You get COVID, and you get COVID, and everybody gets COVID

Last Friday, G said he had a headache, but I didn't think too much about it UNTIL he woke on Saturday complaining of a headache and sore throat. I had an at-home test, and he had a faint positive line. 

We had been officially invaded (yet again). 

Now, I have been diligent as fuck to avoid COVID. D, N and I have been vaccinated three times. M had a natural infection in September and then got his two shots in October. G was supposed to get his booster last Saturday, but I had to cancel because he had COVID. We had been wearing KN95s since our trip to Vegas in December. 

But I definitely give the hell up once COVID is in the house. I'm not wearing masks inside my home, and I'm not banishing a sick kid to a room by themselves like they are Rapunzel in a tower. 

When it comes to symptoms in our house, it has been weird. 

G was fine by Monday. 

D began with congestion on Tuesday, which worsened on Wednesday, and he spent Thursday in bed with a headache and chills. On Friday, he worked most of the day in his basement office. 

My symptoms have been weird and changing every day. 

On Tuesday, my left eye was red (like a conjunctivitis-type look), but then cleared up by the next day. Was that COVID? Who knows. 

Wednesday and Thursday I felt fine. 

On Friday, my uvula was swollen but cleared up the next day. Was that COVID? Who knows. 

However, yesterday, I woke up and had no voice. I also had no congestion which was weird since usually congestion is what causes the lacking voice. By last night I had chills. No headache. Today my voice sounds better, but I have more congestion in my nose. 

It feels like my body is playing Whack-a-Mole with COVID. COVID tries to make a symptom happen and my body gets rid of that only to have COVID come up with a new and different symptom. 

N and M both woke up today saying they feel a little "not right." 

Of course, I'm assuming that D and I have COVID, but as contagious as it is, I'm pretty sure we do.

Now, we have only tested G for COVID because the kids were on NTI last week, D works from home, and at the cottage school, if someone in your house has COVID, you stay home whether you are sick or not so I taught virtually on Friday. 

This afternoon, all 5 of us are packing in the car and getting tested through the school district. I don't know if the district will go back to in-person class or not, but it seems likely that if they do, G will be the only one returning. 

Of course, I think I'm about over the pointlessness of testing for the following reasons:

1--If I test positive today, I have been feeling weird since Tuesday (with the eye) and then Friday with the uvula, which I assume to be COVID-related. But quarantine would begin as of today (or tomorrow if you're the school district; I have never understood why the day of the test doesn't count as a quarantine day). So do I go by test-date or symptom date? 

Even if the district says 10 days for quarantine, if I test negative before the 10 days, can I go like pick up shit from Home Depot? 

I am so the fuck tired of thinking about the logistics of all things COVID-related.

2--The test is only valuable right in that moment. I can test negative and then two hours later test positive. How is that in any way valuable, especially if I feel fine the entire time? N worked yesterday. She was three-times vaxxed and asymptomatic. If she tests positive but feels fine, does she stay home (while feeling well) and cause a massive headache for her already-understaffed job? Or does she go in when she feels fine but could possibly be positive (but where the fuck can you find COVID test in a timely manner so that she can know?) And she could test negative at 9:30 in the morning before work but become positive at 2:00 in the afternoon when she is still working but still not have symptoms. 

Have I mentioned I am so the fuck tired of thinking about the logistics of all things COVID-related? Particularly when large swaths of people have, as I've said, been doing whatever the hell they want since March 2020. 

3--We are a family of 5 which means if I wanted to test everyday to check our positivity, I would need to buy 3 packages of tests for a total of $75 PER FUCKING DAY. And even if insurance pays for them, it covers 8 tests per person per month. And it seems kind of pointless since we're knee deep in Omicron right this second. And also, where the fuck does one find 3 boxes of COVID rapid tests? Last time I bought one, they limited purchases to 1 box which will test 2 people in my family. 

I'm tired of thinking about COVID and writing about COVID and worrying about COVID and have every decision become a fiasco as a result of COVID. 

Where I am on COVID

Here we are...21 months into the pandemic. 

It occurred to me that life since probably May has been a series of emotional fits and starts. My parents and MIL were vaccinated in winter, so that took an edge off, and then I got vaccinated in February and March due to working for the school district. But still, I was on pins and needles until D, and then N, and then G could get their shots.

And then I was holding out until October when M turned 12 and could be vaccinated. 

In June, I was hopeful that things would return to "normal" and made our vacation plans for December 18; M would be fully vaccinated by that point. 

And then Delta.

And then M got COVID.

And then I worried about my parents and MIL getting boosted.

And then I worried about myself and D getting boosted.

Somewhere in between those worries, Omicron came into the mix, so then I was worried about flying because N hadn't had a chance to be boosted when we left. 

And now, I'm still concerned about skyrocketing rates of COVID and what that could mean for my parents and MIL because they are vulnerable (since it sounds like the vaccines keep you from being hospitalized but not sick from Omicron and older people have to be more careful in general with even "minor" illnesses).

We got back from our trip in the wee hours of December 24. 

I had spent $75 for six rapid at-home tests. We tested N and G a half-hour before Christmas Eve family events, and again on Christmas Day a half-hour before going to my parents. (N got boosted two days ago, so she was more vulnerable then). 

Today, I tested a half-hour before visiting my parents through the school district's drive-through site. 

And then someone I know who works in health care said the company that does the testing for the district doesn't always swab as well as they should (which I know because I've been tested more than several times.)

So here is where I'm at now with COVID and vaccines and testing:

I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN POSSIBLY FUCKING DO. 

I'VE BEEN VACCINATED THREE TIMES. 

MY PARENTS AND HUSBAND AND OLDEST CHILD HAVE BEEN VACCINATED THREE TIMES. 

I BOUGHT THE FUCKING KN95 MASKS FOR THE PLANE AND HAVE BEEN WEARING THEM LOCALLY SINCE WE GOT BACK.

I GET PREEMPTIVELY TESTED HOWEVER THE FUCK I CAN TO TRY TO PROTECT MY PARENTS.

AND I'm fucking tired.

I'm tired of trying to do what is best and thoughtful and most careful when millions of fucking boneheads don't. 

I spent the day with my parents visiting historic cemeteries near where my dad's maternal family had a farm. He wanted to take me and my mom for lunch at a restaurant in this town where he has wanted to go for awhile now. And so we went.

