September 2021 in Review (Except Vacation)

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Thistle

September was divided into two very distinct sections. There were the first three weeks, filled with a whole lot of malaise and depression, and the last week, which began Jason’s and my nine-day road-trip vacation. I’m keeping the vacation portion of the month as its own separate set of posts, so what’s below won’t count vacation highlights and such.

Reading and Watching
It hasn’t been as fun of a month in books as I wanted. I culled/abandoned far more than expected, including some that I’d really wanted to read. A bit disappointing. In the end, I only finished two books and only enjoyed one of them (Ghost of the Tsunami). It was a much better month for TV, with a bunch of new seasons of shows starting (GBBO, NCIS, NCIS Hawaii, SVU). Plus I watched Truth Be Told, which I quite enjoyed, and J and I have started watching through the second season of Victoria (several years after watching the first season!). Right before vacation, I devoured the first two seasons of Manifest. So yeah, it was a TV-heavy month!

Goals
Not much on this front, but Jason and I did pay off one of our two credit cards this month, so that’s a thing. Woohoo!

I’ve also switched my thinking a little this month. I’ve spent a very long time making goals that center around weight-related health issues (whether that be weight loss, improving body image regardless of size, etc). There’s one thing I haven’t done, though, and that’s to address longterm goals that have remained in my head as “when I’m thinner” goals. For example, I’ve wanted to get breast reduction surgery for most of my life. When I’m thinner, my chest is easier to manage because I can “sister-size” up without too much pain, which allows me to find bras that kinda fit. But even when I was super thin, I was in a G+ cup. It puts a lot of strain on my back at every size, causes difficulty with clothing, makes self-exams and mammograms difficult (I’ve been told that I have some of the densest tissue they’ve ever seen on multiple occasions), and generally causes a (literal and metaphorical) headache. I’ve always been told that you can only get a reduction if you’re thin, to prove your breasts won’t shrink when you lose weight. Well, I have picture proof that even at 110-125 lbs, I was in a G+ cup. And if I have to pay for this sh!t out of pocket, which is 99% likely, I’d like to just get it done NOW. Why am I waiting to lose weight again, especially as I’ve been unable to do so for seven years??

Health
I got back into more exercise this month for the first time since April. When I decided to take some time off for injury in May, I never expected to be bombarded with problem after problem going forward! It’s difficult to move back into a fitness space after essentially four months of rest. At times I overdid it, and had to take longer breaks. Depression also contributed to breaks. But I also enjoyed getting back out there again.

Favorite photos
The following will be photos from September excluding vacation photos, as those will be many and I didn’t want them to overwhelm the daily-life photos that I keep here. Vacation photos will come in a separate post, of course! As always, these photos are taken by me and aren’t always the best photography, just the photos I personally like most for one reason or another!

Top left: autumn bouquet; Bottom left: spider hanging on a leaf which seems to dangle in midair; Right, top to bottom: bonded pair; snail; post-surgical Angus

Highlights of September
Weirdly, I had a lot of highlights this month that later got taken off the highlight reel because they got canceled out. Like, for instance, we found an adopter for Angus and Ghost so that they could stay together, but then the adopter moved into a new place that had a no-pets policy so that fell through. Here is what remained:

  • snagging a Spellbound set from Lucky Sew & Sew (Eeeee!)
  • the Gherkinoodle –>
  • mini cranberry-orange scones
  • my first ever wine tour/tasting (with friends!)
  • the first cool(ish) fronts of the season
  • my kittens getting high on catnip toys
  • Nathan Pyle’s comic on finding your ghost name (I’m Atmatnoodat, ha! The best is Laurence’s, though: Latureeeeboonooceboo)
  • that time that the NFL referee yelled “Unsportsmanlike conduct!” and I genuinely misheard him say, “I was forced to buy a condom!” Ha!
  • being able to sleep with the windows open twice this month!
  • fun acquisitions this month: Archer & Olive blackout journal and pens; a complete vintage set of Old Maid cards identical to the ones I had as a child (they’re from the 60s but I had them in the 80s); new fall-themed mugs; a new Ouija pin for my hiking bag with a moving planchette; my first Cat Lady subscription box; some awesome Lucky Sew & Sew bras

Coming up in October
The first little bits of fall, I hope. We usually get those at the end of the month. Plus, spooky season! We love spooky season!

