This Side of Covid

We made it thorugh almost two years of this pandemic before the virus infiltrated our house.

I find if interesting that just a couple of weeks ago Julie and I were comparing notes about Covid, about how neither of our immediate families had had to deal with it yet. Just a week later, she let me know that her husband and daughter were both positive.

And here I am, on day four of quarantine from work, positive.

Thankfully, the vaccine worked in that it made my symptoms very, very mild. I thought it was just a cold until I lost my sense of smell. That's what made me test one more time and here I am.

I am still congested and have moments of achiness but nothing that would have kept me home from work if I hadn't tested positive. I mean, we all go to work with colds all the time, right? I feel pretty much fine other than a cough (which I always get when I have a cold. I always have.) and the occasional headach, which, again, is just life for me.

As of day 1 of my positive test, Tom and Olivia were both negative. We're testing them again on day 5 so we'll see how that turns out.

I feel lucky and grateful to modern medicine for vaccines and boosters. I am here to say they work.

Stay safe, stay healthy, get your shots.

Cooking (Parenting?) Woes

I hate cooking. I hate coming up with things to cook, I hate doing the actual work of cooking, I hate begging my child to eat the food I’ve just cooked.

I just…hate it all.

On a recent Monday evening, after working for nine and a half hours, driving a half hour each way to and from work, helping O with her homework for over 40 minutes, I was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes after having made food for Liv and then nagging her to eat it before I had to heat is up AGAIN and I must have had a look of frustration on my face because Tom, from across the room and on the other side of Olivia, asked me what was wrong?

I muttered, “I hate cooking for her.”

Now wait. Let me explain that Olivia’s back was to me, I said this quietly enough that she did not hear me. But you know what? She’s 15 years old. She knows I don’t actually enjoy cooking. She can read the room and knows that I’m annoyed more often than not when I’m cooking. She doesn’t actually care that I hate cooking. She truly isn’t bothered by my pissy attitude at all. She could not possible care less about how I feel about cooking. She will continue to ask me to cook for the rest of our lives with nary a smidge of guilt over my feelings on the matter.

Ahem. Now that that’s settled…Tom made his way across the room with disappointment in his eyes. He was SO disappointed in my attitude. I could feel the disappointment oozing out of his pores. **Can you hear my eyes rolling from all the way over here?**

Once he was standing beside me, Tom said in a low voice, so that our darling precious snowflake wouldn’t hear, “I think most moms enjoy cooking for their kids.”

Oh…really? Most moms enjoy cooking for their kids. If I hadn’t been in such a pissy mood, I might have laughed. Instead I glared at him and said, “No. They don’t.”

He was astounded. He was flabbergasted. How could a mother, a loving, wonderful mother, NOT enjoy cooking for her offspring? Wasn’t it the goal in every mother’s life to cook day and day out for her children?

I told him to google the phrase, “Why do my kids have to eat every day.” I suggested he look up articles on the drudgery of cooking every single day for ungrateful beasts who don’t want to eat what you’re cooking.

Well, that made him run with the idea of being appreciated. He can acknowledge that O doesn’t appreciate the cooking we do for her. But he just couldn’t handle the fact that I vocalized my passionate dislike of cooking for her.

He’ll get over it. Or not, honestly, I don’t care one way or the other.

I did take to FB and post a question for all the moms out there. I asked if all moms enjoy cooking for their kids.

Big surprise…not all moms enjoy cooking, for their kids or for anyone else for that matter. Of course, some moms do and that’s what I expected. All but one of the comments on that post were from women, who all mentioned what they, personally, felt.

The one single post from a dude said something like, okay, fine, I’ll quote him: I think parents in general like cooking for their kids…I have always enjoyed cooking for the kids! *the exclamation point is his.*

I couldn’t…I just couldn’t stand it. I had to simmer for a bit because…damn. Dudes just can’t help but be dudes, can they?

They just have to generalize (she generalized but hey…I’m so over it all) and of all the comments, all the kind, individual comments from women who said that they, PERSONALLY, felt, this dude had to pipe up and generalize that most parents enjoy cooking.