We wore our masks in and kept them on until our food came and the entire time I'm thinking:

THIS IS SO PROFOUNDLY STUPID BECAUSE HOW MANY PEOPLE IN THIS RESTAURANT WALKED IN WITHOUT MASKS (a lot of them cause I watched 'em)? AND THEN WE TAKE OFF OUR MASKS TO EAT, AND IT'S NOT LIKE THE VIRUS SAYS....

"Wait, I realize you're eating so I won't infect you right this second."

Everything seems pointless or absurd most of the time. Whatever I do or don't do, I second guess whether it is wise or responsible or worth it. 

I know I'm not alone in feeling all these things. I know there are others like me who are so mentally exhausted from all of it. 

And I know I can either continue to do what I've been doing because I'm generally a conscientious person who doesn't do dumbshit stuff or join the fucking boneheads. 

My choices are limited; everyone's choices are limited. I'm tired of doing the best I can and still feeling like I'm not doing enough. 

How the virus is like the yeast (an OCD saga from long ago with reverberations today)

When N was around six months old, I developed mastitis and then a thrush infection. 

Now, if you've ever been a breastfeeding mother and develop thrush, it 1. is painful and 2. sets you off on a course of fighting an invisible enemy. 

Maybe things have changed and the instructions for how to mitigate thrust differ now, but back in 2004, I went down a rabbit hole of crazy trying to fight thrush. I tried to follow everything I read. Boiling N's pacifiers and teething toys (she will probably develop cancer from all the leached plastic from that). Using paper towels for months in case I was getting anything from multi-use towels (like in the powder room). Trying to wash everything that came into my baby's mouth. NUTS, I tell you. 

This was one of the things, besides my hormones, that led me deep down into the pit of OCD where I'd never visited for so long before and seen such icky sides to it. 

It felt like I was never, ever, ever going to win.

How, exactly, do you fight something you can't see?

This is what I've been thinking about since M's COVID diagnosis yesterday, especially as it concerns keeping the rest of us "safe." 

My OCD wants to go bonkers trying to keep everyone away from each other and all of us wear masks nonstop and clean, and clean, and clean. 

But then I think back to what my mental health was like fighting that invisible yeast. I was fucking insane and as miserable as I can remember being my whole entire life. I stopped eating and sleeping and started crying and waking up in full-blown panic attacks.

Sure, it was hormones, but it was also a lot of feeling completely and totally out of control and not being able to handle it.

I'm medicated now, but I also don't think it is wise to intentionally poke the OCD bear if you can help it. Especially when under stress. Stress brings out the worst in OCD. And I've been stressed (like everyone) for the past 18 months with additional stress for all of Dad's health issues last year. 

So we're taking some steps to try to keep the four vaccinated in the house "safe," but maybe not as safe as we could. 

First of all, M is 11. I'm not locking him in his room like a pariah. If it was me or D, we'd lock ourselves away and try to keep the kids safe. But the most vulnerable person in our house is sick so what is the point? 

G is sleeping on a mattress in the living room (which in some ways is kind of stupid because he slept in the same bedroom with M the four nights between M's negative COVID test on Friday and his positive COVID test on Tuesday). 

We're keeping the ceiling fans on where M is to move the air around for when we are near him. 

I changed the filter in the HVAC system, and we're keeping the house fans running at all times (although this may be the worse thing to do because of circulating the virus). 

I brought a box fan upstairs to circulate the air in the kitchen and office since there is no ceiling fan. 

I disinfected the remote control because M was using it yesterday.

But I'm not wearing a mask inside my house, and I'm not making my sick kid do it either. 

We did a shit ton of things to keep "safe," and it didn't keep us totally safe. I don't for one second regret any of those things, but I think it is kind of absurd now to try to put the cat back in the bag, especially since we don't know when between Friday and Tuesday that M became contagious. At what moment did he officially become contagious? We will never know. 

I may be walking around today, right this minute, positive with COVID. Just because I was negative yesterday does not mean I am negative today. 

For my own sanity, I cannot allow myself to engage with this invisible enemy the way I did in 2004.

I hope if the four of us who are vaccinated get sick, it is mild. But ramping up my anxiety and destroying my mental health in the effort to stay physically healthy may not be the best choice at this time. 

If your kid gets COVID (a sad retelling of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)

Apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond.

If your kid wakes up feeling hot and with congestion, you'll probably regret having sent this child to school the day before when he was also a little congested (but you live in the Ohio River Valley and 4/5 of your family take allergy shots so congestion is like a way of life, not a symptom).

If you're having these regrets, you'll remember that you have an at-home COVID test stashed away and you'll give it to this child (who is TWO FUCKING WEEKS from turning 12). 

If you give the child the COVID test and it is positive, you'll have to call the substitute center because you're subbing that day and WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?

If you call the substitute center and explain the situation, they will tell you to call health services.

If you call health services, they will tell you to go on in and substitute teach because you're fully vaccinated and without symptoms. (But try to stay six feet from students....have you ever been in a school before, lady?)

If you go on in and substitute teach, you will text your congested, at-home-COVID-tested positive child multiple times through the day to make sure he is not more sick. You will also text several friends throughout the day and notify the grandparents (one of whom is now also COVID-exposed). 

If you don't die from "My child has COVID"-induced anxiety while subbing, you will take your child to get tested through the district's drive-through testing site.

If you take your child to get tested at the drive-through site, they will be unable to record the test because the directions on their website are super freaking unclear (someone hire an ENGLISH MAJOR to make it less confusing so antsy parents don't screw it up). 

If your child gets tested and isn't able to be registered because the website instructions are unclear, you will call the company and text the people at the testing site and reregister again so that the freaking results can be recorded. 

If your child feels hot and is congested and cannot distance in any capacity especially at lunch, he will get a POSITIVE  COVID test TWO FUCKING WEEKS before he is eligible to get the vaccine (have I mentioned that?)

If your child is officially COVID-positive, you will look at your calendar and determine all the places and people you now need to call.

If you call the dentist to tell them you have an appointment next week and have COVID in your house, they will tell you they have to talk to the doctor because who the fuck knows what to do in all these various situations. 

If you call the volunteer organization to ask what their COVID protocol is since you are now officially COVID-exposed, they will not email back in the 1.2 seconds you want a response (because isn't everything SUPER CRITICAL AND TIMELY NOW?).

If you look ahead next week, you will realize you have to reschedule the orthodontist appointment for both your sons on Monday.

If you look ahead to Wednesday, you'll realize you probably need to call the hairdresser and find out what their COVID protocol is. (Likely another several weeks to get your mop cut.)

If you look to Friday, you'll see that your plan for a short day trip is now cancelled.