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Sunday Coffee – Culling Social Media

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Thistle

It’s time.

I first got on social media in early 2006, when I was a stay at home mom to three boys aged five and under. My job was 24/7 and I had no way of meeting people, living in a new area, and absolutely going crazy. Back then, my media of choice was MySpace, because it emphasized meeting people rather than reconnecting with people I already knew. I’m actually still friends with some of the folks I met via MySpace, and have met up with many of them in person over the years.

In late 2008, I joined Facebook, then added Twitter sometime in 2009 (?) though I haven’t used it in five or six years, and began on Instagram in the summer of 2012. Through the years, there has also been blogging (of course), and SparkPeople (which no longer exists), and more recently, TikTok (though I use it more for mindless scrolling than actual social media). And honestly, all these different platforms have gotten overwhelming.

Facebook is the big one. I really dislike FB for many reasons, and really, there are only three reasons I’m still there. First and second are two groups that I’m part of. The third is that FB carries 12-13 years of memories and photos. The photos are no big deal, really, as I keep them all on my own cloud storage as well. But the memories aren’t ones I want to lose. Still, I don’t want to continue to USE facebook. So I’m taking steps to get rid of it.

I’m not sure exactly what the plan is yet – make a private blog to post memories for each day? Download the same in journal form? Keep the account for the groups and memories, but don’t ever post on it or interact with people? I don’t know. But I want to put a plan together in the near-future, so that by my 2022-anniversary of when I joined, I’ll be off completely.

Has anyone else done this? Any advice?

PS – At present, my favorite social media is Instagram, though it’s gotten so ad-spammy lately that that may change…

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Subscription Review: Hello Fresh

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Thistle

Over the summer, my family had a lot of crap going on: car accidents, foster kittens, colitis issues, finding out Laurence is allergic to milk and eggs, etc. It made for a lot of fraught mealtimes and far more eating out than we wanted or normally did. By the end of August, I was really sick of it, and decided to give Hello Fresh a try. I thought that I could put together some meals of my own, with built-in nutrition/veggies, and while it’s expensive, at least it would be cheaper than eating out. With so many different food allergies/issues/preferences in my household, it’s hard to meet the needs of more than three people, so I decided to just try this for me. I chose to do four two-serving meals per week (so that I had leftovers the next day for lunch), and got my first box on Sept 12.

Week 1 – September 12

Meals: BBQ meatloaf with shingled potatoes and roasted green beans; spaghetti with Brussels sprouts, lemon, and parmesan; beef flautas with pico and lime cream; crispy chicken parmesan with Israeli couscous and roasted carrots. I made them in that order on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. Brief thoughts on these meals:

  • Meatloaf: a bit of heat in the spice mix, and I don’t like spice. Otherwise good.
  • Veggie spaghetti: sauce never thickened, sprouts were too uneven in texture, overall just not a good meal (did not eat the second serving)
  • Flautas: again too much spice, kinda boring, I skipped the pico because I don’t like pico generally but otherwise it was an okay meal
  • Chicken: for some reason the carrots and scallions were still frozen in this meal despite being in my fridge for five days, which gave the carrots a weird texture and made the scallions unusable. I mixed it up, put all the lemon stuff in the couscous and had the carrots just plain-roasted, which I prefer anyway, and skipped the hot paprika spice that was meant to be in the chicken. Best meal of the four.

Overall thoughts for week 1: Hello Fresh likes to use panko crumbs in every meal they can, eh? Also, I was surprised at just how many prep dishes each meal used. I prefer to use as few dishes as possible, but this was like cooking for a whole family in terms of cookware and prep-ware. That stressed my kids out because they were having to clean twice as much at dishes-time, and stressed me out because there would be stuff everywhere and multiple processes going on at one time. All that, and only one meal was one that I really enjoyed. Two others were okay to fairly good, but both were ones we make on our own at home, so it wasn’t exactly new-to-my-family. Slightly worried about locking myself into this…

Week 2 – September 19

Meals: chicken sausage and spinach ricotta ravioli; special sauce house burgers with griddled onion and garlic potato wedges; creamy pesto grilling cheese ciabattas; Tunisian-spiced meatballs with apricot glaze, roasted carrots, and scallion couscous. Again, ate those in that order on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Brief thoughts:

