Tuesday was my birthday, but that was pretty much drowned out by a lot of sorrow. The week started by us receiving devastating news that a family friend and his young son were killed in a car accident. The mom survived, but in the hospital. The family had been driving home from a weekend outing at camp, and had been hit by another driver who ran a red light on a country road. My son was also friends with the boy who died, and had looked forward to spending another season of summer camp with him. I don’t think a day this week has passed that someone in our family has spent much of the day crying about this. A GoFundMe has been started for the family. If you can spare a dollar or more, please donate. In lieu of a birthday gift. Please.
About a day after that, I went in to work, only to find myself with weird symptoms such as a sore throat and sniffles. Since we had a plethora of rapid tests in the office, I decided to test myself. And lo and behold, after two years, full vaccinations and two boosts, I tested positive. Home I went. I am now on day two of a five-day quarantine period. Fortunately the symptoms are mild and I’m feeling normal again (sans the crying mentioned above). I’ve also concluded that repeated wearing of these KN95 masks are the prime cause of a disturbing facial rash I’ve been dealing with recently. I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible so I can return to the more comfortable cloth mask. The previous weekend I had been out to three different public events. I’m pretty sure one of them was where I contracted the virus, even though I had been wearing a mask most of the time. We’ve re-stocked our supply of rapid home test kits, and I now know of two more rapid PCR-type tests that you can get at Walgreens or have FedExed to you at no cost (well, the cost is covered by your insurance and the government). And yes, I put in another order for free tests sent via USPS. This latest wave of infections seems to be catching a lot of people off-guard, since you can catch the Omicron variant even if you’ve been fully vaccinated.
Next up: the Uvalde mass murder of school kids. No further explanation needed. HELL WEEK. I’ve been reading some op-eds and posts by many of you. The only solution I can muster up is that if enough of us want to move to red states like Arizona, Ohio, or Texas such that we can vote out the NRA-loving senators who continue to obstruct common-sense gun legislation, then that’s the long and hard road to take. Otherwise all the pleas online or by other means will always fall short. And the new opportunities for some of us to work remotely means you, in theory, could move from the comforts of an urban. blue region like Chicago, to a small rural town in say, South Carolina, and still keep your cushy tech job, while working to unseat cretins like Lindsey Graham. There are a surplus of progressive voters in big cities, but not enough in small towns, so go there and start an outpost / be a beacon of hope for a future generation.
Lastly, this hell week wraps up with a fender bender. We allowed dear daughter to take the family car so she and the new boyfriend can go out on a date to the museum. They make it there, only to have her smack the front of the car into a concrete obstruction in the parking garage. Most of my day has been spent trying to figure out if the car can be towed out of a museum garage, and filing the insurance claim which I’m pretty certain will lead the insurer to cancel our auto policy after this latest incident. Here’s a photo of the carnage damage.
I know, right? This too, shall pass. Cars can be repaired. Our psyche? Not so much.