Wearing masks are harder for people who wear glasses.
Fog
Tag: covid-19
Dutch Quarantine
If you were super curious about how The Netherlands is handling the quarantining of visitors from other countries, here’s what I know.
Bellana entered the country on Thursday morning, January 13th. She was allotted some time to get from the plane to her final destination, which was something like three hours by train, and then once she was where she was going her quarantine began. On Monday she will take a Covid test. The results will take 48-72 hours to return but once they do (assuming a negative result) she’s free to move about the country.
So worst case scenario (that doesn’t involve a positive test) is that her quarantine starts on 1/13 and ends on 1/20. Note that in The Netherlands they would say her quarantine starts on 13/1 and ends on 20/1, but that’s neither here nor there.
One funny note from our FaceTime. She has changed her weather settings on her phone to Celsius. She said it was currently 2 degrees. Jen laughed and said it was 2 degrees here too. Doing the math, our 2 degrees is -16.7 degrees for her. Brrrr, babie.
So now you’re up to date on the Dutch quarantine process for international travel. I hope you all enjoyed this little lesson.
Last Minute Lunch Post
My lunch break is ending. I had Chef Boyardee Beef Raviolis and I rode the exercise bike for six minutes and I can practically taste your jealousy.
Ugh.
I’m not keeping track of Covid-19 infection statistics anymore. I accidentally deleted my spreadsheets. Did I mention that in a previous post? I think so. I was messing with the file system on my iPad and who knew the iPad directly accessed Google Drive? I didn’t. I do now. Oops.
Anyway, I saw this tweet this morning:
I think I saw the US have a million new cases over a four day period, maybe three days, but I never saw a million cases in a day. I went to the Johns Hopkins site and poked around and sure enough there were 1.083 million cases reported on January 3rd.
These days many people (including your humble narrator) are testing at home. Is this a case of home tests taken over New Years weekend being saved up and reported to their primary care physicians all at once? Is that million cases actually from three days and not one? Does it matter?
No. No, it does not matter.
Covid-19 infections in the US are spiking like they never have before. It’s probably mostly omicron, but delta is surely still part of it too. What is it about all of these new infections that make Americans think it’s all over? I don’t get it. We locked down the entire nation for so much less than what we’re seeing today. It doesn’t matter if omicron is generally milder than delta. Even with the milder symptoms omicron is supposed to have, we still have so many more infections that hospitals will still be overrun and masses of Americans are going to die. Who cares if the death rate for omicron is down if the infection rate is so much drastically worse? You still end up with more dead people due to omicron. It’s math people. It doesn’t lie.
Shit. I wasn’t planning on writing a lunch break post that depressed the hell out of myself but here we are.
Okay, back to work, depression boy.
And So This is Monday
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended from Twitter.
Devin Nunes has left Congress.
Monday has arrived and the holiday season is over. Back to work with us.
That’s the news and I am outa here.
I don’t want to go to work today. I am sitting at my desk, looking at my computer and just thinking over and over again, I don’t want to go to work today. Really, once I punch in I will be over it and everything will be normal again, but right now? Damn it, I don’t want to go to work today.
There isn’t much else going on. I think we’re a little burned out from Christmas/New Years and are sort of ready to settle back into life. Not work though. I don’t want to go to work today. The kids will be going to their father’s tonight and staying there until some point on Wednesday. Bellana leaves for her study abroad program next week and Harry returns to school the following weekend.
For me personally, I have super shaggy Covid hair again. Back when the pandemic started, about 22 months ago, my hair was in need of a cut. Everything shut down though so I had to deal. After a month or so it was so long it was insane and Jen cut it for me. Now here we are, two years later. I was planning on getting a hair cut at the beginning of December, but that little omicron bitch came along and messed that up. I know I have three vaccine shots and everyone will be masked up, but I still don’t want to risk getting something and passing it on to the kids and screwing up their plans. Once Harry moves back to school I’ll get a hair cut. Until then… super shaggy Covid hair. Again.