  • Chicken sausage ravioli: Holy hell this was awful. Excruciatingly over-spiced and salty. The ravioli themselves were good, so I ended up removing them from the meal and eating just ravioli. I had to buy food for lunch the next day.
  • Burgers: Slightly modified this to my tastes, and loved it. At least the burger and sauce, I loved. The “fries” were kinda meh, mostly because they were oily and too soft, and I don’t like potato skins. But the sauce for dipping kinda made up for it. I can see myself using the burger part of the recipe again in the future.
  • Pesto cheese ciabattas: I didn’t realize before I got these that 1) the cheese in these sandwiches was half an inch thick, and 2) they were meant to be coated in a hot spice mix. So I scrapped most of this meal, and Jason just made me some pesto-and-grilled-cheese ciabattas that were more to my liking.
  • Meatballs: This was also pretty good, though I would have preferred less meat and more carrots tbh. Weird that one meal with a carrot side dish came with four carrots, while this one came with two, and smaller ones at that. Both carrot meals had the same amount of meat and couscous, so it’s not that, either.

Overall thoughts on week 2: Well, Jason cooked 2.5 of the four meals, and I still hate cooking, and I’ve found that I’m not saving a lot of money because I tend to have to go out to eat for a lunch at least once per week so far… Plus some of the meals are kinda same-y? I don’t know. I guess maybe that’s me, I tend to pick out meals that are same-y? But the spices, the panko, the veggies, the sides…there’s a lot of stock stuff here. Ah well.

*****
Let’s be real. I have another two weeks of Hello Fresh that I’m locked into, and while I’m sure some meals will be better than others, what I’ve really affirmed is this: I despite cooking. I always did, and I’m not sure why I thought a meal kit would improve the situation. I think I thought it would be more organized, less chaotic, etc. Maybe I thought the ingredients would already be prepped, so there would be less work to do. But I guess people get this because want to feel like they’re really cooking and don’t know how to start? I mean, we’ve cooked from home – including meal planning, grocery shopping, etc – for years, so that part isn’t new. I don’t really need step by step instructions. What I need is something I can pop in the oven with very little work on my part. TV-dinners, except healthy. Maybe I just need to start grabbing the Meal Simple kits at HEB a couple times a week. I don’t know. But I won’t keep this subscription after my trial period. Too much cost for something that stresses me out both by the amount of cooking and the quantity of cooking utensils used. Be more efficient, HF! Heh.

Also, I despise our kitchen. It looks big and pretty and stuff, but the layout is awful, especially when two people are cooking. I can’t wait to redo the entire thing one day. (Well, no, I can’t wait to PAY SOMEONE ELSE to redo the entire thing one day. If I don’t specify that, J will take it as an invitation to do it himself, ha!)

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Wellness Wednesday – Hikes of 2021, #41-46

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Thistle

I’ve been sticking mostly to the same parks I always hit. With the heat as bad as it is, and me not wanting to get up super duper early in the morning, I tend to stay at closer locations. But there were two new-to-me parks in this batch, which is nice! And just wait for my next update – it’ll be ALL new-to-me parks and some really cool stuff, I promise!

41. This evening hike was sooooo hot and muggy. I hadn’t been out to this trail in months, and I didn’t realize just how overgrown everything would be, locking in humidity and stifling the breeze. It was still a nice walk in many ways – lots of young deer around with their mothers (dozens!), and we got to introduce the Big Tree to a few newer members of the group. On the way home, a lightning storm started.

Continue reading →

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Sunday Coffee – 100 Happy Days, Part 1

Posted on September 26, 2021 by Thistle

I was not doing well mentally over the summer, so I made myself a personal 100-day challenge that began September 1st. My plan was to discuss it here at some point. Honestly, the plan was overly ambitious and stressful, so after about two weeks, I gave it up. The only part I kept was the #100happydays photo challenge.

I’ve done this particular photo challenge three times in the past, all during particularly stressful times in my life. The point is to find and photograph something that brings you joy every day for 100 days in a row. I completed this challenge in the summers of 2014, 2015, and 2018 – again, all particularly difficult periods of my life. Since I was struggling again this summer, I embarked on the photo challenge again. Now, I’m a quarter of the way through, and while I’m not going to post every photo here of course, I wanted to post a few of my favorites from the first 25 days of this challenge. In no particular order:

From 9/20 – On this day, Angus and Ghost had their neuter surgeries. They were gathered up and taken to the vet very early in the morning, which is always a bit traumatic for the kittens. They’re terrified of being caged or forced into situations where they have no control – it’s leftover from their feral days. Gherkin can’t get her surgery yet, so she was left alone afterwards, and she was extremely anxious all day. Very clingy in a way that isn’t normal for her. I spent a lot of the day comforting her, and it made me so happy to be able to do so. This kitten has come to trust us so much, and she was always the most wary of the four.

