfully I'd had the room well set up already and just needed to turn on Zoom, and lights. I just told people, thanked them for their patience.
I'm really enjoying a set of pens I got for myself to write in the household calendar/diary. Hoping they encourage me to keep it up. I need all the help I can get!
Too Tired for Donuts
Today was the reschedule of Beignet Day at Doe Donuts. Since it was an icy mess on Mardi Gras, they opted for this safe choice.
I like to take beignets to students on Mardi Gras. It's not a family thing for me, we didn't make a big deal out of Shrove Tuesday or Lent. It's more an expression of of love for New Orleans and the spirit of Mardi Gras.
We eat fried food on Mardi Gras because you've got to celebrate the "fat" of life. The fat is where all the richness and goodness is, it's got to be celebrated when we have it. For people who observe, they abstain from richness for a time, so they're sure to celebrate before that withdrawing and after, it makes that Easter feast all the richer.
I like to pass that on. It's one of many fine lessons I've learned from New Orleans.
Pandemic Days means no classroom with students; nearly a year now without students in shared space. I was going to drop off beignets with friends this year to still have a little of that joy.
Only today I've been worn out and more headachy than just my sinuses complaining. I think 3 hours of breathing through the double mask, doing chores part of the time, took it out of me today. It felt like my asthma was acting up, so I think today I'm just depleted.
Like so many COVID losses, this isn't tragic. It's donuts. Special donuts that take me back to a city where a small piece of my heart most certainly lives, but still, donuts.
Yet, it's another chip of grief. One more small loss and disappointment, amidst many.
I realized I'm counting down the 14 days after the plumber visit. We've been so careful for so long, it would be hell to have a clogged drain bring this virus to our home.
Ursa is sleeping with Dora, whether she wants to or not.
Drain Loc
Had an excellent experience today getting our shower drain functioning again. A drain-sculpted loc was the disgusting culprit. I reviewed my drain maintenance routine; blessed as good. I noted I'd made a quarterly calendar reminder to do it.
It was a production to be sure the air turned over in the house. I wore a respirator mask, with a second mask over it to cover the exhaust vent, for a over 3 hours. My glasses sit in such a wonky way that it really made reading or playing ACNH impossibl headache-inducing, so I folded towels after disinfecting the bathroom.
I've had a lot of grief around how hard I'd worked to get where I was a year ago and how it's mostly gone, the income I painstakingly built up. I'm really grateful CK makes a point to share the money she makes, even portioning of part of bonuses for me. It's a good reminder of the value of my work.
I helped CK write a note to "break up" with a care provider.
New pens and paper arrived!
We still have delicious cake.
Still these COVID
Unavoidable Grie f
CK and I watched the Perseverance lander arrive on Mars today, crowded on the sofa with both dogs and Ursa. It was so good to see and hear joy and excitement.
The rest of the day got hard. I caught up on email and saw news that a wisdom teacher died yesterday. She'd gone on hospice care a few weeks ago, so it wasn't unexpected. Still, it remains tender in a time that has taken so much already.
Then I saw the Enchanted Forest was hit hard by the ice storm, many attractions damaged by falling trees. They were already struggling due to COVID, the storm is another setback. I'm feeling sad for never insisting that CK go visit with me.
I know that nothing lasts, impermanence, etc.
The thing about grief is that it doesn't care about logic exercises on impermanence. The grief had to get integrated or it's ignored. Clinging to impermanence as a way to avoid grief doesn't relieve.
Acquitted
It was a day that was careening a bit over individual and mutual grief over a pandemic that stretches onwards to summer as we're iced inside our home, going we don't lose power.
The the GOP acquitted T*. Just like they said they would.
I don't know why I'm so angry and despairing over something we knew was happening. The incomprehensible, incompetent, speedy defense was so for show since the Ghouls Only Party made up their minds to acquit.
My day has also been plagued by neck pain making it hard to turn my head and my right knee swelling for no reason I can recall.
Ice then snow then ice then snow, etc. meant no mail today. The Valentines I ordered should have arrived yesterday, but didn't. Now next week sometime. I'll save them for the belated cake we couldn't have this weekend because the bakery closed on account of snow.
Ursa offered uncomplicated nose boops and snuggles, thank goodness!
Sea of Grief
I'm listening to an audiobook of one of Ursula K. Le Guin's collected essays, speeches, and criticism, The Wave in the Mind, and was reminded through it of Primo Levi's work. I was looking at some and this stood out.
"The sea of grief has no shores, no bottom; no one can sound its depths."
I felt this inner pull, twisting of energy in response to them. Grief answering grief.
Perhaps that's the best analogy for Pandemic Year Two, the Sea of Grief.
I'm so weary of students crying because uncertainty, loneliness, and fear are getting to them. I'm also feeling really sad to still be here, to still have no real idea when it will change.
At least Ursa remains very cuddly.
Vintage Pyrex and Grief
I feel a little while back and my backpack went flying of my body, badly wrenching my right hand. It's remained stiffer in one finger and tender, which makes my hand a little clumsy.
A last week, while putting away some dishes while food cooked, my hand cramped and I dropped my favorite Pyrex mixing bowl. It shattered impressively and I felt terrible. I've lost count of how many things I've made in it over the years.
It was a vintage one from a set my Mother had from my early childhood. Originally there were four bowls, all in patterns or shades of avocado green.
She decided to get rid of them after breaking the largest when I was at college. I asked for the three remaining, using them for the past 30 years!
I thought about trying to scour thrift stores until I found a replacement. Vintage Pyrex is often to be had, I've aquired some additional cool pieces of baking dishes.
Then I remembered COVID, so no Goodwill Hunting.
Then I considered getting rid of the remaining ones and finding a new-to-me set, ones that weren't tied to my childhood. This has real appeal!
Turns out the "Cinderella" mixing bowl sets after kind of a thing. It's probably $150 for a set of four, shipped! Not terrible, but still a lot to think about.
So I just put all that on the proverbial back burner. There was a couple attempt to be distracted by.
Until tonight, when I wanted to make cornbread and went to get out my mixing bowl and it all came back.
The broken bowl, COVID, the coup, all the socially distant everything. It just all hurt.
I persevered and madder cornbread in the modern, OXO, plastic bowl. It was fine, even if it felt off. The cornbread was good for dessert.
We're in day one of an Atmospheric River. I miss driveway hangouts from summer and autumn.
Two Days, 8000+ Dead
COVID deaths are over 4000 a day.
I can't stop thinking about these numbers. How people who think it's a hoax urinated and defecated all over the Capitol Building. They stole, they killed, and desecrated.
People are finally taking this all seriously and it feels like they are too late.
I'm making up cocktails at home because I can and it's a creative outlet. I'm using my vintage barware, which is fun. Although I dropped the lid of the shaker and it vanished; perplexing.
What Ifs
At therapy today I had a round of "what ifs".
What if I hadn't been born to a family with intergenerational trauma going back who knows how far?
What if anyone in my family took my side.
What if support within my family wasn't always transactional, if it was offered at all.
I noted, and my therapist agreed, that these part of my grieving. She reminded me that having a supportive family doesn't yield a positive results. Well-off people from loving families end up living on the street, alone.
They came up after considering how my Mother would say to me when I was an adult how hard she tried to be a good parent, that she did the best she could. As I process new trauma I'm once again angered at this, that this was the best she could do.
My therapist said that, sadly, this was true. She really couldn't have done better than what I got. It brings up the grief for a childhood that I never got.
I started the year by making the best gluten free cornbread ever! Bubbles!!! I'm making it again this week to try and replicate, then document!