If you continue looking at the calendar, or you look at your COVID-positive child on the couch, or you look at your vaccinated but maybe will also get sick older children, you may WILL pour yourself another glass of an adult beverage.

If you feel overwhelmed, you will remember that there are all kinds of single parents out there who are dealing with this shit without a safety net of a spouse who works from home. 

If you think about single parents, you'll also think about parents who can't work from home who have to go into work or give up jobs because their kids may be quarantined for 10 days at a time, whether they are COVID-positive or not. 

If you think about all this stuff, you will feel the violent urge to throat punch anyone and everyone who has made light of this virus that has killed close to 700,000 people in this country in 18 months and continues taking people down either temporarily or permanently every single day. 

People and their dumb natural consequences

When N was little, maybe 3 or 4-years-old, I told her to put her coat on when she went outside, and she refused. Threw a duck fit. 

I could have fought her, wrestled her into her coat, but I just let her go outside and then enjoyed myself immensely when, with teeth-chattering, she came back into the house a short-time later because she was freezing. 

This is now how I feel about people who have refused to get vaccinated for COVID. 

I am a skeptic by nature, hence the reason I have never fallen head-first into a pit of religious faith or absolute belief in anything. (There is some irony here when those who put belief above all else must experience with their every sense the pain and suffering of COVID infections themselves before they will understand it is a serious fucking problem.)

I have reached a point where I absolutely do not have any compassion for people who have remained unvaccinated and are now sick. The biggest problem I have with them is their utter selfishness that is now keeping health care workers exhausted and delaying hospital care for people who have other non-COVID life-threatening issues. 

I don't pretend to know what Jesus would think, but I hope he would give them a good lecture and maybe flip a table at them. 

Recently a parent explained to me why she is not making her child get a vaccine. I did not ask; she offered this information willingly and unprompted, and I tried to keep my eyes from bulging out of my head. 

She said, "She's old enough to make her own choices."

I think I said, "Oh," because, again, trying to keep my face in check. 

I didn't give my children a choice because if they do get COVID and require care I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO FORK OVER THE MONEY TO PAY FOR IT. 

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO PUT MY LIFE ON HOLD AND BE AT THE HOSPITAL.

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF MY CHILD IF SHE IS HOME SICK. 

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE MY CHILD TO VARIOUS DOCTOR VISITS SHOULD IT COME TO THAT. 

Besides my child who gets sick who will suffer most, I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO SUFFER. 

And why would I choose to suffer in this way and be inconvenienced if I don't have to?

My senior does get to handle lots of her own stuff. She gets to pay her own car insurance. She gets to decide where she goes to school and what she wears to school and how she handles her schoolwork and what she wants to eat as a snack when she gets home. 

But as long as I'm the responsible party for her health care, she doesn't get to avoid a vaccine that has the ability to make COVID a largely preventable disease. 

What makes this statement by this parent even more mind-boggling is that this person's child plays on a sports team. There's no I in TEAM, or that's what sports-minded people say. And yet, not getting a vaccine could put the team and their games in jeopardy. Focusing on the "I don't want a vaccine" means the "TEAM could be harmed."

I am tired of being angry. I am tired of watching people do the dumbest possible things and reap the harshest consequences from their dumb choices. And I am mostly tired of knowing that because of their dumb choices so many other people are suffering. 

Iterations of angry (and seriously, WWJD?)

I am beyond angry at this point in the pandemic, especially as I see the rates of hospitalizations climb with Delta.

I know people who refuse the medical science of COVID vaccines but willingly take the medical science of cancer treatments. They refuse to put a vaccine in their bodies but will put chemo in their bodies. 

I know people who lack all empathy and imagination to put themselves in the shoes of other people until something directly impacts them and then suddenly, they experience a change of heart and "get it." 

While I don't call myself a Christian (because people who blast their Christianity all over the place have been, in my experience, sort of assholes; the bad apples have more than spoiled the bunch, I'm afraid), I want to live by the Golden Rule. 

I have tried to be sympathetic to people who are scared of the vaccine. I have tried to understand where people are coming from who think it is a ploy or a government scare tactic. 

But there are so many who spout off about Jesus all day long and yet will not in any way live by the Golden Rule to do unto others as they would want others to do unto them. They march themselves to church every Sunday but will do little to care for the least of these. 

And Lord knows, I do a shitty job of caring for the least of these, but I don't blather Jesus and Christianity all over people and then still do a shitty job of caring for the least of these. 

Irony is the opposite of what you expect, and I would expect people who claim to live under one master (Jesus) who made the ultimate sacrifice for them to be willing to sacrifice for others in some capacity. 

I have been spending a lot of time asking myself "What would Jesus think of all this?" 

Would Jesus feel proud of his Christians who reject a vaccine made with the intention of saving the lives of the sick and the poor and the chronically ill? Or even the young and healthy? Wouldn't Jesus want us to help our brothers? 

Would Jesus be proud of people who shout and yell about wearing masks if it means it keeps others from suffering? 

I am done hoping and wishing and praying for these people to act in a Christian way; I'm now praying for myself to work through this deep anger I feel for humankind. 

This is why you're crazy

They said COVID is a hoax. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long).

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work.

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?).

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic.

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong). 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong) and vaccinated people shed virus or vaccine (which one?). 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong) and vaccinated people shed virus or vaccine (which one?) and the vaccine alters DNA. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong) and vaccinated people shed virus or vaccine (which one?) and the vaccine alters DNA and the vaccine would implant computer chips in us. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong) and vaccinated people shed virus or vaccine (which one?) and the vaccine alters DNA and the vaccine would implant computer chips in us and the vaccine didn't keep people from getting sick when Delta came along. 

They said COVID is a hoax and it would go away after the 2020 elections and it is just like the flu (but the flu doesn't sicken people all year long) and masks don't work and masks violate our God-given rights (to our faces?) and they were making a vaccine for a disease that they also said is a hoax and the vaccine was a guise for the government to control us and the vaccine wouldn't work and the vaccine would make people sterile and the vaccine makes people magnetic and the vaccines cause autism (still wrong) and vaccinated people shed virus or vaccine (which one?) and the vaccine alters DNA and the vaccine would implant computer chips in us and the vaccine didn't keep people from getting sick when Delta came along and the vaccine was really a placebo. 

They said all this stuff, adding more weirdness and implausibility. 

Layering strange upon nonsensical until I had to ask "Are they crazy?

And then I said "This is why you're crazy."

I said it to them, and I said it to myself when I thought about them.

Post pandemic (even though it's not over) ennui

Ennui is often thought of as boredom, but I define it more broadly. 