From 9/7 – Snail!!! (I love these little guys!)

From 9/9 – Ghost is the most beautiful of our foster kittens. Those grey stripes and amber eyes…

From 9/23 – Jason bought me this Halloween/sugar-skull vase and flowers for the beginning of fall.

From 9/18 – Ghost, Angus, Atticus. Kitty-piles never fail to warm my heart.

Some of those photos are going to end up as favorites for the month too, I can tell. And as you might expect, they’re quite kitten-centric. In fact, for the first 25 days of this challenge, 11 are cat-based, and that’s with me actively trying not to choose cat photos daily! The cats are the biggest happy in my life right now. And frankly, I’m not doing terribly well, still. My mental health is still really unwell. So I’m glad I have this one touchstone to hold onto.

If you want to see more of the challenge photos, I’m posting them both on FB and my Instagram.

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Quarantine Diaries – Week 80

Posted on September 24, 2021 by Thistle

It was a fairly calm week, so let’s get to it. This week’s numbers:

  • Cases: 306,769 (+4,615)
  • Deaths: 4,314 (+152)
  • Seven-day rolling average: 595 (-213/day)
  • Positivity rate: 4.9% (-2.2%)
  • Cases per 100k: 41.7 (-2.8)
  • Hospitalizations: 820 patients; 289 in ICU
  • Vaccinations: 1,483,257 first dose (89% of eligible population, 74% total); 1,226,944 fully vaxxed (73% of eligible, 61% total)
  • In L’s classes: none this week (cumulative: 5 students, 6 staff)
  • Week 5 for our school: 13 students, 2 staff (cumulative: 56 students, 4 staff)

There really isn’t a lot of news this week. Statewide, the number of kids with covid during the first month that classes were back in session is almost the same as the cumulative total for the entire 2020-21 school year. Yikes. Last month, 12.5% of all covid cases were for ages 9 and under, which is really high compared to previous variants of the disease. Hospitals and specialists in town are seeing an alarming number of teens (who previously had covid) with severe blood clots, especially clots in the lungs. The number of deaths in the US reached a grim milestone this week too – we’ve now surpassed the number of US Spanish Flu deaths. Border patrol stopped shipments of millions of fake vaccine cards. And on a more personal level, another friend of mine has contracted covid. She’s fully vaccinated and her symptoms are mild, but a loved one of hers, also fully vaccinated, is in the hospital with covid pneumonia.

(cases separated by vaccination status)

In better news, my family all got their flu shots this week, and as of yesterday, I qualify for the covid booster shot. I was originally supposed to qualify for my third dose starting October 1st, eight months after my second, but the CDC ruled that six months was sufficient. Sadly, they also ruled against third doses for people without underlying conditions, which leaves my husband and sons helpless for now. At least they got their vaccines later (March, April), so they still have more immunity from them! As for mine, my doc told me that she had very little reaction to the first two doses but this one knocked her on her butt for a few days, so I anticipate I’ll have some more major side effects again. We’ll see. And last but not least, the library system in town is going back to seven-day service next week, for the first time since March 2020! I mean, they were almost back to normal, with Mondays added a month or two back, and this will just add Sunday as well. But it’s nice to have a bit more normalcy anyway!!

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Wellness Wednesday – 100 Days Coffee-Free

Posted on September 22, 2021 by Thistle

One of my primary goals for the year was to cut out coffee. In mid-July, thanks to my hospital stay, I did that. For 19 days, I didn’t drink any coffee. On day 20, I caved and had an iced coffee. Since then, I’ve had coffee once every few days. Despite everything. Despite the fact that I know I feel like crap in the days that follow. Despite not sleeping as well when I drink it. Despite knowing that this is probably an allergy and causing a lot of inflammation. I keep making these goals to cut it out completely before giving up after a couple days. I can’t tell you how many pretty little graphs and such that I’ve drawn out to color in as I make it closer and closer to my goal of 100 days coffee-free, only to fall off the wagon four or five days in.

