Stumbling Through Adulthood

1. Perry's boats -a double and a quad- placed 1st at Tail of the Lake. Haven't heard about Anne-Chloe's results yet.

2. Linnea, poor bunny, tested positive for Covid this week. Well, + on Thursday, but - by Friday. She'd been snuffly and coughing when she got back but tested - several times. Who knows when/where she got sick? Her rowing carpool buds were both + as well. She's horrified that she may have given it to them, but since Perry, who was also sick, also got - tests, I'd say it's 50/50. She's doing fine btw. School policies are a mess. Isolate for 5 days... and hope your profs are willing to make accommodations for you, but since there is no longer an online modality, who knows? I mean, when you have a quarter system being out for 5 days is pretty major.

3. I cannot believe we are leaving tomorrow. It's been a month, and so much fun! The less fun are the temps back in Seattle: high 70s and 80s. That is waaaaay hotter than we should have in October, and I've been blissfully living in 50s here. Not looking forward to the shock of heat when we get back.

Having pretty much lost yesterday, I'm finding today difficult to start.

1. First, the lol: Monday: got up early, got 12000 steps, shopped, got the fucking booster. Tuesday: took off my Fitbit when I realised that bed-to-bathroom was going to be the extent of my walking. Today: Fitbit still off, back and underarm lymph nodes in pain, but progress! Not hiding under the covers, and I figured bed-to-computer will be happening. That said, I'm seriously wiped.

2. Linnea has an appointment with a gastro for October. Dh and I will just be back, no doubt jet-lagged, but hopefully we can get some clarity on what is going on. I personally suspect GERD with anxiety, but not a doctor, so what do I know? She has been keeping track of what she eats and symptoms and from what I can see, the stomach aches and lightheadedness occur when... she hasn't gotten enough to eat the night before. We'll see.

3. Current events musings. LOL on Mar-A-Lago being raided. Day before yesterday but I'm slow. And Trump taking the 5th. Also, LOL'ing about people finding out about the Dark Brandon meme, it's been so much fun. This gal collected a bunch of them from last week: Dark Brandon Memes.

I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing every day.... I want to make sure I write while travelling in Scotland, Wales, and Iceland, and if I'm at least in the habit, it may help.

So. Last Sunday -well, Sunday 24 July- was Linnea's 19th birthday. We were slated to head out to the Oregon Coast that afternoon... but that didn't stop a) dh from doing I forget what all day Saturday (fixing the Prius? No, that was the previous weekend. Trains? I don't remember, b) me from inviting MIL and Anne-Chloe over for Linnea's birthday brunch and c) me from baking a whole bunch of cookies etc to take camping because I know my mom likes them and getting her to eat is a good thing.

What this all meant is that after brunch, it was a scramble to locate camping gear and get the car packed! We did ok, and only got out an hour later than we'd wanted, which is not bad in the large scheme of things. And didn't forget anything really important, even better.

Headed down to Salem, where we'd book a night at a Shilo Inn. I'd never been to one of those before, but the prices of hotels (perhaps because of the World Track and Field Meet in Eugene) was stupid expensive. I mean, $300 for a Holiday Inn Express? I know inflation and lots of people travelling but that's a bit much. So the Shilo Inn for a "moderate" $180 it was. Total rip-off.

They did have a free breakfast which was inedible but we each had a few bites and coffee/tea. Here's what got to me. There were a bunch of old people at the table next to us. Not masked, of course. We were. We still mask indoors and only take off masks briefly for eating, or really more often than not, don't eat out. But here we were, sucking down morning caffeine, right?

As soon as dh and I got up to refill drinks and left Linnea alone... Apparently the old people at the next table started talking loudly about "stupid people" who wear masks, because of course "masks don't work" and "it's just a cold" and really face diapers? Linnea was SO pissed. As was I. It's not the first time people have made comments like that, but I'm always angry when they make them in front of the kid, ya know? Linnea looks younger than her age, so I'm sure they were proud at the idea of humiliating and embarrassing a kid. Ugh. Putrid scum.

I just really have no desire to catch Covid, thanks.

Linnea had found her coffee unsatisfactory and because of the tummy issue she's been having she gets one cup a day, so didn't want to waste it on mediocre coffee. So to a Starbuck's we went... only to find it closed on Sunday. Went to the next one on the road to the coast and found one group who'd been milling around the previous Starbies there as well, lol. Coffee acquired we headed out to the coast.

Note: my laptop keyboard is having issues. It misses 't's often, 'r's occasionally, as well as shifts and sometimes double letters. Sorry.

Perry is still negative, which is good. He hasn't heard from his coach, which is concerning.

Perry is home for deadweek, he's rowing almost every morning and only has to drive up Wed and Fri for classes so it made sense.

But.

His coach tested positive for covid.

Crap.

That said, most rowing is outside and Perry missed Wednesday. That said, this afternoon, they were erging inside and the coach was there. So blah. We shall see.

ETA. The real bummer is that Perry is quite good about wearing his mask. He only takes it off once he's out on the water in the boat solo. Normally his risk of exposure would be pretty low, but he wasn't able to erg this afternoon with the mask and took it off. He's tasting tomorrow morning, but I'd expect him to be negative until the early next week. Fingers crossed he stays (-) since he's supposed to fly to Florida on Saturday. And fingers crossed his coach doesn't get very sick. I didn't find out until just a few minutes ago that he tested because he was feeling like crap this evening.

One of the realities of Covid: up until Omicron, I think there was a possibility of avoiding catching it. Now with all these super-transmissible strains and so very people masking, I figure our not having already gotten it is not due to anything we're doing but to sheer luck. Luck may have run out, this is our closest contact so far.