No.

My reply to Dude: “Dude’s name if you read through the comments, you’ll see that maybe half, but definitely not most parents enjoy cooking for their kids. Maybe if more dads enjoy it and take over the drudgery of daily cooking some of us moms would be less annoyed ty the whole process.” It was applauded by one of the other moms because, well, it deserved to be and because, damn. Seriously, dudes?

Update - FB dude replied again, this time implying that there's something wrong with how my husband and I communicate. Whatever. I didn't respond because, well, he's stupid and I have nothing nice to say at this point. But it comes down to him basically proving my point and so with that...

Streaming Depression?

I'm four plus years out from my cancer diagnosis. Triple negative cancer patients hope and pray to make it to three years because the chance of recurrence becomes much lower when that milestone is reached.

I know I'm lucky to be here. I know that I should be living my best life and doing things I've always wanted to do. I should be kinder and more loving. I should be grateful for every single moment I have with my family and friends.

And yet...life gets in the way of living. Does that even make sense?

I've watched some documentaries on Netflix about people who are dying. I know, super cheerful, right? I watched one about a woman who was 36 years old when her breast cancer came back in liver. She died five months after being diagnosed with the mets. She was so beautiful. She loved her husband and her step children and her parents and everyone so much. She cried when they started her first round of chemo to try and fight the liver mets. She was a beautiful crier.

Her message was to wake up and start living before you're dying. That's a beautiful message.

But when you're dying you don't worry about bills and cooking dinner and laundry and vacuuming carpets. You can bask in the beauty of sunlight and the sounds of your family's voices.

Please know that I'm grateful to be able to worry about eighth grade homework and making sure Liv takes her vitamins and chill pill each night. I'm so grateful to have to think about the next orthodontist appointemnt and whether she'll have cavities once those braces come off. I'm glad to bandage her fingers when she picks them bloody.

I know that Cristina (the woman in the above documentary) would trade places with me in a heartbeat if she could. She'd be willing to worry about the mortgage and college applications and tuition and what's for dinner (AGAIN).

Sure, we should all live like we're dying but life gets in the way of that and I suppose we should all be grateful for that.

Snow Days, A New Phone, and a Trip to College Town

Not much going on except the mundane. And that's a welcome thing.

The midwest was hit with a snow storm this past week. The projection was worse than the actual storm. I told work on Tuesday that I's see them on Friday. Honestly, I totally could have gone to work on Wednesday but since I'd alreayd put on for a vacation day, I stayed home with Tom and Liv. It was nice. I baked cookies and worked on a puzzle and put medicine on a canker sore Olivia had and did laundry. The only thing that would have made it better was if Lyss had been home with us.

Thursday was more snow, more puzzle, more canker sore medicine (she was driving me crazy with the complaints about that canker sore). Alyssa called me over SnapChat and we video chatted for almsot two hours. I think she was lonely and bored.

Tuesday, 2/1, Tom's phone stopped working. Let me remind everyone that Dude had a non-smart phone. He'd been getting messages for months saying that his service would no longer work on that phone on February 20. Well, the phone decided to stop working on February 1 instead.

So he broke down and had me buy him the cheapest smart phone I could get at Walmart. I know. Once it was set up (you're welcome, Dude) he declared he hates it. He used to be able to charge his non-smart phone once every two weeks. I told him to get used to charging his new phone once a day. He was not amused. I actually kind of was amused. He's SUCH a dude.

Friday evening, I was watching Netflix and snapping Alyssa when she suggested that Liv and I come see her the next day. She hasn't actually asked us to do that and so, obviously, I agreed. When you college freshman daughter asks you to come see her, you go see her. She just wanted company and I'm glad to be that company. We went to several stores in her area looking for unusual Squishmellows. She's got quite a collection. I, um, have two and Olivia has one. I don't even know.

So that our mundane life for the past week. Why am I telling anyone this? I don't even know. Posterity?