In some ways, I have been in a state of ennui my entire life---a listlessness brought on by near-constant existential crisis. Having children and being busy and medication have lessened it, but that feeling doesn't ever fully go away. 

For the past several weeks, that feeling has worsened, and I have been trying to figure out what is going on. 

It is pandemic-related and OCD-related, but the specifics are a bit fuzzy.

There are several subtypes of OCD, and there can definitely be overlap between them. For me, contamination OCD is primary (with forbidden thoughts/ruminations secondary). This means I was totally prepared to live through a pandemic and completely unprepared to re-acclimate myself to life post-vaccination. 

My sweet spot in life was wearing a mask, not socializing, keeping my distance, and having hand sanitizer EVERYWHERE. 

Now, as I write this, everyone is acting like the pandemic is over and done with, but I have my suspicions as to what will happen. There remain a whole lot of unknowns. What will the fall and winter look like, for example?

For me, the biggest is when my youngest child will be able to get his vaccine. While I trust the vaccine to work as well as the flu shots I take each fall (or better), I also recognize that no vaccine provides 100 percent coverage. And if one of us in our house gets sick, will M get a rougher case because he is, due to his age, unable to get a vaccine? 

That worries me (even though my rational brain can totally understand that the risk to M of being harmed in a car accident driving to the vaccine is higher than his risk of getting COVID and dying from it.)

But clearly, rational thought hasn't ever been my strong suit. The blog is mood-disordered mama; not totally rational mama who keeps her wits about her. 

Then there was the announcement by the school district that kids in schools will no longer have to wear masks which seems to me to violate the "unvaccinated people need to wear masks" policy, especially at the elementary level. I would be hesitant to immerse myself in a vat of liquified bacteria or virus without a wetsuit, and that image in my mind is what I picture walking into an elementary school will feel like in the fall. 

Of course, subbing in an elementary school has always been like immersing oneself in a vat of disease, mucus, and slobber.

And then there's the general people factor. 

I didn't love people before the pandemic, but being away from people has made me even less eager to be around them, especially in large numbers. 

I recently read a book that mentioned Dunbar's number, which I had never heard of. It is a theory that the most social relationships an individual can have with anything like stability, based on evolution and our tribal history, is around 150. Research seems to suggest it isn't completely accurate, and I would say that is true. 

My Dunbar's number is around 5; possibly 10 if I'm in the right mood. 

So I'm meh about people, and I'm meh about everything else. 

I'm not bored but I am completely unmotivated. 

There are things I think I'd like to do but I haven't the desire to do them.

My impression, which could be wrong, is that other people are boldly going back into "real life." And that may be ok for them as so many lamented the pause of pandemic year 2020. 

But I liked the pause for the most part. Not every second of it, of course. But on the whole, I liked the simplification of everything. 

I liked, for once, having an actual excuse (THERE IS A FUCKING PANDEMIC) for social activity besides "I don't want to" or "I don't like people" or "I don't have the mental energy to keep up with surface-level conversations."

The pandemic made it easy and acceptable for me to keep my distance...both physically and emotionally. The pause meant I didn't have to deal with involvement in school and planning with acquaintances and putting on the mask of caring about things I truly care nothing about (player packs, for example). 

I enjoyed the disengage. 

So now that things are ripping back into "normal," I'm forced to re-engage myself. And I'm having a hard time. 

O, the places I'm not going this spring break

I'm engaging in quite a bit of my own CBT this week as I see social media posts from people who are traveling.

On the one hand, even though I'm fully vaccinated, it gives me a severe case of the heebie-jeebies to see people out and about engaging in life. And I have to remind myself that the pictures they post are of their own families together outside. They aren't packed into a subway car mask-less with hundreds of strangers. 

My parents, who are also fully vaccinated, got together for a meal with several other also fully vaccinated couples for dinner (not at a restaurant; in one of their homes). My initial reaction that never got past my lips was, "OMG. Are you crazy?" 

But then I went through the "They are fully vaccinated. The other people are fully vaccinated. They are fine" mantra and was ok. 

I'm doing a lot of the self-talk business lately. 

As mentioned, I do some CBT to manage the anxiety of seeing people out doing stuff.

And then I do some CBT to help me manage my feelings of meh and self-pity at seeing other people doing stuff because we're not doing stuff (even though I don't yet feel comfortable doing stuff especially if it involves being on an airplane).

My brain is putting itself in freaking knots.

So I give my brain this talk:

Me: "Brain, you've gone some really cool places, and you'll go to some really cool places again just not right now."

Brain: "Yeah, ok."

Me: "And you wouldn't enjoy traveling right now because the boys aren't vaccinated so you wouldn't want to fly. And you don't want to stay in a hotel. And you wouldn't feel comfortable going out to eat at restaurants."

Brain: "Yeah. You're right."

Me: "Not to mention that you've been able to save a crazy amount of money this year from not going places which means you may be able to do some stuff to the house that you've been wanting to do."

Brain: 'Yeah. That would be good."

Me: "And finally, Brain, you know as well as anyone that pics on social media are one moment in time. You've posted your own pics that make everything look amazing and wonderful even when five seconds later you felt like murdering your entire family."

Brain: "True, all."

Me: "So quit feeling mopey and boring. Life is 95% mopey and boring, and you know that. Cool it."

I'm finding that navigating all the rules and protocols and reservation systems is overwhelming me and taking all the fun out of doing stuff and that is just attempting to do stuff in my city. (We had a zoo attempt failure a couple weeks ago). 

I can't handle the idea of doing this from several states (or countries) away. YIKES!

This summer we're going two hours away and that will be good enough. 

I am having to remind myself a lot (more CBT) that it took me months to get used to pandemic life and it will take as long if not longer to readjust to whatever is going to look like normal. 

The cancer has returned

Dad has a new and seemingly fast-growing tumor very close to where his first tumor was. He will have another surgery in 2 weeks. 

At this point, none of us knows what else this entails. 

Will there be more chemo and radiation? We don't know.

Since the cancer came back so quickly, are there trials for immunotherapy that he could do? We don't know.

Has the cancer spread beyond just that tumor? We don't know.

When dad went through his first surgery in the late summer/early fall, I did two things.

First, I tried to find humor in suffering because there is humor to be found if only if that humor is absolute absurdity. 

Dad's incision cut through the entire right side of his face so when I would call to check up on him I'd ask how Blackbeard was doing. Dad could have easily been a stand-in for one of the pirates on the Jack Sparrow franchise. 