"Sanitation means cleaning, and masks don't clean, so the CDC can't impose a mask mandate on public transportation."

We're supposed to fly in a week. I'm considering cancelling the trip, what with numbers going up and now everyone is going to be unmasked.

We need to seriously start a discussion on eugenics. I don't think it's being made clear that the drive behind siding with the virus like the Republicans and their ilk do, or capitulating to anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers like the Biden admin and that stupid CDC idiot are, is that we've decided that a whole category of people do not matter, and do not deserve for society to make even the smallest gesture to keep them safe... Indeed, the dumbass from CDC said it was "great!" that mostly the vulnerable were dying in the Omicron wave. There is still some cover being give by the media that it's freedumb! and that people can choose to wear a mask if they want and and and that doesn't get to the root that some lives have been deemed expendable. I suspect many -the Republicans- don't care and the other side is more than happy to see their complicity in eugenics not being called out.

1. Pretty much this. Twitter thread by Gregg Gonsalves. I wasn't able to read all the supporting material because of paywalls, but it's still worth a read. The Covid policy the Biden administration (and I'm putting a lot of the blame on that dumbass Walensky) is espousing is "organized abandonment". One step above let 'er rip. We're better off than before, collectively, because of vaccines, but we're still leaving too many vulnerable people behind. Of course Walensky doesn't care. Eugenics appears to be a feature for her, not a bug. Yay, Covid's only killing undesirables anyhow! ("The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with, and yes, really encouraging news in the context of omicron," is a display of who the fuck gives a shit about those unwell people. She did apologize for the comment later.)

2. Dh and I went out to eat last night. This is not a common event, it wasn't before Covid, even less now. It was nice. One thing that caught dh off guard. He didn't have his glasses, and I didn't have my credit card (long silly story), so he paid. I didn't think to help him with the tip, but eh, at the bottom of the receipt in bolded font that he could see, was a "10% tip amount, 15% tip amount, 20% tip amount (with appropriate amounts) column. So he took the 20% added it and that was that. He asked me to check his math (he really needs to start bringing his readers!) and I said nope, not enough. He pointed me to the amounts at the bottom of the page. And I -able to see the full data on the receipt, LOL- immediately noticed that those suggested tip amounts were freaking pre-tax. WTF Restaurant Software People? We NEVER tip pre-tax. Tipping, barbaric as it is, should never be pre-tax. It a balance of power between restaurant owner/patron/server, the sever has the least and is being knee-capped by the software. The patron doesn't had to pay as much -and may not even notice what they did- and this leaves them with the perceptio of lower cost. What does the business owner care? They get their full amount. This just pisses me off. I am going to Write Letters (or at least emails). We corrected the amounts. Additional small bit of annoyance. I need tell Linnea NOT to use those oh-so-handy amounts right on the bill, sigh.

3. Happy Spring to the Northern Hemisphere, Happy Autumn to the Southern Hemisphere! Watch this space. Driving Linnea back to Bellingham, hoping to have time to swing by to check out the daffodil fields (tulips next month!). If there are photos, I'll post them.

ETA Dafs, snow geese, eagles, hawks, and few herons. It was a nice drive!

CDC: majority of healthy Americans can safely take a break from wearing masks.

Dear CDC. I have no cavities. Can I safely take a break from brushing and flossing?

(*) Not true. I'm not fond of flossing but I certainly don't mind brushing my teeth. And I'll continue to wear a mask until things feel more stable.

Also. In a country without universal health care... who can say for sure that they are healthy?

Full disclosure: I think Rochelle Walensky, educated though she may be, is an idiot.

The decision appears to have been made, articulated clearly or not, that we're all Florida and Texas now, wide open, no vaccine or mask mandates, people who are at higher risk for whatever reason can just stay home, isolate, and hope for the best, LOL, when there is the reality of jobs and that not everyone has the ability to stay at home.

In some ways, I'm not surprised. It was always going to come down to choosing which lives were valuable and which we were willing to throw away, and now that the numbers are down, this choice is being put in place as quickly as government officials can do it.

This article is over a month old but does articulate a few things that are tangential to the decision, tacit or not, to "let it rip", on vaccination and choices. I'm not fond of these arguments, because as a fat person, I know my life is considered a the lowest value, so arguments, if policy cases like this person suggest, would go along the lines of "Person A is unvaccinated by choice. Person B is fatty-fat-fat by choice but vaccinated. Why should person B get an ICU bed over person A, who is thin?" Still, it's something to think about: Victims of the unvaccinated.

At some point, we will be in another Covid wave and who knows if there will be any willingness to even bother to pretend to care about others and mask up on the part of the maskholes and anti-vaxxers? I suspect there will not be and that this of it.

I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable eating out in a restaurant again. As long as there are vaccine checks, it's a bit nerve wracking but still within the realm of possibility. Next wave, there will probably be no vaccines checks, fewer people vaccinated, and nobody is going to care.

Note that if there were a low risk three shot regimen to lose weight (or be protected from weight gain), most of us would sell a kidney and a liver to get it.

Perry came down from uni yesterday, having tested negative for Covid.

His girlfriend, who is also on the rowing team, is driving down with Linnea today. Linnea tested to make sure she was also negative.

She texted us:

Tested negative for my corvid test 👍

Dh and I respond, not reading closely:

Yay!

This is a very good thing!

Anne-Chloe, reading closely, joins in on the conversation:

You're not a crow?!?! :P

Dh realizes:

OMG.... LOL

I realize:

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Anyhow, I thought it was funny.