Monthly Archives: July 2024

Again with the Great Plague…

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Last week, I suffered through my second round of the Great Plague. This iteration of COVID wasn’t as awful as the one that knocked me on my ass last fall, but all the same it’s still not something I’d recommend for someone looking to have a good time.

The butchers bill for this round of sickness seems to have been the loss of two weekends and lots of hacking and wheezing and generally stuffiness. I did have an easier time getting my hands on antiviral meds, which means I got to start them on day 2 of symptoms instead of day 5. I assume that has something to do with how quickly the worst of the symptoms dissipated. 

I’m still a touch congested and I certainly get played out a lot faster than I did before getting sick (again). I’m happily testing negative now and otherwise seem to be on the mend. I can’t help but reflect that these bugs were a whole lot easier to avoid when I was allowed to embrace my inner hermit and everyone was legally required to stay at least six feet away from me. In my heart of hearts, I’ll always kind of miss those halcyon days of the early pandemic before we knew what we were up against and staying home was the order of the day. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Opportunity. I think I was hit on while shopping for books at one of my favorite used and antiquarian shops last week. As I was looking through stacks of stuff deep in the bowels of the place. A 30-something blonde, well proportioned, with a pixie cut appears at my elbow. “Excuse me,” she cuts into my browsing. “Do you know if they accept credit cards here,” she asks. I’m sure I mumbled something confirming they did without more than glancing up from whatever book about the age of fighting sail I was considering. But she hovered there. Expectantly? Maybe waiting for me to pick up the thread? I have no idea. I didn’t even consider the possibility until 8 hours later when I was safely back home with my feet up for the evening. Chalk that up to a potential missed opportunity.

2. Reengaging. Last week while I was enjoying my traditional early July vacation, I was largely disengaged. I was disengaged from current events, from people, from writing, from just about everything except tending the house and animals and occasionally dipping up the road for some carryout. Honestly it was delightful. Then, as it does, this week came trundling along and required me to reengage with the world and everything has basically been awful ever since. There’s a lesson somewhere in there, I’m sure. 

3. Meetings. Yesterday, I sat in an in-person meeting for the first time in at least a year if not more. Sitting in a conference room with 25 or 30 other people felt, in a word, archaic. It was like engaging in a pantomime from some bygone era. An old fashioned meeting happens so rarely that for the first 30 minutes it was almost an entertaining novelty. As that novelty wore away, though, it was impossible to forget that each of those 30 people was a potential plague carrier and represented more people than you’ve been around in a single room in months if not years. I’m not saying there’s never a role for these in person meetings, but if we can hold them to no more than one a year, I think that would be entirely sufficient. 

Three is enough…

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By now, I suppose everyone who’s interest already knows that I added a 3rd cat to the list of critters living here on the homestead. Ivy is a sweet, approximately one year old calico female who arrived here by way of the Chesapeake Feline Association, who are effectively neighbors to me here on the bank of the Elk River. They’re a small team doing good work and I was happy to be able to be a small part of it. 

As I’m writing this, Ivy has been home with us for about three and a half days now. She’s briefly met Jorah and Anya at the door to her “safe room,” but hasn’t shown much (if any) interest in checking out the rest of the house yet and seems content to hang out in the guest bathroom for the time being. I’m doing my best to remember that time really isn’t a factor here and it takes as long as it takes to get everyone comfortable with this new arrangement.

Aside from a bit more outlay for food and the inevitable increase in vet bills, tending to three cats instead of two doesn’t feel like it’s adding too much workload at this point. I expect it will become even easier once we get everyone integrated and don’t have to maintain separate feeding, watering, and litter operations. I’m not going to speculate on how long that may take.

I’ve often joked that I’ve reached carrying capacity in the past. Now with five furry and scaled mouths to feed, I really mean it. Five is the absolute upper limit… unless I come into a lot of money and can hire staff, of course. Then all bets are off.

In any case, I’m pleased as punch to have a new member of the family settling in… but I’ll be well and truly thrilled when we get past the awkward introductory stage and can all start living together. 

One thirty down and I have some thoughts…

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It’s been just about a year since I made the conscious decision to get my weight down towards something that wouldn’t trigger such a serious lecture every time I walked into a doctor’s office. Realizing that I was, in fact, both destructible and well past the demographic definition of middle-age gave me a level of motivation I’d never had before. Score one for the motivating power of fear and self-preservation. 

In any case, dropping 130 pounds over the last year hasn’t exactly been an adventure. I’m agitated every day about the foods – and lifestyle – I had to give up in order to achieve what would be easy to assume was purely a vanity exercise. I won’t pretend I don’t have my vanities, but none of them have ever been tied to my appearance, which is probably for the best.

I’m sure when I wander back to my doctor for my next scheduled checkup, he’ll make all the appropriate approving noises. My most recent bloodwork came back with significantly marked improvements over its historic baseline. Even if we haven’t gotten to the root causes of what was causing my heart to ramp up to a sprint of its own accord, it’s hard to argue against my innards being healthier than they were a year ago. 

What no one mentioned as they encouraged me through this process, though, was all the minor annoyances that would accompany this process. I just did my second cull of the clothes hanging in my closet and came to the unhappy realization that I only have eight shirts and two pair of pants that fit now. The rest – some of my favorite shirts mind you – are now comically oversized on my new frame. 

I’m going to have to take some time during this little Independence Week vacation for clothes shopping. I spent time doing that already this spring. This means I’ve spent more time shopping for clothes in the last three months than I have in the last three years. In fact, it will probably account for more time than I’ve spent shopping in the last decade.

I used to know the brands I liked and the appropriate sizes. It was easy enough finding them online and reordering as needed. Now, every damned shirt is a roll of the dice. It’s an enormous pain in the ass and feels a little bit like adding insult to injury. Sure, I’ll do it because wandering around naked is frowned upon by western civilization (and winter is coming), but there’s no power in heaven or earth than can make me enjoy the process.