The 'rona got me + looking ahead to spring gardens

After an evening out with a friend on Friday night, I woke early on Saturday and left for a solo 30-hour getaway in WV. Life has not been, shall we say, easy of late, and I was joyful about some quiet time with my animals and land. Halfway there, I started coughing. My chest burned as if its linings had been doused with the shittiest whisky. By 10:20a, I’d texted Tom to say that I felt truly awful and must have caught the cold that felled Jack on Wednesday. Why I didn’t think to test either him or myself is beyond me, but whatever.

The congestion revved up, my skin and teeth started to hurt, and I felt totally enervated.

Was it the two gimlets + wine? I’m no spring chicken anymore, so maybe.

I woke up Sunday not much improved and grudgingly headed home in the early afternoon. On the drive, something kicked in. I called T and he had a test waiting for me.

After all this damn time. Jack tested- positive too, though definitely a good four days ahead of me. He has felt really awful, so his double line was not a surprise result. Masks were donned, I took to the guest room, and here we are. Jack tested negative yesterday so is finally back at school with mask firmly in place. He feels better, but not good.

I still feel like roadkill, y’all. I have zero sense of smell or taste beyond what I can only describe as feeling that I burned my tongue and then licked pennies for several hours; the congestion was EPIC though that has subsided; the cough has been so severe that I have aching stomach muscles (core work! #silverlining) and have coughed up not an insignificant amount of unsightly phlegm curds; my throat is unbelievably sore such that it hurts to swallow; and I just feel tired and vague.

The acute feeling of “I am really effing sick” is gone, but yesterday I took 89 steps. Today, my step counter hasn’t even registered. All this after two initial vaccines and two subsequent boosters. I don’t even want to contemplate getting this in the absence of those mitigating factors.

I’ve done some reading (harder than you might imagine) and some student work and managed to make a large and thrilling-to-me gardening spreadsheet of all the seeds, bare root, and potted seedlings I’ve bought or are on order for spring arrival; full of all relevant info like preferred sun exposure and soil, height, animals repelled and attracted, intended planting location, and so forth, it also enables me to input and track when I started what seeds, when I upgraded their pot sizes, and when I ultimately get them into the ground or container.

So far, my wallflower seeds, both English and Fair Lady, are winning the sprouting race. Slow the train, little buddies. After just eight days I had to move their peat pots into a larger, non-covered pot because they were hitting the plastic cover of my Jiffy tray. The snapdragons and Billy buttons are up too, and I spy the rock cress and creeping thyme making their way. Part of my basement looks like a weed lab, what with pots and grow lights wired up everywhere, but it all brings me great joy, and my family kindly (and with some lovely eye rolls) alerts me when “another package from Eden Brothers arrived.” Listen, they have great seeds.

Anyway, I have showered today but that’s it. Ruthie came for a quick visit, but as per Ruthie, she’s gone again. I’m gonna finish my coffee, send vibes of love and strength to Tyre Nichols’ family while also fully understanding if they can feel nothing but grief and rage over the murder of their boy, send evil thoughts to College Board for bowing to performative GOP pressure and stripping their AP African American history course of, well, African American history, and feel thankful for science and medicine and little peat pots and the always earnest determination of nature and life.

From left: wallflowers at 4 days; snapdragons at 6.

Covid strikes, as does some malaise. So, random thoughts 'n funny shit to share

I gotta be honest: everything feels vastly stupid right now. Tom and Ol returned home Wednesday night from an extended family trip to the Grand Canyon; both had Covid. On Thursday, Jack’s last day of school, they decamped to WV while J and I kept everything crossed that we would not get sick. What that means is that we haven’t spent any real time together since then whilst in the same house. This is vaguely stressful and depressing. He feels fine. I do not. Where are my PCR results? I dunno.

What I do know is that my sister and her kids arrived on Wednesday, and Oliver has not seen them at all, I have seen them briefly behind a mask, and lucky negative Jack got to spend the day with them.

What I do know is that the boys and I are supposed to leave for Maine on Thursday, as camp move-in is Friday. Oliver has to test negative on both Thursday and Friday to get to move in. He tested positive, again, today.

What I do know is that the Texas state GOP just enshrined into its platform that Biden didn’t win the 2020 election. This is bullshit, but the largest state GOP has decided it’s fact. Just for fun! Because, “alternative facts!” Which is shorthand for, “we’re snowball racing into fascism and about 3 Republicans care.”

