Category: Family

I’m Guessing That’s a Bad Sign

So the Covid journey of the last few days. I haven’t said which of us tested positive, but I need to now. It was my wife, the love of my life, Jen. She woke up feeling shitty on Friday and we started driving home from Florida. She was worse on Saturday and worse still on Sunday. She also had her first positive Covid test on Sunday. Today she’s feeling really sick. She’s clearly in for a few rotten days.

Me? Even though I spent all of that time sitting next to her in the car I have been feelin’ fine. Today I’ve been freezing cold all day, but that’s been the norm over the last year or so. My nose has been a little runny. I chalked that up to being so cold, but it has been a smidgen on the concerning side. I tested negative for Covid this morning so that’s cool. I also just ripped off two very emphatic sneezes… well… shit. That seems like it might be a bad sign, right?

Here’s hoping that Jen starts to feel better before I start to feel super bad. That way I can take care of her at the worst and she can take care of me at the worst. That would be helpful for both of us.

Back Home for Reals

We got home to Boston and that’s when the Covid test came back positive. We dropped our bags off at the house and then went to the doctor and then went to the pharmacy. It took hours. Finally by 4:45pm we got home to stay. We’re in quarantine land now and that’s a pain in the ass, but it’s also a good thing. We’re going to be living with Instacart and Amazon for a week or so. Doordash is bringing dinner as we speak.

We are back to 2020 lockdown again. I was really hoping we were done with this shit forever, but there you go. Get well soon, us.

The ‘Rona Rears it’s Ugly Head

We both knew it was coming, even though I would not admit it and will deny it for ever, but after two days of negative tests we had a positive Covid-19 test today. I’m still not going to say which of us is sick, but as of this moment it’s still just one of us. That will change soon enough, I’m sure.

We are hanging out at an urgent care parking lot waiting for them to tell us we can come inside. We are hoping for a prescription for paxlovid to help things along.

Wish our immune systems luck. Yippee.

Friday Drive

Okay, so what happened with the Disney World trip? Put simple, it ended. One of us woke up feeling sick this morning. I won’t say which one, but there are only two of us here, me and my wife, so your chances of guessing correctly are pretty freakin’ good.

Anyway, one of us woke up sick and we debated what to do about it. Stay at Disney World and see if we felt better, then fly home on Sunday. What if we feel worse and we’re just completely miserable in a hotel room for three days and then go through the hellish torture that is flying while under the weather? If you’ve never been on a plane before while you are sick then you might not know how awful an experience it can be. I’ve done it. I never want to do it again.

Also, what if whatever bug we caught turns out to be Covid-19? We can’t fly knowing we have the ‘rona. I’m sure people do it every day, but I won’t be one of them. I am not putting other people at risk that way. No, I put my foot down. I made the call. We’re driving home now. We already had a rental car to get to and from the Orlando airport. Jen called the agency and changed our drop off point to Logan Airport in Boston and off we went. We stopped to pick up some Covid tests just to be sure and they were negative. We’ll probably test again before we get home, and I am willing to bet we’ll still be negative then.

Right now it’s about 9:30pm and we’re in a hotel room somewhere in the middle of South Carolina. We will wake up early in the morning and head out again. I doubt we’ll make it all the way home tomorrow, but we’ll chew up a good chunk of route 95 North and see how far we can get. We’re about 900 miles from home right now. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, but we’ll be together and that is literally all that matters to me.

Three Dates to Save

I was just wondering if there was any chance that the Boston Bruins training camp might coincide with some time off from work that I have already booked. Nope. Camp begins on the first day back from my vacation. No dice.

The other day I asked Jen if there was any chance she’d go see some live hockey with me this year. I don’t think I have a Bruins game in me after Covid. Not yet at least. That’s a smidge too much crowd, though when I stop and think of it the crowds will be a lot smaller than the crowds at Disney World were in January, specifically the fireworks show at Hollywood Studios. Still, not an NHL game. I was thinking of UMass Lowell.

I just Googled UML’s schedule. I knew there were two games against the kids school, University of Vermont, and they were both home games for UML. Those would likely be my first choice for games to see in person, unless BU or BC are lighting the world on fire, in which case I’d probably picked one of those as my first game back. Then I noticed that there is a third Vermont game. It’s on the road in Vermont. It’s Sunday December 3rd at 4:00pm. My step son is still a student at UVM and my step daughter is a graduate who still lives in Burlington. Once, pre-Covid, we tried to go to a game in Burlington but the plans fell through at the last minute.

Is it possible that the December 3rd game is now the front runner for my first hockey game post-pandemic? Maybe Jen and I could book time off for the next day so that we don’t have to worry about getting home late and working the next morning?

These are important things to ponder. Very interesting. I put all three UML/UVM games onto my Google calendar, just in case. We’ll see what happens.

Less Than Nine Hours to Go

It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.

I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.

What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.

I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.

You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!

Tough Day for Our Clan

Holy shit! I just learned of a couple of medical issues going on in my extended family today. The clan is having a rough one, indeed!

My cousin is in the hospital having sextuple bypass surgery as I type this. Sextuple! Holy shit snacks! That sounds terrifying.

Add to that, my mother’s sister, who has been dealing with cancer for years, is in the hospital too. Something about her meds not being effective anymore and causing new side effects. Lots of scans and blood tests.

What a familial kick in the balls.

Crazy Thursday

What a nutty kinda day it’s been. Sheesh.

My step son Harry is home from Vermont right now because his car is in the shop and he needed to go to a mechanic near us because he couldn’t get one near his home without having to wait for a month or two. He needs to head back to Vermont tonight, but his car isn’t going to be ready until next week.

He went through his insurance claim (long story that you will not get details on) to get a rental for the next week. At lunch today I drove him to the rental car place to pick up his temp-ride. They told him they needed to call the insurance company to verify our plan will cover the rental because he is under age. The rental agent called them and found their entire system was down. They couldn’t look up our (or anyone’s) policy.

Harry offered to stay at the rental place until it was worked out so that I could go home and get back to work. Fortunately by around 2:40 or so the insurance system issues were cleared up and he was able to drive off in his rental car. All worked out for the best eventually, but talk about annoying!

On an unrelated, less serious, but still annoying note, at around 9:30-10:00 or so this morning both cats snuck their way into the cellar. Both of them! After an hour or so I was able to coax Lily back upstairs but Robin wanted nothing to do with it. A short while later I was trying to bribe Robin upstairs with some treats and Lily ran past me and went back down stairs again! FFFFUUUU!!!! That was just before we had to go to the rental agency!

When I got home I expected them both to be sitting on the stairs waiting for the door to open. Nope. Neither of them were. I got Robin upstairs soon enough, and by 2:00 I had them both upstairs. They both tried to eat a plant, one of them knocked over a box full of guitar gear, they got into just about everything down here. There are so many places for a cat to hide, I was unable to find them on my own. I also had to trip a few mouse traps, just in case they stumbled across them. What a couple of feline jerks, right? Bad kitties!

They are upstairs now though so they are good kitties once again. Still… sheesh!

Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in nine minutes. Here’s hoping the zaniness is done for the day. I need a nap!