It’s funny – I remember doing the same exact thing with alcohol. I was never addicted to alcohol the way I was with coffee, but I had begun drinking a glass of wine when my anxiety was bad, and I knew that was a dangerous path to go down. Additionally, I tended to have more binge-eating issues when I was drinking alcohol regularly. Plus, I wondered if drinking alcohol, which I’d only started doing in 2014, was at the root of my inability to lose weight. So for a while there, I made goals to go 100 days alcohol-free and 100 days binge-free. I hit both goals in early 2019, and have continued to stay mostly binge- and alcohol-free in the years since.

My old bujos are marked with counters – habit-trackers where I counted days, starting over whenever I had a drink or a binge. I did this rather than make a full 100-day color-in graph, because there’s no room for messing up or an off-day in that kind of graph form. You can’t un-color-in days. Which is really frustrating when you only make it a few days in, and would probably be even MORE frustrating if you make it to almost 100 days before something goes wrong!

I’ve spent too much time making perfection-needed goals, rather than keep-trying-until-you-make-it goals with regards to coffee over the last few months. So I’m leaning back into that 2018-2019 headspace, learning from my younger self. Addiction is a hard thing to break, especially when it’s also tied to self-soothing, identity, anxiety, and ritual. I’ve done really well to finally get to the point where I’m not drinking coffee daily, and no longer getting caffeine headaches. Eventually, I’ll be able to cut it out entirely. In the meantime, I need to give myself grace to fall off the horse and get back up again the next day.

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Ghosts of the Tsunami, by Richard Lloyd Parry

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Thistle

Subtitled: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone

In March 2011, an enormous earthquake shook Japan. Afterwards, one of the largest earthquake-driven tsunamis swept over communities in the northeast part of the country. In this book, Parry lets the survivors tell their stories of the time leading up to the disaster, and the aftermath that followed.

I want to start by discussing what led me to this book, the weird roundabout way I ended up going full-circle. It began in 2011, because a friend of mine actually lived in the disaster zone and was very close to the nuclear power plant explosion that also resulted from the tragedy. He and his wife were safe, and shortly thereafter, moved to the US. I’ve talked with him, and might have a guest post soon about his personal experiences living through March 2011. More on that later in this post. Because of my friend’s experiences, this is one natural (well, and not-natural) disaster that has stayed with me.

Then last year, when the new Unsolved Mysteries season came out, one of their episodes was about the tsunami, and especially about the ghost/spirit phenomena that occurred afterwards. I’m not here to make any judgements about what is/isn’t paranormal and/or coping mechanisms, religion, etc. I found the episode fascinating, but mostly because it was the first time I’d seen clear footage of the tsunami. It made me want to learn more – less about the “ghosts” and more about the experience of the tsunami itself. I was told that the episode borrowed heavily from Ghost of the Tsunami, so I picked out this book, hoping that from it, I could get further resources on what I was looking for. Ironically, the book ended up exactly what I was looking for, with only two small sections discussing the focus of the UM episode; the rest far more about the experience of disaster.

I have never lived through a mass disaster, natural or otherwise. (Well, at least not one that I haven’t been far removed from – the whole country is experiencing the pandemic and the US is doing a sh!t job at managing it, but that’s a different situation altogether.) I’ve watched various disasters from afar – hurricanes and shootings and the twin towers and tsunamis and more. I know well what it feels like to experience secondhand horror, like most folks. But I’ve never experienced tragedy on a large scale myself, and in general, I like learning about the experiences of others (good and bad) that I haven’t had. I am not a grief or tragedy vampire, however, vicariously living through others’ pain and reveling in it. I want to learn, but I want to do so respectfully. In the past, I have put back nonfiction (or turned off documentaries) where authors treat their subject exploitatively, and I was prepared to do the same with this one. However, it was not at all exploitative. Parry was careful with the subject, let those who lived through the disaster tell their stories, and kept himself in the background. It was excellent journalism.

For this reason, I’m not going to say much more about the contents of this book. I wouldn’t do it justice. A thirdhand account isn’t something anyone needs from me. Instead, I’m going to encourage anyone who is interested in this subject to pick up this book. Don’t be thrown by the title or the UM episode – this is not about ghosts in the traditional paranormal sense.