He'd had to have his top teeth removed for radiation so I got him a pair of wind-up teeth for Christmas. 

The second thing I did was I worried and stewed. 

While my antidepressant helps me from completing stopping eating when I am worried, I had little appetite or desire to eat. I fretted about whether the first PET scan would find cancer riddling his body, making further treatments pointless. 

I felt such relief when he showed no cancer beyond that one spot on his face. 

And now I recognize that me worrying or stewing made not one iota's difference. (Rationally, I know worrying never makes any difference.)

I can actuate zero change in any of this. 

For the moment, I'm finding myself feeling very "whatever" about the entire thing. And by "whatever" I don't mean that I don't care; I mean that me fretting or worrying will change absolutely nothing. 

I simply feel sad. It devastates me to know my dad is suffering. 

I also feel angry at my utter lack of control, at the unfairness for my dad and for thousands and millions of people who are facing such things. I am angry for the Rwandans who faced genocide and the Jews who were forced into camps and the Native Americans who were viciously slaughtered without any "control" over any of it. 

I am angry at the human condition. And while some might say this is anger at God, I don't believe in sugar-daddy God who I can turn to for miracles. I don't believe that God makes things happen or that God's ways are beyond our understanding. 

If I subscribe to that belief, I am forced to believe that this God is also sadistic. 

For my own sanity, it is better for me to believe that nature is cyclical and sometimes there is no reason beyond the simple fact that everything dies. It is here that I have to chuck Christian God out the window and adopt Buddhist impermanence.

(And here is where I can make a shitty joke that God did "open a window," through which I tossed him to make way for Buddhist thought.)

However, I do find myself angry at all the people who might think or say stupid things like "Things happen for a reason" and "Pain has a purpose" and "God never gives you more than you can handle."

Because these are unmitigated lies. 

Life regularly gives people more pain than they can handle; they survive because their only other option is to commit suicide.

It is beyond stupid to be angry at the mindset of other people because I know people adopt whatever mindset they need to help them cope just as I am adopting mindsets right now to help me cope. 

I am angry at my uselessness to effect anything that will make this go away. It is easier to put a name to my blame. 

So when I am able I am reminding myself to simply sit with my anger and my sadness and feel them in all their misery. 

My first COVID shot

My COVID shot experience from yesterday:

I'm sharing this because I know some people are hesitant to get the shot.

I received my first shot yesterday at approximately 11:35 am because I am employed by the local school district.

No anaphylactic symptoms.

Within four hours, I did feel fatigue and body aches severe enough that I just went and laid in my bed. My body felt like I had the flu, but my head did not. (You know when you are really sick you get that brain fog where you just fall asleep and don't care if you die.)

Today I feel my normal 47-year-old aches and pains.

Since I spent a lot of time in my car yesterday waiting for the shot, I had plenty of time to think. 

Here are some of those thoughts:

I. I don't know what is in the vaccine

A lot of people say things like, "I don't know what is in the shot; I'm not putting that in my body."

That isn't an unacceptable reason, really. 

What is unacceptable is that I ate an english muffin with peanut butter, drank my coffee with flavored creamer, and took an antihistamine and my Lexapro yesterday morning before I went to get my shot, and I do not know what is in all those things that I put into my body.

I put toothpaste in my mouth; I don't know what is in that.

I rubbed deodorant on my armpits, and I have no clue what is in that canister.

The argument that you may have about not knowing what is in a vaccine falls apart when you realize that you don't know what is in ANY of the stuff you regularly put into or on your body.

II. Chemicals aren't natural

Chemicals are totally natural; most of them derive naturally in the earth (or in space).

Everything that is in the world came from the world (or space).

We often combine lots of natural things to make synthetic things. And here is where we go back to the foods, beverages, and medications I mentioned above, most of which are a combination of natural things and synthetic things that I happily and without any thought put into my body every day.

III. I'm not taking this vaccine to avoid sickness

I don't look at any vaccine as something that is 100 percent guaranteed. Nothing is 100 percent guaranteed.

I think of a vaccine as insurance. I hope I don't get sick, but if I do, I hope the vaccine keeps me from getting so sick that I end up hospitalized or dying.

That is the ultimate goal, especially with a virus that is so weird and new that doctors have no real idea why some old people get it and die and others get it and are fine. Why do some younger people get it and die? Why do some people get it and have extremely long-term complications?

They don't know.

So I'm not getting the COVID shot to avoid getting the sniffles or even achiness and fatigue and a big freaking headache.

I don't have car insurance because I may get a little $200 ding in my bumper; I get car insurance because if I get my car totaled, I've got more protection.

I insure my house not because I may get a small roof leak or I the plumbing may clog. I get it to have some protection should my house CATCH ON FIRE.

I have medical insurance not for the strep throat or the ingrown toenail. I have it for the unexpected appendicitis.

IV. Would you take the shot to go on vacation?

Someone I know who is a nurse in a nursing home said that she was hesitant to get the shot until she realized she would have to have it in order to go on a cruise this coming summer.

And when she realized it could jeopardize her vacation she knew that her "reasons" for not wanting the shot were bullshit.

I thought this was a great litmus test for whether a person really has legitimate concerns or bullshit concerns about a shot.

If you travel to certain parts of the world, you are supposed to get immunizations.

In 2022, N and I will hopefully be going to Ecuador as part of a school trip. These are the shots we'll need, and I will happily get them if it means I get to safely go visit another part of the world.

So.....

I didn't feel great last night, but I know it was my immune system having a response to the vaccine making it so that if I meet the COVID virus "in the wild" my body will have a memory of what it is and how to fight it. 

And I'm happy to do it if it helps me avoid hospitalization and helps keep other people whose are older, younger, weaker, stronger, whatever a little bit safer. 

Drinking is not funny, and yet everything is a joke

I have written articles about excessive alcohol consumption.

My dad's brother died at 48 from cirrhosis of the liver and his father was an abusive alcoholic. 

I'm pretty aware of the dangers of drinking.

I became very cognizant of my alcohol usage at age 21 after I drank WAY too much vodka and had a 5-day hangover. 

I stick to wine and beer, with an occasional margarita or strawberry daiquiri. 

I have no more than 2 glasses. 

Most nights, if I have a beer, it is a half-beer that D and I split. 

I'm also aware that D and I have been drinking more than we ever have as a result of the pandemic. 

Initial research suggests he and I are in very good company and a lot of it. 

My antidepressant is working overtime of late. 