There is only one other item of blog-worthy note today. It feels like it’s kicking off quite a bit early this year but…
I’ve signed up already.
Prepare yourself for the obnoxiously boring posts.
The Annual Flickr Year in Review for 2021
Most New Years I try to do a recap of the previous year by pulling one photo per month from my Flickr account. Here’s the post for 2021.
Given the circumstances there wasn’t much to choose from, and much of it was less than happy. I did my best to stay positive though.
January: what started as an attempt to redesign Jen’s bedroom closet turned into a major redesign of the whole bedroom.
February: when the bedroom redesign was done we moved to the kitchen. We didn’t finish until well into March, but it was a huge part of our February. Harry helped a ton with all of the new pre-fab furniture.
March: It wasn’t enough to lift the lock down, but I got my first vaccine shot. Team Pfizer, babie.
April: I got my second vaccine dose in April, and that did partly lift my personal lock down, but I’m not going for that this time. Instead I’m going with finally getting out from under the cellar flooding. Words can’t describe the relief I felt, though it did end up being short lived.
May: I turned 50 and my wife shocked me with a colossal birthday present.
June: One of the best days I’ve ever had. Harry graduated from high school.
July: It might not seem like a big deal, but I braved the pandemic and went to the eye doctor and got new glasses. What should have been a routine event was made stressful and difficult by Covid. My full vaccine dosage came through for me though.
August: Another huge landmark day. Harry moved into his dorm. The empty nest was in full swing and I’m still having a hard time with it, but his Fall Semester grades were excellent.
September: Remember that thing about the cellar flood? September was the month where we found the source of the second flood and got that jerk taken care of too.
October: Shot number three. I got my booster.
November: There were many drives to Vermont this year. November was one of two that I made alone.
December: There is only one moment I could use for December. The best moment of the entire year. The Christmas miracle.
And there it is, my readers and only friends. The Flickr Year in Review.
Let’s hope 2022 gives us fewer awful moments, and many more excuses for happy bad photographs.
Testing as a Family
Earlier today the four of us had the first ever (please don’t make it the first annual) Family Covid-19 Rapid Test.
Jen lined up four test kits on a table and we all got together and festively* swabbed our noses (and possibly our brains, ouch) together. Fifteen minutes later we all checked the results and wouldn’t ya know it, we were all negative!
Let the New Year commence!
I didn’t get a picture of any of it so you’ll have to settle for this picture of Patches sitting on my desk.
Enjoy!
*I say festively, but the truth is Jen had to drag the kids out of bed to do this, so it might not have been all that festive for them. College kids, ya know?
Pre New Years Eve thoughts
We are less than 90 minutes away from December 31, 2021. While I am strongly looking forward to telling 2021 to fuck off and die, I’ve also started thinking about how to celebrate the end of this dirtbag year and the start of the next year.
I’ve started thinking, but I got nuttin’.
We are going to have the first ever full family Covid test tomorrow. Nana and Papa are coming over for the delayed Christmas Eve and we need to ensure everyone is safe. Rapid tests for all and for all a negative rapid test!
I am going to set up the alternate music nook in the cellar tomorrow. I want to use my new pedals with my 18 watt amp and my KTR overdrive pedal and the rest of the band pedal board, and I also don’t want to mess with the cool setup I have in the bedroom. So two nooks it is! I’ve got a couple of tunes ready to record so I’ll use them to test drive the set up. I’m not sure I’ll actually get to play tomorrow but it is a long weekend so fingers crossed.
As for traditional stuff like New Years resolutions, I don’t have anything yet. I might not at all, but if I do I’ll share it soon enough.
Until then, happy New Years Eve Eve! What’s left of it.
Seventy-Nine Minutes
I have seventy-nine minutes to go until the long weekend. New Years is so close I can practically smell Times Square.