As for my friend, I reached out to ask if he would be interested in sharing his experiences in a guest post here. Personally, I think that the closest we can get to understanding a situation, without going through it ourselves, is through the stories of people who did. I wanted to give him a chance to tell his story, if he wanted, and to give y’all a chance to read it, if y’all wanted. So look for that coming soon.

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Sunday Coffee – My Favorite Smoothie

Posted on September 19, 2021 by Thistle

I shared this recipe on my other social medias, but I love it so much that I decided to put it here too. I’ve made quite a number of different protein smoothies over the years, some better than others. But recently, I made one that is absolutely the best – creamy and delicious like a chocolate milkshake. And I don’t mean a “pretend banana tastes like cream” kind of milkshake. I detest banana and think that its use as a food substitute, much like cauliflower, is an abomination.

The first step is to pick out your fruits and veggies. The only one that is a must-have for this particular smoothie is avocado. I use frozen avocado just because it’s easier, but you can use fresh as well. There are no exact measurements, but I’d guess I throw in about a quarter to third cup of avocado. For the rest, you can do as you like. Personally, I find frozen butternut squash to be a good veggie for smoothies because you really can’t taste it at all. Fresh summer squash or zucchini is the same. For this smoothie, I use butternut. Then I choose two frozen fruits, usually peaches and strawberries, like pictured here. Depending on how you like to flavor your milkshake, you can use blueberries, oranges, mango, pineapple, cherries, etc. I personally don’t use raspberries or blackberries because their seeds are too big and it ruins the texture, but that’s entire up to each individual. Why frozen fruits and veggies? I don’t like using ice in smoothies, because the texture never gets thick and the ice stays in tiny melting chunks. Most of the time, I’ll use 2-3 frozen items and one fresh, so that it ends up with a perfect thick milkshake consistency.

Second step: Add your protein powder, unsweetened cocoa powder, and sweetener to taste. I use Puori dark chocolate why protein powder. It’s the only whey protein powder I’ve ever tasted that didn’t leave a nasty aftertaste. With other powders, I have to use peanut butter to cut through that aftertaste, and since I found out I was allergic to peanuts, that hasn’t worked so well!! But Puori has very simple ingredients that are minimally processed, and very little sweetener (a tiny bit of coconut sugar). When I make other smoothies – for example, spinach, squash, peaches, pineapple, and lemon smoothies – I don’t use any sweetener at all. The fruit it perfect. But with this particular smoothie, the added cocoa (about 1-2 spoonfuls) requires just a little bit of sugar. I use a tiny bit of brown sugar, roughly a teaspoon, but you can use whatever sweetener you prefer.

Lastly, add liquid. In this case, I added water, but sometimes I add both water and orange juice, depending on how I feel. I tend to add water up to midway through the top fruit line, though in this particular making (that I photographed), I accidentally added more than normal. The more liquid you add, the thinner the smoothie, and this was more of a thin milkshake texture than full-on Frosty. I prefer the latter! You can tell I added too much by how high above the Fill Line the smoothie goes, heh.

So there you go. I’ve been drinking these a lot lately. Most of my smoothies are low-fat high-protein since they’re just whey protein and fruit/veg, but the added avocado in this one makes it a balanced post-workout snack or light breakfast on the go. It also helps me get in a lot of nutrition when I normally struggle with fruits and veggies. I hope to get to try out more types of smoothies that incorporate a wider variety of freggies in the future. Puori has a bourbon vanilla flavor too, and I think that would work well as a base for a pumpkin-pie smoothie!

What are your favorite protein shakes?

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Quarantine Diaries – Week 79

Posted on September 17, 2021 by Thistle

We are in the middle of a worrisome scare here this week. Ambrose’s college just opened up to on-campus students last week. He only has two in-person classes, on Mondays and Wednesdays. Monday, he went to these classes, and by Wednesday, he found out that one of his profs had come down with covid. Ambrose had been wearing a mask and was in the back of the classroom, but that’s still worrisome. It just shows how hard it is to truly plan for this disease. A potential two-week incubation and infectious period pre-symptoms is just nuts. How many people were potentially exposed? What if Ambrose, who shows no symptoms, later develops them, and the rest of us have been exposed in the meantime? What of the doctor’s office that I was at on Tuesday, in a busy waiting room – could I have spread it to another couple dozen people? It’s so hard to deal with a disease that’s so silent and invisible for so long! Hopefully, the vaccine and masks and other protocols we use will keep us all safe, but sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s been 18 months now, and somehow the four of us have been lucky. How long can that luck hold out?