The pandemic is part of it, sure, but my dad's health issues are what has left me reeling. My dad's health issues in combination with the pandemic and being terrified to be near him because his body cannot handle anything else. I cannot risk his health because it is terribly fragile at the moment. 

Nothing is funny right now. 

Everyone drinking more than usual. Everyone more isolated than usual. My dad's health. My emotional health. 

And yet it all feels like a joke; the year of near constant feeling like we're being punked by circumstances beyond our control. 

I can make fun of my liquor store run and stay vigilant to not go overboard, to always be aware that it wouldn't take much to slip over the ledge into addiction. 

That many, many people do something to deal temporarily with an issue and then that "fix" becomes the next real problem. 

Our entire society, maybe our entire world, is doing that now. 

Surviving and knowing that the steps we're taking may be the steps of future unraveling.

On the banana peel / How God is like the Trump Administration

My dad is 78 years old, and my mom is 82. The average life expectancy in the US is 78.87 years (2019).

As my mom said the other day, she's got "one foot on the banana peel."

At this point, with dad having cancer surgery, chemo/radiation, and as of yesterday, emergency surgery for a twisted bowel obstruction, he's got one foot on the peel and is doing a little jig. 

It has made me aware of how I hear of other people going through "hard stuff" and think to myself, "How do they manage that?"

The answer is complex:

1. You go through what you have to because what choice do you have?

2. I think a lot of the time you aren't aware you're going through it until it is done. (Except me, who recognizes we're going through a hot mess at the moment.)

The other night, when mom and dad were in the ER, and we didn't yet know what the diagnosis was, I laid in bed and had angry conversations with God.

Well, not really with God.

God is not my sugar daddy. I don't plead for stuff. I don't wish for things. For my own sanity, I cannot have an anthropomorphized God in my life because he/she/it makes me furious. 

My anger at that instant was directed at people who do the whole "God is good" song and dance when they get the answer they want (no cancer or whatever). But they don't do the "God is an asshole" thing when the answer is not what they want. Then they do the "God's got this" thing.

I'm not poking fun of them because if this gets them through the muck, then have at it. 

But it doesn't get ME through the muck. It just makes me think that God is like the Trump Administration--taking ALL the credit for the good stuff and none of the blame for the bad stuff. 

After lying in bed for several hours, I finally decided that for my own mental health I had to look at Dad's situation as just nature happening. His aging body doing what aging bodies do. Nature is not good nor bad; it simply is, and it does what it does. It is much more calming for me to think this way about my family's shared existence at this time. 

Of course, while all this is going on, I've been interviewing people who have been throwing around preachy moralizing at me, and it is aggravating as hell. 

I'm the doubting Thomas who never gets to put his hand in Jesus' side. I'm the Paul who doesn't have the conversion. And I'm the Carrie who resents other people throwing their "God is good" and "God's got this" into my face even though I know they have good intentions. 

The road to hell is paved with those.

The movie "Speed," except a virus is driving the bus

A former coworker of mine now works at a local hospital. She posted that the hospital system is experiencing "critical staffing" issues. 

I overheard a conversation where a nurse was saying local medical systems are preparing to freeze non-emergency surgeries because of virus quarantines and illness. 

In small towns/cities where COVID is rampant, there isn't enough room at hospitals for COVID patients. 

Numerous governors are starting to restrict restaurants/bars and activities where groups of people meet and are, at least part of the time, maskless. 

And it all sucks. 

It sucks for the people who can't go out to eat because maybe that was their way of doing something fun when everything sucks.

It sucks for the restaurant industry that has been slammed from every direction.

It sucks for the local economies, which means it sucks for everyone whose tax dollars have to stretch even tighter. 

It sucks for the leaders who have to decide between restricting freedoms and hospitals being completely overwhelmed/more people getting sick and dying. 

It sucks for people who have depression and anxiety.

It sucks for people going through chemo and cancer whose immune systems are already blitzed.

It sucks for people who work from home; it sucks for people who can't work from home.

It sucks for kids in school who have to distance and wear masks; it sucks for kids who aren't in school and have to do online.

IT SUCKS FOR EVERYONE. 

As of Nov 19, the case fatality rate in the US is 2.2 percent. And this sounds great until you multiple 2.2 percent times the number of people who live in the US, which is 330 million people. 

0.022 x 330 million = 7.26 million DEATHS

We are now at 250,000 deaths. So if we multiply that number by 29 we will have almost 7.26 million.

All of our options are BAD. 

There are no good options; there are only BAD options with BAD consequences.

And with this virus, if enough people (and there are enough people) fear it and fear millions of people dying, they are not going to act normally even if leaders do absolutely nothing except sit on their couches and eat bonbons. 

They aren't going to shop or eat out or go anywhere or do much of anything while the virus is running rampant even if my governor and your governor and the president and everyone else says "Everything is fine; go about your business." 

Because they know their friends are getting sick; they know people who are very ill or in the hospital or who have died. 

And while I could be wrong and there could be a mass conspiracy where every nation on the planet and doctors in North and South Dakota have agreed to bury empty coffins and do interviews about how bad everything is virus-wise, I doubt it.

Captain's log: It's all meh

 It's day "Who Knows" here on the ship.

I'd like to tell the world and Mother Nature that me dealing with perimenopause is a TERRIBLE time to also have a worldwide pandemic meaning I have zero time alone in my house. 

Someone is always around...even if they aren't bothersome. And sometimes just being not bothersome but around is really, really annoying. 

Also sometimes the pre-teen comes upstairs near my former-dining-room-now-office with his headset on yapping at his friend, and it is all I can do not to strangle him because of all the dumb that is seeping out of his mouth and into the air. 

The kids are doing ok with online school. They like sleeping in. They like not being in a school building for 7+ hours. 

I'm ok with online school because it is giving some structure to their days. 

We're not setting the world on fire with genius over here, but we weren't before the pandemic either. 

I have actually been subbing 3 days a week for the past 3 weeks, which is ok. (Although I will not be sad when it is over because, whether it is online or not, it is still subbing. I don't do it for the joy; I do it for the regular paycheck.)

My left eye is red today which may be due to getting a flu shot yesterday, or it may be due to not sleeping well on Sunday night. Sometimes that happens, and it is annoying.

My dermatologist had to cut a spot off the back of my leg. She asked me if that was ok. I told I didn't want it to begin with and she could have it. 

My dad had a big ole cancerous spot cut out of his face last week and has been doing his best impression of an extra on The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (in terms of big slashy scars on the face). While the cancer hasn't spread to lymph nodes or beyond, his doctors want him to do chemo in addition to radiation. While we are happy it hasn't spread and things could be worse, the word chemo just feels heavy even if it is preventative. 