Two unrelated things come together in this post. First, I am curious how many of my loyal readers and only friends are planning on going out for New Years Eve. By going out I mean going someplace where more than 10 people will be present. Doesn’t matter if it’s inside or outside, I just want to know if you are going to an actual party. Second, WordPress.com has just given us access to a third party plug in/embed thing that lets us add polls and surveys and stuff like that to our posts. I add ’em and no one response to ’em, but I keep adding ’em!
I posted one of these polls the other day before I knew how to see the results without actually adding a response. Once I figured it out I found there were seven responses. Six of them were me. Wheeeee!
73 minutes to go.
What percentage of the work day is left? It’s 4:18pm. I work from 9:00am to 5:30pm. I have worked (7 * 60) + 18 = 438 minutes. There are (8 * 60) + 30 = 510 minutes in the day. I have worked ((7*60)+18)/((8*60)+30) * 100 = 85.88% of the work day. Fuck yeah, math.
Answer the poll! Polls are fun! Specifically, polls are fun when you’re a lame blog poster like me so let me have fun!
Oops: Dumb Ass
I have spent the entire duration of the pandemic keeping a couple of spreadsheets with nearly daily data for Covid-19 infections and deaths. I had line graphs and everything. March 2020 through December 2021. One sheet for Massachusetts and one for the entire United States.
Last night I accidentally deleted them both.
Oops.
Dumb ass.
Always back up your shit, kids. Always back up your shit.
Christmas: Recap
We got a little Christmas snow last night, though it may have actually been Boxing Day snow. I’m not sure. Not enough to worry about, but I started cleaning it off anyway. I’m halfway through and my back hurts so much that I can’t stand. So I will rest up a bit before taking another shot at it and while I do that I will write about what was going on over the last few days.
Last week the kids finished up their semester. Harry drove Bellana’s car home on Thursday. Bellana didn’t come with him. One of her roommates lives down south in the former confederacy (which should be pronounced the way Eric Cartman pronounces it, confederasaw). She and a third roommate helped her drive home. They made it to Virginia on Friday and the rest of the way on Saturday. She was booked to fly home late Wednesday night and get here just after midnight on Thursday.
While she was down south her roommate’s brother started showing symptoms. She saw him on Sunday and then he tested positive on Tuesday. Bellana decided she would do her quarantine at dad’s house while waiting for her PCR test results which probably wouldn’t come back until Sunday. And as such, Christmas at our house was postponed and Jen and I were crushed.
Originally we had talked about moving Christmas morning to New Years Eve as that would be the first day that Jen and I were both off from work and we could do the whole Christmas experience as if nothing had happened. Later it was decided that we would do Christmas morning on Wednesday evening as that would be the next time the kids were here (barring a positive test, of course) and really no one was going to want to wait an extra couple of days.
Yesterday they did their Christmas morning at dad’s house, which they were going to do this year regardless of Covid. In a normal year they would wake up at dad’s and come to our house in the late morning. Next year it will be the opposite. Yesterday though, as the clock ticked over to the afternoon and no kids arrived it was really just devastating. It’s such a silly thing. What difference does the calendar date make anyway. Christmas is a concept. Christmas is a feeling. Christmas is family. So what if we push it off a few days? Well… apparently the calendar date is a big deal because yesterday just felt awful.
And then…
Around 1:00pm, with our Chinese Food “traditional Jewish Christmas dinner” en route, Bellana sent a text. The PCR results were in early and she tested negative. Can they come over around 4:00pm? Yes! Yes you can! They got here and massive hugs were exchanged and Christmas commenced and all was right with the world. They were even able to join in on a quick zoom call with my brother and sister and their families. HoHoHo! Literally a Christmas miracle.
Covid can suck it, we had Christmas after all.
I can’t say it was the best Christmas ever, because the first half of the day was by far the worst, but as Christmas miracles go… I’ll take it!
And that, loyal readers, is the story of the 2021 Christmas that almost wasn’t. Covid Christmas II: The Year that Had a Santa Claus After All.
Inside the Red Head's Head 