This week’s numbers:

  • Cases: 302,154 (+6,201)
  • Deaths: 4,162 (+145)
  • Seven-day rolling average: 808 (-175/day)
  • Positivity rate: 7.1% (-0.5%)
  • Cases per 100k: 44.5 (-6.5)
  • Hospitalizations: 960 patients including 330 in ICU **Note: A quarter of all hospital patients in our county are covid patients.
  • Vaccinations: 1,458,525 first dose (87% of eligible population, 73% total); 1,191,883 fully vaxxed (71% of eligible, 59.5% total)

The school number situation has gotten a bit more complicated. We got a notice this week that said due to parent outcry, weekly counts per school would be available on the district website. This is likely due to the difficulty of getting a clear picture of what’s going on when you only find out about cases that are in your kid’s class(es). I mean, what do they do about lunch periods, when a quarter of the school is all in one place? Does that count as a “class”? The potential contact across the room in a cafeteria is far different from one in a small classroom, or an after school club! It gets especially confusing when we get notices that say things like this:

If we quarantined Laurence every time we got a notice home, he’d be a virtual student. We get at least two notices per week! And then there’s the fact that after 20 days at home, it’s considered an absence. So we couldn’t do that anyway. Besides, this is all in the process of changing, because Abbott decided he’d rather go back on outlawing virtual school rather than on outlawing mask mandates in schools. So suddenly school districts across the state are being required to offer virtual options with no planning and no infrastructure, because the time when they do all that (the summer break), they weren’t allowed to. It’s a MESS. Anyway, Laurence doesn’t want to return to virtual school, and since he’s vaccinated, we won’t make him, but we’re also not going to quarantine him every time we get a letter home! Sheesh.

But going back to the school numbers. The district put up the weekly positive case counts for all 70 campuses for Week 3 last week. We don’t have the data from before that. But our high school, one of 70 campuses and NOT the highest in student body, came in with the highest total number of student cases in the entire district (31). To give some perspective, the entire school year last year, there were 160 total cases at our school. So we almost hit a fifth of that in a single week. Looking at the feeder middle and elementary schools, they’re also very high, so it looks like my little area of the city is being hit hard with covid at the moment. Sigh.

  • In L’s classes: 1 student, 0 staff
  • Cumulative: 5 students, 6 staff
  • Week 4 for our school: 12 students, 0 staff
  • Cumulative: 43 students, 2 staff <– This is less than the above because they gave us no numbers for the first two weeks of school in the total school cases. Sigh.

That’s how I plan to track the school numbers going forward.

There’s not a lot of other news this week. The big one is that Pfizer released a timeline of applying for EU status on its vaccines for kids (ages 5-11 by the end of this month, ages 6-mo to 5 in early November). I will feel much better once this has been approved and there’s less danger to all these kids going to school!! Especially since the school situation continues to remain stupid. There’s the above notice from our district, and the state is re-suing the district here in SA that is requires vaccines. Not sure how they plan to get away with it since the state’s no-mandate directly conflicts with the federal yes-mandate. But that’s for the politicians and lawyers to hash out.

Meanwhile, people continue to do and say that stupidest things. Newest trend: ingesting or gargling Betadine, which is a topical anti-bacterial solution for cuts and scrapes. It’s what they use on stitches post-surgery, and it has a lot of iodine in it, so the people ingesting it are getting iodine poisoning. OMFG, the idiots. There are anti-vaxxers complaining about being “bullied” because the public health directors keep talking about needing to get the vaccines and wear masks, because they’ve clearly never been bullied in their lives. Then there is this bit of beautiful stupidity.

(PS: The first amendment has nothing to do with travel or health requirements, either.)

Seriously, this kind of thing could be an art installation: A Tribute to American Uneducation. (Yes, the misspelling is on purpose.)

Not much else to report. Sadly, a football coach at one of our local high schools passed away from covid this week. He was 29 and had been in the hospital for months. And one of our performing arts centers has found a creative way to handle vaccinations, which circumvents any politics. They are letting the artists who come decide how strict they require the center to be with patrons. So for some performances, you might have to provide proof of vaccination, and others, a recent negative test might do. I guess that’s one way to do it!

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