Six hundred and sixty-two days

On January 11, 2022January 11, 2022 By aftheadIn parenting, Rants4 Comments

We were so fucking careful for six hundred and sixty-two days. We canceled camping trips and school trips for fear of being infected. For fear of infecting others. We quarantined fourteen days before Christmas Eve 2020, just so we could spend a few hours with family without masks. My daughter played soccer games (outdoors), basketball games (indoors), and volleyball matches (indoors) masked. She wore masks at the beginning of cross country meets. My husband and I? We watched games and races apart from other families with our lower faces hidden behind our own masks.

It wasn’t enough. Six hundred and fifty-eight days of being safe and somehow COVID found my daughter. When you are careful, you know exactly when infection occurs, even if you don’t know how. We’d been quarantining after an exposure to a family friend. For five days from 12/26 – 12/31 my daughter didn’t leave the house, but when our New Years Eve plans were canceled because our friend (the same one we were exposed to) was still testing positive, I made a terrible decision, “Let’s just go to the hockey game. No one will be there.” Our first mistake.

My daughter and I put on our masks in the car. They stayed on the entire walk to the game and the entire game. No one was there. We got seats one row up and 6 seats over from the nearest people. People who didn’t wear masks the entire game. The woman in the group coughed several times. I glared at her a lot as if my mommy eyes could stop any germs. At the far end of the row, another group of maskless fans sat farther away, but didn’t show any signs of unhealthiness. Everyone was at least 10 feet away, probably more. No one was behind us to breathe their COVID-y germs down on us. We had masks on: my husband and I KN95s, but my daughter had asked to only wear a surgical mask. Our second mistake.

At intermission, we walked down through the concourse. My daughter had to use the bathroom. Our third mistake. After a moments hesitation, I followed her, deciding I would go too. We both went, but in stalls a distance from each other. We washed hands near masked women, and then went to visit friends at the game who we hadn’t seen in at least six hundred and fifty-eight days. They wore masks. We wore masks. We hugged, but they had COVID recently, so it was a safe hug, but we were near other people. I didn’t note the mask wearing of those strangers because I was so happy to see our friends again. Our fourth mistake.

We spent the rest of the game at our seats. Near the coughing woman. Near the maskless fans. My daughter sat between my husband and I in her less-protective surgical mask. After the game, it was cold, so we wore our masks all the way to the car, keeping our faces warm and avoiding the germs of the unmasked fans walking near us.

My husband and I were boosted, but kids my daughter’s age were not yet approved. The CDC wouldn’t recommend her booster until two days after she tested positive for COVID; six days after she was infected. All the times I’d thought poorly of people who were infected right before they could get vaccinated came back to me in a karmic vengeance. Our fifth mistake? Hard to say, because we hadn’t heard that boosters were imminent, but we did know it had been over six months since her shots, and we knew Omicron was raging. So yes, let’s count that as mistake five.

We went to another hockey game the next day. Same situation, but more fans. The guy next to me was drunk and kept leaning in to talk to me, touch me. We moved seats so I was out of reach. Could my daughter have been infected then? Sure. But neither me, my husband, our friends, or our friends’ unboosted kids got COVID.

On January 2nd my daughter’s phone pinged with a notification that she’d been near someone with COVID on December 31st. I didn’t get the notification, nor did my husband. The only time we were apart was in the bathroom. Could the state notification system have been smart enough to know that my husband and I had better masks than my daughter? Of course not. Right?

Monday, January 3rd, my daughter felt crappy when she woke up. A wicked headache and a bit congested. My husband had just recovered from a bad cold (not COVID, he tested three times). Maybe she caught it? Or perhaps irritation from all the residual particulates in the air from the fires that burned Superior and Louisville days before? She had no cough and no fever, but we tested her for COVID just in case. Negative, so she spent a few hours with my parents (mistake six), came home and went for an unmasked walk outside with a friend (mistake seven), and then went to her club basketball practice (mistake eight). At least she wore a mask at basketball, like always.

