I keep doing this but here’s something I posted one year ago today:
Just in case you forgot that society fell apart in March 2020 and here we are in February 2021 and it still hasn’t come back online yet.
We are only 15 days away from the one year anniversary of my last day in the office. It’s been a brutally long two weeks.
Screw you, Covid-19.
Methuen is setting up a vaccination clinic of it’s own. It’s at The Loop and it’s open on March 2nd. I just looked at the appointment sign up and it’s all booked solid. If you qualify, keep an eye on this site and maybe you’ll stumble on a cancelation or something. I don’t see anything about it being open beyond March 2nd, but I guess we’ll have to see. There are only so many vaccine doses available, and anyone with a brain wants one.
Today is the magical day.
Back story: I’ve been working from home for over 11 months now and there hasn’t been a single instant, not even a nanosecond, when I’ve missed commuting. Not one. I do not miss cramming my fat ass into a metal box for 80 minutes or so, working 8.5 hours, and then getting back into the metal box for another 80 minutes. I don’t miss it even one tiny little bit.
However… When I was commuting there was one day of each year that was sort of magical. It was sort of a light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel of which I speak is winter. It does not involve a groundhog or anything like that, it only involves the sun.
My shift ends at 5:30 PM. That’s 1730 for you military time folks. During the winter, when I left the building to go home it was dark. During the summer it’s light. You know how the sun works and seasons and all of that, right? You know what I’m talking about.
The one special, magic day each year was the first day when the sun set at the same time my shift ended. 5:30 PM. The sun would, of course, be down by the time I actually go out the door, but that’s not the point. The point is from that day forward, the days were not only getting longer but I could actually perceive them getting longer. Does that make sense? Sunset at 4:30 or 5:00 didn’t affect me at all because I was inside the whole time and I didn’t actually get to experience the extra minute or so of light each day. Once the sun started setting after 5:30, I did get to experience the extra light.
So every year I would check the times of the sunset and quietly celebrate the symbolic moment when the sunset started happening after my work day.
Today is that day. It’s Friday February 25, 2021 and the sunset in Methuen, MA today will happen at 5:30 PM Eastern Standard Time.
Happy 5:30 day, everyone. Enjoy.
Massachusetts is going to allow people into arenas for sporting events starting March 22nd. Yet they can’t offer vaccines to people under 65 years old unless they have two of a short list of comorbidities.
I believe they are going to allow entry to 12% of the building capacities. That’s 2107 Bruins fans, 2234 Celtics fans, and once the season starts, 4553 Red Sox fans.
A gathering of 2,000 people… yes there will be social distance and masks and all of that… still… If the Bruins play three games in a week, that means we could have three super spreader events in town in a single week.
We’re never going to get out of this covid mess, are we.
I can’t believe it. One year ago today Jen, Harry, and I landed in Florida for a week in Disney World.
Civilization has more or less collapsed since then. It’s amazing how much things have changed.
Will it ever go back to normal, or is the way things are today what normal will be from now on? Ugh… I hate waxing philosophic. Bite me, Socrates.
Well, this morning one of our smoke detectors started giving the low battery squawk. We needed a tried and true handy man to track it down, take it off the ceiling, change the batteries, and put it back on the ceiling. We needed a hero. Fortunately that hero was available and came through for us. That hero… was me.
Yes, Robert is so tall that when the low battery squawk starts his head is close enough to the ceiling that he can both track down the ailing unit and reach up to unscrew it from its perch. Yes, his skills are virtually endless. The biggest challenge though was getting the dying batteries out of the damm thing. Something about the model we have, they really stick those batteries in there good. I was, of course, able to prevail in that struggle, and all is well with our smoke detecting system once more.
Please, please, no applause. Just throw money.
Now if I could just figure out why my SleepWatch report from last night keeps disappearing (was it because my watch was on the charger?) and why I only managed an 8% sleeping heart rate dip last night. That is just not optimal! (On the report it labels 8% as “not optimal” so you see what I did there?)
I really need Covid to be over. Really.
Did you know that your dental health is a factor in your heart health? I sure didn’t. My father found out today when they took out some of his teeth in preparation for upcoming heart surgery. Who knew?
Subject change: Rush Limbaugh died. When I was a kid I was taught that if you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at all. So there you go.
Subject change: We got the expected date of my step son’s high school graduation ceremony. Mid June. Please, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, get all of us our respective Covid-19 vaccinations by then. Please, Covid-19, don’t ruin this for him on top of everything else.
Subject change: I had a really crummy nights sleep last night. I went to bed about 10:30, woke up a little before midnight, and didn’t get back to sleep until after 2:00. Today is shaping up to be a rough one. I need a nap. A long nap.
Subject change: I’ve got nothing else to say right now. I read this morning that we’re supposed to get another snow storm later tomorrow. I want Spring. Now. I want my whole extended family, including everyone in my step kids’ other house, to get their vaccine shots. Now. I’m tired of all of this crap. I want my father’s medical ordeal to end. Now. I want everything to go back to pre-March 2020 normal. Now.
My mother got her first vaccine shot today. I think in the whole extended family including the co-parenting household, that is four people with the first shot. We still have way to many waiting for the first round, and everyone needs the second round. My mother has an appointment for the second shot, one month from today.
Happy Vaccining, everyone! Bring it on!
Thanks to that prick Covid, we can’t go to stores. All of our home goods needs are coming from The Amazon. (I’m thinking about referring to Amazon.com as The Amazon. I’m not sure if I like it, I’m just trying it on for size.) That includes stuff like ice melt for the driveway. I’ve bought a couple of three gallon tubs of it. The first tub ran out when I cleaned up the snow on Monday morning. I knew it was coming so I had a second tub ready to go.
It snowed last night. Just a little, barely enough to cover the driveway, but I went outside and shoveled it all anyway. Good doobie and all that shit. When the driveway, walkway, and fire hydrant were all clear I went to put some ice melt down for the instacart delivery folks who are going to be here this morning. I couldn’t do it though. The cover on the second, as yet still unopened, tub was defective. There is supposed to be a pull tab, but it was still molded into the plastic cover. I was quickly able to cut it out with my trusty Swiss Army Knife (the true hero of Covid in our house, so much so that Santa brought one for Jen and Harry) but it didn’t help. I could grab the pull tab but I couldn’t actually pull it. Defective all around.
I tried cutting the pull strip off but I couldn’t get it. My Swiss Army Knife’s first ever fail. I tried prying the cover off with a screw driver but it wouldn’t come. Finally I did what Emperor Palpatine is always telling me to do. I gave in to the hate. I channeled all of the slasher flicks I’d ever seen back in my horror movie watching 20’s and I took my knife and stabbed it through the top of the lid. I carved around the edge enough that I could pull it back to make an opening…
…and I poured the new tub into the old tub and carried on with my day.
I blame Covid. You should too.
I’ve been so out of touch with humanity the last week that I missed that the Bruins had two games postponed due to Covid-19. Saturday and Monday vs Buffalo are both postponed. I did the absolute minimum of research possible this morning and found that the blame lies with New Jersey. The Devils and the Sabers played a game this week while the Devils had positive cases. I don’t know the background. Did they know and play anyway? I hope not. That game lead to a couple of Buffalo players catching the coronavirus so they have a week’s worth of games pushed off. That means that after tonight’s game, the Bruins are off until Wednesday the 10th. Good for them to have a little extra rest. Bad for me who needs hockey, Bruins hockey.
Inside the Red Head's Head 