Mmmm, summer. You know what I love about summer and hot, hot days? Not having to wear so many clothes. Since the kids moved out I can wear even less! I love lounging around in only a camisole and underwear. Clothes are too restrictive. I also love open windows, fans, and popsicles. I also love the pool.
I have been eating a lot of popsicles and freezer pops this year because I had a sore throat for 24 days. How is my battle with SARS-CoV-2? It’s like a car model now. I drive a 2016 Subaru Forester and this summer I’ve been fighting the 2022 Omicron BA.5. Of course I can’t know for sure that’s the variant I wound up with, but my symptoms have been consistent with what’s being reported.
I’m doing better. Nine days after testing positive and four days after finishing Paxlovid, I tested negative. My boss told me to go ahead and work from home for a few more days, so I stayed home and tested negative again on Wednesday. I worked in the office Thursday and Friday. It went well; I still had some sinus congestion, sort of a hoarse voice, and had to clear my throat a lot. I was still sneezing and coughing a little, but nothing major. On Thursday night I did have a coughing fit because I had a lot of crap in my lungs.
Then Saturday morning something strange happened. I woke up with more sinus congestion and a sore throat. I was also very tired. It was 15 days out from testing positive, 10 days out from finishing Paxlovid, and I took another test and it was negative so I’d been clear of the virus for almost a week. I am reading some anecdotal accounts of people on Reddit having good days and bad days. They report feeling fine for a while, then get symptoms again. Rinse, repeat. This apparently goes on for weeks. The sore throat is strange. It doesn’t feel like the one I had before that was probably strep. It feels more like the Covid sore throat that actually feels as if it’s not in the throat itself, but either salivary glands or lymph nodes in the neck. My thyroid was sore to the touch for a couple of days, too. When I touched it, it felt bruised. So who the fuck knows what’s going on. Covid is not a cold or the flu. It’s a vascular disease with respiratory symptoms. So, it causes inflammation and my throat/neck/whatever is inflamed off-and-on. Also, everyone has a unique experience with this virus because there are so many variables– age, comorbidities, and in my case, autoimmune issues. My immune system is quite promiscuous; it’ll fuck anything that moves.
I’m off work next week! I’m using 40 hours of PTO and taking the entire week off. I haven’t done that since Christmas. I was planning on camping near Mt. Baker and doing lots of hiking, but I cancelled my campsite reservation. 🙁 I might have been able to handle it, but I feel like I need to get more rest. It would have meant packing up all my camping gear and getting the condo and cats ready for me to be away; driving for five hours; setting up camp; camping, hiking, and all the work that comes with that; tearing down camp and packing it all up; driving for another five hours, and unpacking and cleaning everything up. I’d also come home to a full litter box. The hikes would have been high altitude hikes and as of right now, I don’t know if I’m even ready to start walking to work again. I plan on taking walks next week and having them get progressively longer so I can see if I’m able to walk to work again. This virus really did a number on my lungs.
Uh, in other news… that guy that I’d been texting with for a few weeks back in April? The one I mentioned in my last post that apologized for “the way things happened” (him ghosting me after I told him I didn’t want a pen pal)? Much to my surprise, he responded. He has a very different texting style than I’m used to. Most people will send short messages in real time if they’re available. If they’re not, you might not hear from them for a few hours or even a day or two, but they’ll still send something short. This guy seems to only text about once a week and when he does, it’s a wall o’ text like I do. So our texting styles are very similar in that we both write paragraphs upon paragraphs, but he treats it more like email. He even refers to it as “writing.” He said, “I was going to write earlier…”
He says he still wants to meet me and may be able to sometime “in the next few weeks.” I’m not holding my breath. On one hand, the reason I drive men away is because I don’t trust them. On the other hand, I do not think I can trust this guy to follow through. So I texted him back and responded to what he’d told me is going on in his life (it’s a lot). Then I told him what’s going on in my life, and left it at that. I’m going to stop bringing up meeting, stop asking him personal questions, and stop pushing him. I am, after all, doing just fine without him. I’m doing just fine without any man in my life. However, I must admit that being so fucking sick for an entire month while being single and living alone sucked major ass. Shit still needed to be done around here.
