Category: covid-19

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend has finally arrived. My favorite of all the long weekends. Sure Covid has destroyed it, but at least they can’t take it away from us completely.

Today is the first day we spent with my step daughter who is home from college. She’s going to spend the rest of the long weekend at her dad’s because that’s just the way the calendar worked out. Still, I am so glad she’s here.

We are doing a zoom Thanksgiving tomorrow with my side of the family. I don’t think my step kids will be available, but I hope we can sneak them in for a few minutes at least.

Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday. It’s going to take more than a global pandemic and a worldwide quarantine and the end of American democracy to ruin it for me. Damn right.

Back to Remote

My step son, Harry, started the school year at full remote but after a couple of weeks they switched to a hybrid plan where he was at home part of the week and at the high school the rest of the time.

Over the last few weeks the school system has seen an uptick in Covid-19 cases. Tonight they announced that a staff member at the high school tested positive and they are switching back to full remote for at least a couple of days.

I don’t want anyone to get sick, but mostly I don’t want people who regularly come into contact with members of my family to get sick. I don’t know if that happened in this case, but I have to admit that I’m pleased he doesn’t have to go into the school building tomorrow.

I’m so thoroughly sick of this bullshit.

Adventure

I left the house tonight and went somewhere that required me to actually get out of the car. Crazy, huh?

A package needed shipping. There were people around, but no one within about 50 yards so it was quarantine-safe. I still had a mask and gloves on, just in case.

Social distance like a mo-fo, bro.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 64, aka The Perfect Delivery Storm

I just survived a perfect storm of deliveries. George Clooney was there and everything. It was crazy.

First, a package delivery service. I don’t know which one. The two packages came from Amazon, so was it an Amazon truck? No clue. What I do know is that the delivery professional leaned the two boxes against my door.

Let me type that out again in case you missed it. He/she/they leaned the packages against my door.

How, dear delivery professional, am I supposed to go outside and get the delivery if I cannot open the door because you leaned the friggin packages against the door?

Prior to my finding out about the first delivery, Instacart came by and dropped off some groceries. They did not block the door, because the door was already blocked. There is a little porch outside of our front door that has three steps leading up to it. They placed the groceries on the first step. They completely covered the whole step.

That sounds worse than it was. If someone who has a physical issue and can’t walk well came to our house they might have trouble, but for a reasonably healthy person, walking over the first step should be doable. It’s not ideal, but it’s not as bad as leaning the boxes against the door.

When we received the notification that instacart had been delivered, I went out to get it. That’s when I noticed that I could not open the friggin door because of the first delivery. Have I hammered home how obnoxious it is for a delivery person to block the door with the delivery? If I haven’t, it’s friggin obnoxious. Anyway, I looked out the window in our door to see why I couldn’t open the door, and that was when the perfect storm was completed. The mailman was two houses down the street, and heading our way.

Our mailbox is next to the door, at the top of the three steps. If the mailman arrived he’d have to step over the groceries. Shit. I can’t ask the mailman to do that, can I?

I forced the door open. I had to push the boxes aside and then swing my foot through the small opening and kick the boxes further away. Once I was able to squeeze out I grabbed the two boxes and threw them into the house (not literally, I placed them inside the door) and then jumped over the groceries and cleared a path. I got back in the house just in time to avoid Covid contact with the mail carrier. I did see that he was wearing a mask, which made me happy.

A minute or two later I had all of the groceries inside and put away. The boxes are in our little package staging area waiting for me to open them up later.

Please… if you’re delivering stuff… don’t block the door. Don’t block the steps either, but more important, don’t block the damn door.

Thanksgivmas

I think I might need to admit defeat on this one.

Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday. I probably post that every year but it’s true. I just love me some Thanksgiving.

This year, Covid-19 is screwing everything up. No large groups. No family gatherings. Effectively no Thanksgiving. The kids are at their dad’s on the day itself, and also for that whole weekend. That means Jen and I will be alone. We’ll do something low key, and then have a full blown Thanksgiving on the first weekend they are with us. It will be a great Thanksgiving, even if it’s not on Thanksgiving.

What else does this mean though? What other effects does the lack of a normal Thanksgiving have? In a word: Christmas.

It’s November 18th and it’s safe to say that Christmas is already here. The Christmas lights are on the house, there’s a new fake tree that’s ready to be put up, there is a huge box full of new decorations just waiting for the go ahead.

One more thing? Jen bought a Christmas theme quilt for our bedroom. It was delivered yesterday. It’s in the washing machine right now. Before we sleep tonight, it will be on the bed.

It’s November 18th and the Christmas decorations are already going up. We’re going to have Christmas for Thanksgiving this year and no amount of complaining by your humble narrator here is going to stop it. Ho Ho Gobble Gobble Ho.

Eleven Million

Milestone after milestone. Today’s a big day for the USA.

USA!
USA!
USA!

According to the Johns Hopkins Dashboard:

It took 26 days to go from six million cases to seven million cases.
It took 22 days to go from seven million cases to eight million cases.
It took 15 days to go from eight million cases to nine million cases.
It took 11 days to go from nine million cases to 10 million cases.
It took 7 days to go from 10 million cases to 11 million cases.

You read that right, boys and girls. One Million Covid-19 cases in one week.

In the month of October there were 1,818,062 cases (according to my daily check ins with the John Hopkins site). In the first 15 days in November, we have had 1,801,461 cases.

Way to go, USA.

Eventful Day

We’ve done some noteworthy stuff today. Jen cut my hair again. It was longer in the back than on top. Now it’s short everywhere.

Jen got a new phone. We spent 900 hours on the phone with Verizon trying to set it up. It’s all set now.

I hung more Christmas lights outside of the house. This goes against every holiday instinct for me. You don’t put up Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving, you just don’t. Still… Covid, right? There are lights all over the house.

I also, and this is venturing into TMI territory, installed a new toilet seat. Can you dig it? I mean… shit, man (pun intended).

Why am I sharing all of this? I don’t know. I guess it’s just to stop myself from publicly making fun of the so called million maga march today. They made this big deal about how they were going to gather in huge numbers to protest the so called stealing of the election (which is hilarious). What actually happened was a crowd of a few hundred people shouting dumb slogans.

Oh the poor, poor trump cult. How sad they must be that reality keeps kicking them in the proverbial nuts.

Another Bad Luck Coronaversary

Friday March 13, 2020. That was my last day in the office before the Coronavirus shut down started.

Friday November 13, 2020. Today. Yet another Friday the 13th. Eight months and counting.

We have a new President Elect, we have rumblings of a very effective vaccine, no one in my family has Covid-19, we still haven’t really left the house to speak of but everyone is Corona-Free.

Eight months. 10,642,218 sick Americans. 243,044 dead Americans.

I don’t really have anything else to say. I still feel the need to recognize the monthaversary, but this is normal now. Working from home. Never leaving the house, more or less. My company is still hinting that we’ll be back to the office at least some of the time after the new year. I don’t think I’m ready for that. Short of a vaccine I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for that.

I really want this to be over though. My soul is feeling pretty crushed right now.

Uncle, right?

Halloween Plans

So with over 1400 new cases of Covid-19 in Massachusetts today, and over 80,000 new cases nation wide, I figured I’d bring up the topic of Halloween plans.

What are you folks doing?

Wanna know what we’re doing?

Our plans are to turn off all the lights outside of the house, turn off all the lights inside the house that face the street, close all of the curtains, lock ourselves into a room in the back of the house and act like Shaun and Liz and Ed and Dianne and David and Shaun’s mom from Shaun of the Dead and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

Happy Covid-ween, everyone. Stay home and wash your damn hands!