G becomes an actual full-fledged teenager in days, and he is all kinds of almost the same size as me. He is wearing a size 9 wide men's shoe now, which is trippy as heck. 

And N is talking playing field hockey in college which is only like minutes away.

Someone from a recruiting outfit called me and didn't seem to understand that "I don't like sports and haven't videotaped my kid play because that would interfere with the READING I do at her games." 

Yes, I totally said this to him. I'm pretty sure no one has ever said this to him based on his response.

I have a dentist appointment this week.

So life is not bad by a long shot but it feels so, so meh. 

Adjustment to online school during COVID (and what school is and isn't)

Before the district made the decision to go to full online school, I had asked N how she felt about the possibility of going to school in-person.

As the oldest and most social of my children, I felt like she would be the one most impacted by being at home. 

Her response surprised me.

She said she didn't trust fellow students to make smart choices for themselves and others and that going to school in person would cause her anxiety.

I had determined that if the district went back in person I was going to have my kids do online work and resign as a sub. 

Things for these first days have been somewhere between alright and crappy, depending on the moment, which I think sums up the entirety of 2020. 

It's not fantastic; it's not knocking anyone's socks off, but we're hanging in. 

If nothing else, the kids have a routine again.

And there ARE positives to this online school thing, such as not having middle and high school students wake up at 5:30 in the morning in order to be at school by 7:20. 

I'm enjoying not driving all over creation all the time.

I'm glad my kids are not having to do the reams of waiting that is just part of in-school school. Waiting in the gym before they can go to their classes in the morning. Waiting for announcements to begin. Waiting to line up and then waiting in line for the doofuses to get in line or stop talking. Waiting in line at the bathroom. Waiting in line in the cafeteria. Waiting at the end of the day after they've gotten their stuff ready. (I don't think most parents have any clue how much time in school is spent not doing "learning" as they envision it.)

And that's not all the waiting. There is also the waiting that kids do whether they pick up things quickly, in which case they finish up and are told to "read to themselves" which is also known as "waiting." The kids who don't pick up things quickly have to wait for the teacher to move on from another student that needs individual attention.

I'm not saying this to suggest in-school school is bad. What I'm saying is in-school school is imperfect. And just like when someone is deceased (which in a way is what COVID has done to in-person school), many people are making in-person school out to be the GOAT. We've now endowed sainthood on something that really didn't deserve it; we only act this way because we don't have it now. 

I have modified some of my expectations about things I want my kids to know and do mostly because I'm becoming very good at asking the question, "WHO DECIDED?"

Like "Who decided that it is the failing of civilization if kids don't learn cursive, and why am I allowing myself to think this is the case?"

So I'm having the boys practice their full legal names because, really, this is all they will ever need to sign in most cases. 

And if they decide to become scholars of primary source material they will be motivated on their own to figure it out. 

I think COVID can be an opportunity to parents, students, and really, anyone, to have the opportunity to ask "Who decided?" about a lot of things.

COVID questions I ask myself

COVID-think is a thing now.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself:

1. Is whatever it is I'm thinking of doing worth getting sick to do?

Like if I run to Target for underwear and get sick from it, I will be really ticked off. And there is very, very little that I'm so anxious to do that I would be willing to chance getting sick to do it.

2. Is whomever I'm thinking about seeing someone that is worth me getting sick to see?

In my head, there are now tiers of people importance. You probably don't want to know which tier you're on.

3. If I do whatever it is I think I want to do, will I actually have fun doing it if I have to wear a mask and feel anxious around people?

Like flying. While I would love to go to France, I would hate to be in an airplane even if everyone is in masks. I don't like flying anyway and require extensive amounts of Xanax. With COVID, this would be entirely too much anxiety, therefore not worth it.

Also, France, Denmark, Amsterdam, Spain, Hungary, and Japan won't let me (or any of us COVID-y Americans in).

4. How long will Kroger keep their curbside pickup free of charge, and if they decide to once again charge $4.95 per pickup, is it worth $4.95 to avoid humans in the store?

There was a time when I was cheap and would have said my time is worth the $4.95 to schlep around for my own groceries, but it is worth my peace of mind to pay the $4.95 to avoid people.

5. How bad must things be when the gal working at the state park last week (which was very un-peoply on a Tuesday) thanked me for complying with mask-wearing and being nice about it?

I mean, this particular visitor center was about the size of the main floor of my house, so not huge. There weren't nooks and crannies where one could go to "get away." I don't understand why people are being such complete assholes, especially to people at places of business who have ZERO power to change anything even if they wanted to.

6. How many days can I go between showers without feeling completely funky?

My body can go at least 3 days, but my hair says no more than that. I have tested this.

7. Do my kids' brains still work?

My 16-year-old told me the other morning when it looked very overcast that she hoped it didn't "thunder rain."

At this point, I looked at her and said, "You mean "storm?"

And she replied, "Yes."

The answer to Question #7 is no.

The USPS and other COVID-y things

 Lawd amighty. 

There is some serious discontent in my neighborhood surrounding the USPS, which I find pretty funny, mostly because the folks who seem to do the most complaining on our neighborhood FB page are diehard Republicans. And a more efficient, less wasteful USPS seems like it is exactly in-line with conservative principles.

Principles. Shminciples.

Principles don't matter when it concerns MY mail, I guess. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not loving things books taking a much longer time to arrive. 

Still, not getting things instantaneously is a good reminder to me of how spoiled we've all become by modern life.

It's not a bad thing to have to wait.

I mean, hasn't this been what every parent since the beginning of time has been saying to their children?

Doesn't delaying gratification build character? 

There is much I don't love about COVID-life, but it's not such a bad thing for my children to have to remember to write down on a list what they want me to order from the grocery and then have to wait for the next time I pick up groceries.

It's not a bad thing that my children aren't being able to do exactly whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it.

I wish many of the adults would get a handle on themselves and be reminded that they, too, can learn to manage their disappointment.

Myopia that has nothing to do with eyesight

I am near-sighted in one eye and far-sighted in the other eye.

I like to think this is a reflection of my personality, too, because I try to see both sides.

That doesn't mean I agree with both sides, but I try to understand where people are coming from.

I understand the desire and need parents have to send their kids back to in-person school.

I understand the feeling that one's kid(s) is doing nothing except playing video games right now in the summer so the idea of doing more screen stuff for the foreseeable future as "school" is not appealing. 