Yesterday I spent a few hours with my youngest son at his apartment. He ordered lunch via Door Dash and I got a chicken salad. It was so nice to spend some quality time with him. 🙂 It was totally random, too. I texted him to let him know I had extra garage keys made for him and he invited me over for lunch. Keys have been on the forefront of my mind because a) with Covid, who knows when my son might need to get in here and get my will out the safe, and b) last Sunday I locked myself out of the condo and it was $222 to have a locksmith come out here and get me back in.
Today I did jack shit. After my morning chores (make my bed, brush my hair and teeth, put away clean dishes, feed/water the cats/birds and clean the litter box) I replaced the screws in the top hinge of my bedroom door where they go into the jamb. I have a solid core door which is heavier than a hollow door. Because I deal with door data for a living, I know that bedrooms typically have solid core doors because they offer some sound proofing. Last year I had to replace the screws in the hinge that go into the door with longer ones because that fucking hinge keeps coming loose. When it does, the door falls a little and it doesn’t close. So I went to Ace Hardware (again) and got some long-ass fucking screws (again). I put some wood glue and a match stick in each hole for good measure before putting in the long screws. It should hold for good now. Then I cooked breakfast, drank my coffee and read the news, and vacuumed the living room. By noon I was out by the pool in my zero gravity chair listening to a Scientific American national parks nature walk podcast (this one). That series is utterly delightful and I plan on listening to the entire thing during my week off. Then I swam, laid in the sun, swam again, took a nap in the chair, swam again, then came back inside around 3:00. I was going to read or write, but felt like I needed to just get outside and get some sun. Sometimes I feel like I need protein; sometimes it’s sleep, and other times it’s sun. I’m very in tune with my body and listen to it when it tells me what it needs. Today that was sun.
Right now it’s a Benadryl washed down with an amaretto sour and a Manhattan. Yeah, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I think Nyquil might be habit-forming. I hadn’t taken any all week and could not sleep. I took some last night, and slept. Sigh.
During my week off there are a few things I want to accomplish outside of weekly chores:
- Take progressively longer walks; at least one every other day
- Finish reading The Liar’s Club because if I’m going to write a memoir, I should read at least one
- Complete the outline for my own memoir
- Spend a lot of time outside, even if it’s in my zero gravity chair reading by the pool or out on the lawn somewhere
- Practice playing my ukulele and work on learning a new song
- Practice playing my guitar and work on learning a new song
- Record a guitar progress video and upload it to YouTube
When I do go back to work on the 15th I’ll have plenty to keep me busy. I began a major project and have another lined up. There is no shortage of work to do and I love it.
My pay raise of 8.4% was such a relief. I was able to increase my grocery budget as well as how much I put into savings every month. I also increased the estimated amount my HOA fees will go up next year in case it’s a lot again. I should increase the amount I contribute to my 401(k), but right now my rate of return is -8% so I’m not in a big hurry to add more money I’ll lose. I should also have payroll take out extra for taxes, but I think for now I’ll rely on savings to pay what I owe next year. I want to see how 2023 is going to pan out first since prices of everything usually go up during Q1.
Something I do want to do soon– get another tattoo. I have my heart set on getting a tattoo of a Steller’s Jay with the name “Max” somewhere next to it. I haven’t decided what it will look like, where it will be, or how big it will be. I’m still in the thinking and looking at examples online phase. I typically think on tattoos for about two years before I get them. I just know that I want my buddy Max to be on me somewhere. I love that bird so much. ❤
It’s way past my bedtime, but it’s so good to finally be feeling better and also a little bit tipsy! 😀 I need some food.