Tuesday she went back to school (mistake nine). Her head still hurt and she didn’t feel great. Of course she’d also slept less than 4 hours. I know because I slept with her. She was anxious about school and finally I gave up and joined her in bed so she could get some rest. All night we shared recycled breath. (mistake ten) “It feels like knives are stabbing my eyes,” she said as she got ready for school. I gave her a Tylenol, because I know how horrible a lack of sleep can make you feel: especially your eyes. Testing crossed my mind, but she was negative the day before and we only had five tests left (mistake eleven). I picked her up from school and she was feeling pretty good. She had an hour to eat a snack and change and then off to her school basketball practice (mistake twelve). After dinner she started feeling really cruddy, so we tested. Positive for COVID. My husband and I tested. Negative.

We felt terrible, and our penance was the COVID walk of shame. I told my parents their granddaughter had exposed them to COVID. She had exposed my immunocompromised father, the one consistent family fear of this pandemic. At least they were both vaccinated and boosted. My husband texted the parents of her (vaccinated, not boosted) walk friend. I emailed basketball coaches, and texted hockey friends. My final note was to school “friends”: the ones who hadn’t invited her to New Year’s, the ones who made fun of her for not going on their school trip, and ones who hadn’t bothered to invite her to any of their outings during the school break. (You know, those middle school “friends.”) I let all their moms know that my daughter was positive and had exposed their daughters to COVID throughout the school day. Everyone was either nice enough, or ignored my note. Was there a little snideness in their responses? A little smugness? Impossible to tell from email, but I know they found us overcautious, ridiculous, and exhausting for six hundred and sixty-two days. I’m sure at least one family felt a little secret joy that the uppity family was knocked off their pedestal. My daughter’s final penance? The recital all the “friends” were going to over the weekend was now out of the question. My kid couldn’t go because of isolation protocols. Another demerit. Another chance to get left out.

What was the tally of our even dozen mistakes?

My daughter, infected with COVID
Her walking friend, infected with COVID

As far as we know, that’s it. My parents were spared. My husband and I were spared. Both my mom and I felt bad enough to test three days after my daughter tested positive, but we were negative and both feel fine now. Did we have it, and our booster helped us fight off the infection? Who knows. No classmates or teammates were impacted. The family we infected has been careful, like us, during the pandemic, and they have been kind as our daughters go through COVID together. We’ve helped each other find tests and traded food ideas as our girls lost their sense of taste. The girls are happy to have an isolation buddy to do homework with via Facetime. As much as neither family ever wanted to end up in this situation we are making the best of things.

But my kid has a disease we know little about. She lost her sense of taste on day 6, so her symptoms aren’t decreasing. She’s still testing positive on day 7. No fever, and blood oxygen levels consistently above 96%. Protocol says she can go back to school tomorrow, but really? I’m going to send my daughter who doesn’t feel great and is testing positive to school? Sure she didn’t infect anyone last time, but do we push our luck? Push the luck of other families?

I’d love to say that I’m super zen about all this. That I can look back and say we were super risky, made twelve mistakes, and all that happened was our daughter and her friend got infected, but I’m not zen at all. I’m fucking angry. Look at my mistakes and tell me what parent, what person, which of you, hasn’t made the same mistakes. In fact, maybe you have made even bigger mistakes without masks or without testing. One of my mistakes was letting my kid go to the bathroom with only a surgical mask on. Should I have told her to hold it? Go when it wasn’t as busy? Force her to wear an N95 mask? What we did wasn’t a mistake. We followed proper protocol. She made another mistake when going on an unmasked walk outside with her friend the day she tested negative for COVID. Raise your hand if you’ve gone outside and talked to someone without a mask. I’m betting every one of you has your hand raised. And did you have a negative COVID test earlier that day? I’m guessing not. Now guess what? You gave your friend COVID. Fuck that. And sure, my kid was not boosted, but she couldn’t be. The damn CDC had to wait FOUR DAYS to approve the FDA’s recommendation and even those assholes waited until it had been over SEVEN months since the kids with the most responsible families got their kids vaccinated. This is all utterly unfair bullshit.