But I have to laugh at the notion that kids, suddenly, now during the pandemic, are for the first time in their lives going to bed at all hours of the night and not keeping a normal schedule.

There is a global pandemic.

Everything, for lack of a better term, sucks. 

But while the pandemic is making things suck more for a lot more people, it doesn't mean that school and everything "normal" made life right as rain before.

And if we suddenly go back to school in person that children's lives will once again be precious and special and whole.

In-person school caused an awful lot of kids stress, for one, whether that stress was teacher-induced or getting up early-induced or not understanding school work-induced. 

And I knew PLENTY of kids who would stay up all hours of the night playing video games and then come to school the next day. 

Just because they were in-person in a school building did not mean they were getting anything like an education. 

They were checked as physically present, but they were emotionally and intellectually not on the premises.

There were many times that I watched students do absolutely nothing. 

Yes, that was with me, a sub. 

But I know from their teachers that they still did nothing. 

EVEN WHEN THEY WERE IN THE FREAKING BUILDING.

They would sit and not work, even with their teachers. 

One teacher I know said one of her classes would get maybe, if she was lucky, 2 days of work in a 5-day period because they just played around and had no interest. 

So I do get my panties in a bunch when adults act like kids were a-ok before pandemic but now are suffering depression and anxiety because they aren't at school.

That appears to be correlation, not causation.

Maybe they are depressed and anxious because there is a GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC.

AND THE ECONOMY IS IN TATTERS BECAUSE THE US, especially, HAS ACTED LIKE WE CAN JUST GO ABOUT OUR BUSINESS AND KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON. 

I'm not sure sending them back to school in a building with its public health rules and the potential for quarantine when someone turns up COVID-positive after two days in the building (hello Charlestown HS) is gonna reduce that anxiety/depression.

For all we know, it could make it worse.

And by saying all this, I'm not suggesting that the kids who stayed up all night and played video games and were just zombies in the building was alright. 

I didn't like it, and it's not right, and I know there are ways to resolve it with enough funding and enough work and making class sizes WAY, WAY smaller than 30 kids or even 15 kids in a class. 

But it is super pollyanna-ish to act like putting bodies in a building is going to make life normal.

The best of potentially horrible choices

I don't love online school as a teacher or as a parent, but I think it is the best of many bad options especially for my kids' school district which is about 96,000 kids big.

I think smaller schools can probably more safely manage COVID precautions (although I think the same thing I talk about below can and will happen to them especially since COVID rates are going up).

Let me flesh out what I briefly alluded to in my prior post about N's field hockey team the other day.

A young person went to a Younglife (this is apparently a religious thing) event.
That teenager was waiting on COVID test results.

Yes--that teen and/or that teen's parents thought it was an a-ok idea to go to a public function while waiting on a COVID test.
I think that is called "doing a Rand Paul."

That young person got a positive result the next day, which means every other kid who attended that event is now COVID-exposed, whether they were right up in this kid's face or all the way across the outside area where the event took place, whether they wore masks or not.
COVID exposure can mean nothing serious or everything serious because you just don't know what people's actions are unless you see them with your own eyes.
(And even then, we have under a year's worth of knowledge about this virus so we are flying blind most of the time.)

As I understand it, some of the friends of the 4-5 field hockey girls who attended the event (but did not attend field hockey conditioning) now have to get tested and quarantine because they socialize outside of field hockey and some of them work at a nursing home.
They have to now act out of an abundance of caution because one person made the call to attend a public event while waiting on COVID results.

As far as I'm concerned, if my kids went back to school in person, I would be spending a sizable portion of my time taking them for COVID tests.
And I imagine they would also be having to do much of their school work online anyway because if they got a COVID test, I would then have to quarantine them until we got the results back.
Which means a whole lot of stopping and starting.
Which is EXACTLY the worst thing for the first weeks of school.
It takes most kids like 6 weeks to even get into any kind of routine at the start of the year.

And if the district ultimately decided to do in-person school, kids' educational time would be sacrificed even if they are in the building. 

Because...

--how much waiting time will there be to get temperature checks? If there are 300 kids in a building (lowball figure; my son's elementary has 700 kids; my daughter's high school has 1,400), how long will that take? If there are even half as many kids who opt for in-person school, how long will it take to record temps on 150 kids? Do we line all these kids up 6 feet apart? Where do we line them up? If it is raining, we can't do outside. What do we do with the kids who have fevers? (Since by being in line, they may have already exposed other students?)

(Also, temperature checks don't mean anything, even though every place keeps taking them simply to rule out the people who flagrantly violate the rules and go someplace with a fever.)

--how much waiting time will there be to move students from one area of the building (front door or bus drop off spot) to wherever they are supposed to be in the building? They can't follow social distancing and move kids all at once. How long will kids have to wait in the gym or multi-purpose room while teachers move groups of 5 or 10 kids throughout the building?

--how much waiting time will there be to do restroom breaks? Will there be monitors to do that or will teachers have to stop teaching to monitor? What are the kids doing who are just sitting there? A regular bathroom break takes a minimum of 10 minutes numerous times a day.

--how much waiting time will there be to do lunch? Do cafeteria staff bring it to rooms? What about kids who bring their lunches? Can they go in the halls to lockers to get them? How many can go at once? Then there will be clean-up time in classrooms which will be slower and longer since only a few kids can dispose of stuff to not violate the distancing guidelines.

--how much waiting time will there be to move teachers from one room to another? Kids likely won't be able to change classrooms so teachers will move, which will mean waiting time for kids in classes as they wait for a teacher to come in because they can't be left unsupervised.

--how much waiting time will there be to have kids go to lockers for books? Do they go to lockers? What will teaching kids to use their lockers in middle school be with masks and social distancing? Most kids share lockers. Can that happen now?

--how much waiting time will there be to go outside for recess? Again, there is that movement issue because traveling in a class of 30 kids will not happen. Who cleans the equipment between recesses? Is there wait time for that?

The point here is that the normal "wait" time of school will be magnified to a degree that most parents can't even wrap their heads around because they may not have a clue how long the normal administrative and movement stuff takes on a regular day when there isn't a pandemic.

In-person school will mean parents have an awful lot of stopping and starting work because they have to take their kids to get COVID tests.
And likely have to have them re-tested to prove they are COVID-negative.

In districts like ours that are huge, going back in-person would either require tremendous outlays of money for masks, staff, sanitation, etc or it would require significant outlays of money to use rooms/buildings differently to reduce class sizes by a third (at least).

Our district is a behemoth and something that size can't pivot without a lot of expense and time, which we don't have if we expect our kids to learn something this year.