What I do know is that a weekend we were all looking forward to was spoiled by Covid and that the idea that this is now endemic could really blow. Endemic like the flu is totally doable. Endemic like unless you mask and distance you get sick 3+x/year and it could lead to long-Covid is absolute shit. It’s like NOT life. And really, I think that is further indication of everything just breaking completely apart at the seams.

Today, some assholes in Tennessee had a White Lives Matter rally, and someone in Baltimore wrote and distributed a neighborhood-wide letter accusing a neighbor of decorating their yard in “relentlessly gay” fashion. “There are Christian children” here. Have y’all ever met a child who didn’t love a rainbow and twinkly lights? Also, it is 2022, private property, and NOT EVERYONE IS CHRISTIAN or straight, thank god.
Jack asked if we could decorate our house in relentlessly gay fashion, and I said, yes, absolutely. Truly, America is so goddamned stupid and pathetic in so many ways.

Because I am frustrated, pissed, repulsed, and glum, I share with you variously funny things I seem to have saved over the past year.

I recognize that “fuck” is the common, and frequent, thread uniting these saves (see also: asshole), but really, is anything far off? Rand Paul is SUCH an asshole; that turkey has accosted MANY a person; crypto is both dumb and an enormous environmental degradation; Marj and BoBo are twats, at best; no one is fine; and honest to god, if one of my children tries to explain Magic the Gathering or one of several video games once more, I will either A) die a la Yoda, or B) ugly cry like ScarJo.

These are basic, unassailable facts, and I’m sticking to them.

Free Covid tests, please donate blood, no "kids" yet but an odd burn pile

Each family can order four free covid tests, courtesy of the federal gov and delivered by the USPS. Ordering takes less than three minutes. Click here to request yours. They begin shipping later this month.

Meanwhile, you may have heard about the desperate nationwide blood shortage, the worst in more than a decade. Banks and hospital systems usually like to stock at least 5 days worth, but most are now running on a day’s supply extra. If you can, please consider donating blood. You can search for donation sites via this Red Cross link; simply input your zip code. Additionally, many schools and community centers are hosting drives, so you can look for those in your area as well.

Monday was Tom’s birthday. He is very difficult to shop for, so we often get creative. This year, the kids created coupons which Oliver then placed throughout a homemade newspaper (entitled Newspaper) because “that’s where you find coupons, Mom.” Adorable. One of Jack’s, for example, was “I will watch a movie of your choosing without complaining,” as that is a very rare occurrence.

my cake for T

One of my gifts was to arrange for the professional burning of the 4-year-old burn pile we inherited in WV. Everyone just says, “throw some kerosene on it after you’ve had some snow, and let it go.” But it was a big pile, and Tom tends to be nervous, and then when I started asking, people actually said, “Oh yeah, you should call the fire department to give them a head’s up.” And then I called the previous owners, and they (fonts of info as always) told me to call the local company and see if they wanted to use our behemoth as a training fire.

This was getting better and better. So I called the Hedgesville Volunteer Fire Company, and the guy with whom I spoke was so fabulous in all ways. Communicative, responsive, on it. Out they came last Saturday evening, with two trucks, a flame torch, some metal push rakes, and a leaf blower. I think they thought it would take a couple hours. They were confident and eager, we all bundled up to watch. Would the conflagration be exhilarating? Terrifying? We locked the goats in the barn, just in case.

Friends, I am here to tell you that after NINE HOURS, everyone gave up. By then Tom had set up a zero-gravity lounge chair to watch and help, the firemen had made multiple coffee runs and even assisted with a wreck-and-run up the road, and a not insignificant amount of various accelerants had been used. I went to bed at 11p; Tom came in just after 3a. The next morning, he told me that the guys were utterly demoralized:

“This is the hottest, slowest fire I have ever seen.”
”Jesus, you should build a house out of that wood. It does not burn!”
”I wish I’d brought my 50-gallon drum of used motor oil. Man.”

But, I’d say a good 75% has been reduced to ashes, it was a terrific entertainment, we learned a great deal, including how to till and snow plow a dirt ring, and we got to support the volunteers with a donation to the company.

The goats, unperturbed as ever, never made a peep and the next morning simply looked at the smoldering mound and climbed in the Gator.

Apple

No kids yet, y’all. But boy are we having fun thinking of potential baby names. I am hot on Beverly, Angus, and Ethel. Oliver likes Ethel, Skipper, and Belzar. Jack likes Belzar. Tom hates Belzar. We’ll see.

Lastly, an enormous round of applause for Australia doing the right thing and booting Novax from the Open. And yes to this timeline of the past decades. Good god.