Now I get to worry about long COVID, and what long term impacts this virus will have on my daughter. Will she still be able to run? Play sports? What about even longer unknown impacts? I get to worry because there are no hospital beds and if she takes a turn for the worse there will be no oxygen for her, no ICU, and sure as hell no treatments. For making a dozen mistakes, I get to be that parent. The one who risked her kid’s life, her families’ lives, and her friends’ lives for a hockey game. Except, I didn’t do anything that any safe family hasn’t done this pandemic. And I’m angry as hell for all the people who haven’t been careful, who haven’t worn a mask, and who haven’t been vaccinated so this damned virus keeps mutating. Every selfish person who just can’t bother to put something over their nose and mouth and get a nothing-short-of-miraculous-vaccine is culpable for my kid’s illness. At least as much as I am for making what I admit is one bad decision: to go to a hockey game with Omicron raging.

For six hundred and sixty-two days we were careful, responsible members of society and this just sucks. If I was a toddler I’d be pounding and kicking on the floor screaming a tantrum of “it’s not fair.” As a fourty-seven year old, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you’ll find me there tomorrow.

Aspirations

On August 8, 2018August 7, 2018 By aftheadIn Chickens, Knitting, parenting, Rants8 Comments

silhouette photography of woman — Photo by Pete Johnson on Pexels.com

Someday….

Someday I will be a morning person. I will jump out of bed before the sun even rises, lace up my running shoes, greet the day with the chirpy birds, and let the pink glow of the sun warm my soul as it lights the sky. Upon arriving home, I will feed the chickens and barn cat — respectively thanking them for my eggs and for killing the rats. Then I will feed the house cats and take a moment to appreciate the happiness they bring to my life. Exercise, gratitude, and chores complete, I will shower, shave, and be ready to greet my waking family with well-groomed joy knowing my day has begun with no sleeping-in or running-late guilt.

Someday my body will be a temple. I will feed it nothing but wholesome food. All the fruits and veggies it can take. Eggs from my beloved chickens. Cheese from cows lovingly hand milked in pastures where they eat nothing but all organic free range vegetation. I will cook my own meals, and when I can’t, I will only eat at restaurants that also consider my body a temple worthy of local low-carbon-emission produce. Occasionally I will allow myself a treat of a single square of bitter dark chocolate, so I can savor both the sweet of the dessert and the bitterness off mistreating my temple. The only beverage I will ever drink is pure clean water from glass containers. I will exercise everyday, but vary my routine from running to yoga to Pilates to ensure my cardiovascular health, flexibility, and strength.

Someday I will be on time to everything. After my blissful morning and my temple-worthy breakfast I will drop my child off at school exactly seven minutes early. Time for her to play a bit, and visit with her friends. Then when the bell rings I will walk my perfectly dressed self — in a size six, a slim nonjudgmental size — to my car and drive to work, arriving exactly at 8:30. People will depend on me, knowing if they schedule an 8:30 meeting I will be there nonplussed and ready to face whatever challenge they need faced. After working an 8 hour day — not including the 0.5 hours spent enjoying the wholesome lunch I packed, then walking around the park to clear my mind — I will be waiting for my daughter at 3:00, just as the bell rings, to walk her home from school. Hand in hand, we’ll talk about her day and my day as we much on fresh vegetables from our garden. She will have friends, I will be successful at work, she will be successful at school, and we will be so proud of each other. Then I’ll drive her, and all her friends, in my electric vehicle — powered by solar panels installed on our home’s roof — to whatever practice she has that day: carpooling to ensure our position in the social hierarchy while minimizing our carbon footprint.

Someday I will make good use of all the time available to me. While my daughter practices I’ll be using that time to write my novel, do grad school homework, catch up with beloved friends and family, or knit scarves for the poor. However, I will willingly pause to talk with other sports parents where I will be modest about my child and supportive of their children and their worries about traffic. I won’t squander time dinking on my phone, talking to parents who make me want to stab my eyes out, or half-listen to eye-stabby parents while dinking on my phone. I will be present and understanding.

Someday my evenings will run like clockwork. After practice, I’ll enjoy a wholesome meal with my family. We will all eat exactly the same thing, correctly proportioned to our body mass index. Dishes will be cleared, washed, and the kitchen will be cleaned in harmony, then everyone will sit down to homework. (Well, everyone but my husband who will enjoy a well deserved hour of rest watching some sporting event, but he will not be too loud or too emotionally attached to the event.) Homework done, my daughter will bathe, and I will read aloud to her for 20 minutes. Then she will make her lunch, brush her teeth, brush her hair, put on pajamas, and deposit her dirty clothes into her hamper. She will go to sleep by herself in her own room in her own bed after reading to herself for exactly 10 minutes.

Someday my late nights will be all my own time. Having accomplished everything I needed to do while in the office, I will spend 45 minutes catching up with my husband. 2.5 times per week we will have age-appropriate sex. Sated or not, I will then spend a few hours editing my novel, writing a blog post, or drafting a new short story. Sometimes, I will work a bit on a knitted gift for a friend, or hand-write a few thank you notes. Occasionally I will document my day’s accomplishments in a perfect Instagram shot or Tweet. Before bed, I will do a quick clean up of the house – filling the dishwasher, folding laundry, picking up clutter, sweeping, and wiping down counters and other surfaces – before reading for 30 minutes and then drifting off for an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep.

Someday….

The Wet-Willy Guide to Platonic Touching

On December 7, 2017December 7, 2017 By aftheadIn Rants, Uncategorized6 Comments

adi-goldstein-339915

I was born from a non-hugger, so all this current rigmarole about “can I even hug my coworker anymore” has me baffled. From childhood I learned the discomfort that hugs can cause, and was progressively raised to ask permission before initiating physical contact with another human being. If you come into my office at work crying I will stand up put my arms out and ask, “Are you a hugger?” If you are, then you are welcome to step into my hug. If you are not, then you can shake your head, continue weeping, and I will offer you a tissue. However, I will not force a tissue upon you and wipe your face, because what if you don’t like tissues?

One of my best friends is also a non-hugger. For ten years we have worked alongside each other, raised our girls together, and I have never hugged her. I’ve watched others hug her and seen her tolerate the contact. She’s never pushed back or rejected the hug, because she’s a polite person, but I always wonder why others’ need to hug is more important than her desire to not be hugged. Especially when she is in crisis, I marvel at how people unknowingly make the situation worse by hugging her.

As I troll the social network scene I notice person after person commenting on how uncomfortable this “no hugging” mandate makes them, and I think about all the people who have been made uncomfortable by their hugs. So I have come up with a rubric for hugging which I call “The Wet-willy Guide to Platonic Touching.” Here is how it works.

The Wet-willy Guide to Platonic Touching

Put yourself in a hugging scenario. Maybe a colleague has just returned from medical leave and you want to welcome him back. Perhaps you haven’t seen a client in a year and you find yourselves in a meeting together. After twenty years you see your old lab partner from college at the grocery store. Before you hug translate the action of hugging into a wet-willy.

For those of you unaware, the wet-willy is the process of sticking your finger into your mouth and thoroughly coating it with saliva. You then remove the dripping finger from your mouth and place it into another person’s ear and wiggle your finger around a bit. It’s a common practice among elementary aged boys.

So now, consider each of the scenarios above. Would you give that person a wet-willy? Of course it will depend on the relationship. If you and the colleague are good friends outside of work maybe an impromptu spitty finger in the ear will be fine. The client situation? Probably never a good idea. The relationship plus the public venue makes for an unlikely successful ear rooting. The old lab partner? Maybe the two of you enjoyed a carefree relationship in the past, but do you know where her ear has been or where she has been? Maybe she’s just been released from an anger management program and you could cause her to relapse into her old unwelcome bludgeoning ways. Maybe she’s joined a religion which does not allow for physical contact outside of marriage. Either way, probably not worth the risk to you or her.

Personally, I would not wet-willy in any of these situations. It just seems too perilous. If I’d had a prior wet-willy relationship with these folks, I might ask “Hey you wanna wet-willy?!?” or even stick my finger in my mouth and offer it, allowing them to run forward with their ear proffered.

Assuming you are in normal healthy relationships, there are probably situations where you don’t have to ask, and those will differ by person. I’d totally wet-willy my kiddo. I’d also do it to my husband, who would hate it, but it’s within the norms of our physical relationship. There are a few friends, and that’s about it. Now, consider who you would unabashedly wet-willy your life. Maybe you have a more physical family than I do, in which case your your brother, your sisters, your parents, your spouse or your child might love wet-willy contact. (And your brother will probably do it regardless just because it makes you uncomfortable, because that’s what brother’s do. Sibling relationships are based on forgiving cruelty.) If the person isn’t on your wet-willy list then don’t enter their ear without asking. Sure, you might get rejected, but a “no thank you” response and the shot to your ego is better than the alternative.

Now, let’s say you assumed incorrectly and the person you thought was accepting of wet-willies is not. You stick your finger in their ear and they shriek, “Oh gross! What the hell is wrong with you?” There is an immediate and appropriate response.

You say, “I am so sorry I made you uncomfortable. I won’t wet-willy you again. Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

Do not explain to them how you like wet-willies or how you thought you had a wet-willy relationship or how most people really like your wet-willies. No. Do not get mad at them because you are embarrassed they rejected you. Don’t shame them because they do not share your affection for spitty ears. They don’t need to know about how in your family wet-willies are the epitome of caring. Finally, in no circumstances is it okay to wet-willy them again, to show how really inoffensive your wet-willies are.

Now, go back and read the wet-willy instructions as hugs. Hugs aren’t that different. It involves even more body contact and on sweaty days or in crying situations there’s an exchange of bodily fluids. A hug can be just as invasive to an individual. So before you hug, just ask yourself, would I give this person a wet-willy without asking? If the answer is no, than it’s really simple to say, “Do you want a hug?” Wait for a response before acting, and respect the wishes of the person you care enough to hug.

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

Hot Beverage Rant

On November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 By aftheadIn Rants12 Comments

Dear hot beverage drinkers,

What in the hell? Are your tongues made of stainless steel? Is the reason you must dump sriracha on everything because your morning coffee has burned your taste-buds into oblivion?

Okay, sorry, I didn’t mean to come on so strong. But really, on Monday I met a recent graduate for a mentoring session at a coffee house, because that’s where you do such things. My typical morning beverage of ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper was not available (Oh God, yes I know drinking artificially sweetened soda is going to give me Alzheimer’s) and it was snowing out, so I decided to get myself a nice warm Earl Grey tea.

I let the tea steep, added a smidge of sugar, put the adult sippy cup lid back on and took a tentative sip. I could feel the individual taste-buds searing off as the boiling tea traveled from my lips to my esophagus. This happens every…single…time I drink hot beverages. Seriously though, it had been 15 minutes since my tea was served, and I was starting to feel awkward not drinking while the student guzzled his coffee with apparent delight. I did not start screaming or rush to the barista to demand an ice cube – I am a grown up after all – but I wanted to.

Adult sippy cup lid, with boiling tea seeping over the edge

I’ve got to be some kind of weird mutant. My tongue must be made of some delicate recessive tissue which cannot withstand boiling liquids like the normal tongues of the 21st century. (I think it must have come from my dad’s side of the family, because he doesn’t drink hot beverages either.) Every morning I witness hordes of coworkers drinking their cardboard sweater wearing beverage – because otherwise the cup is too hot to hold SO WHY WOULD YOU IMBIBE THE CONTENTS – and I wonder if I drink differently than others or is my physiology fundamentally flawed?

It’s been three days since my hot beverage encounter. I can almost feel the center of my tongue again and am hoping my taste will fully return by Thanksgiving. Until then, I may have to become one of those weirdos who eats dressing on their salad. Maybe the sliminess won’t bother me so much without nerve endings in my tongue.

Anyway, congratulations on your ability to drink hot beverages.

Sincerely yours,

Afthead