Frustrating Week - January 29, 2022

So where was I? 

Oh, yeah:  co-worker #2 came down with covid on Thursday.

Friday morning, The Boss and I were in our office.  She, too, had been in the presence of co-worker #2 on Thursday while neither of them was masked.  She was antsy, worried.  "What are we supposed to do?" she asked me.  "Are we supposed to quarantine?  Wear masks?  What?"

I pulled up the CDC web site.  

Our situations were different.  I'd been boosted, she had not; she'd been sick with the flu when the booster shots came out.

"You're supposed to quarantine for 5 days, get tested, and wear a mask for 5 days after that when you're around people.  I'm supposed to wear a mask for 5 days and then get tested - no quarantine."

I was frustrated.  Since the previous Tuesday, I'd been sleeping in the spare bedroom, using a separate bathroom, confining myself mostly to the sewing room, and wearing a mask when I had to be in other parts of the house.  I'd washed my hands so often that my skin feels like sandpaper.  My 5-day clock for covid protocols had been ticking since Tuesday morning and was half over, but the clock had been re-set to Day 1 with the prior day's exposure.  And the weekend was coming up.  I'd need to wear a mask at home all weekend.  Goody, goody.

Yesterday evening (Sunday), The Boss called.  "Do you have covid?"

"No.  Do you?"

"Yes.  I'm pretty sure."  Fever, headache, sore throat, muscle aches.

SHIT.

We talked about what to do.  We'd scheduled covid tests for both of us the next morning, which was technically a day too soon, but she was supposed to hold court that morning and didn't want to take the bench without a test.  We met at the courthouse this morning, where the jail nurse was going to administer the tests.  She stayed in her vehicle.  Since I had no symptoms, I went in (with my mask on, of course).  For the next hour, I ran documents down the back stairs to be signed.  Meanwhile, the nurse did my test, then went to the parking lot to test The Boss, who went home after signing the last document.  

I left the courthouse and went to our office, washed my hands (for the 100th time this morning), wiped down some things with disinfectant.  The nurse called.  My test was negative.  Fifteen minutes later, The Boss called.  As she suspected, her test was positive.  We'd have to cancel court in three counties.

Before we hung up, she said, "The scientists ought to test your DNA, because there must be something about it that makes you immune to covid."  

But I still have a couple more days on my covid clock.  

Covid City - January 27, 2022

Tuesday morning, a co-worker from another office texted me to say that someone in her office (where I had been on Monday) had tested positive for covid.  Oh, great; I had sat within 2 feet of that person for a few minutes, without my mask.  And I had been around her on the previous Thursday, when she was probably contagious. 

The Husband had gone out of town on Monday but was due back Tuesday afternoon.  When he came home, he told me that a co-worker from his office had come down with covid, and he was planning to work from home this week.

"Uh, well...I have news," I told him.  

I wore my mask around the house Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening and kept my distance from him.  Slept in a spare bedroom.  Sanitized everything I touched.  

This morning, I did a rapid covid test.  It was negative.  Yay!  

So I went to work this morning, wearing my mask.  At lunch, I took it off to eat and forgot to put it back on.  Two hours later, another person in the office tested positive.

<sigh>

Birthday Party - January 24, 2022

 The Little Rotten Baby was the honoree at a birthday party this weekend.  

She was a bit confused by all the people and decorations and noise.  And she was absolutely astounded when the crowd sang happy birthday to her.  She had a giant, unicorn-themed birthday cake, and a small "smash" cake, which she had no interest in smashing.  She did, however, consent to blowing out the single candle (possibly with a little help from her mother).  

 

New Phone - January 21, 2022

My cell phone service provider had the audacity to threaten to cut my cell phone off.  It seems my phone is so old that it will no longer be supported.  They said if I did not voluntarily get a new phone, they'd send me one for free.  The Husband said, "It'll probably be a TrackPhone." 

It seemed like a no-brainer to wait on the free phone, thinking if it turned out to be a goober, maybe I could at least trade it in on a phone I want.

It came yesterday - an iPhone 10R.  A co-worker swapped the sim card to the new phone.

I hate it.  It's huge.  And it's probably going to listen to my conversations, even when I'm not on the phone.

I scrolled through the settings and turned off everything that I did not recognize as being absolutely essential.  Blasted thing may not work at all, now.

LOOT! - January 20, 2022

 So I get home today, and there's a box with my name on it on the front porch.  I recognized my BFF's handwriting on the address label.  She'd said she was mailing me something.

The box contained:

1 family-size bag of Lay's Cheddar and Sour Cream chips;

1 family-size bag of Lay's Jalapeno Cheddar chips;

1 burr for my Dremel;

1 dish-draining mat;

2 kitchen sink strainer baskets with holes (I had mesh ones - they get yucky);

1 outdoor thermometer (our old one is never correct); and

1 Ruth Bader Ginsberg bobblehead (while visiting me after Christmas, she heard me say I wanted one).

My personal super-hero set is now complete:

Isn't my BFF just the most thoughtful person in the world?  :)

The LRB is 1 - January 18, 2022

The Little Rotten Baby turned one year old today.  She's been walking for a few weeks.  She can say a few words and do a few "baby signs."  Sharp as a tack, she is; show her something once, and she's on it.  If she wants to, that is.  (Have I mentioned she's rotten?)  

And camera shy, as you can see.

I went to see her this evening.  She's having a birthday party Saturday, but I have a thing about THE DAY.  Took her some cupcakes.  She picked out the one she wanted, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  It surprised me that she went for that one instead of the one with colorful sprinkles.)  She blew out one candle and we all clapped and said YAY!  And she applauded herself and licked some frosting.  It was so sweet it gave her the shivers.  I offered her a bite of just the cake, but she spat it right out.  Can't say I blame her.  I don't like it, either.

* * * * * * * 

My chicken house came today.  I happened to be standing in the driveway when the FedEx man drove up, and he brought it to the back porch for me.  There were supposed to be two boxes.  Maybe the other will come tomorrow.  I'm not in a hurry, anyway.  It's cold, and my knee is out, and we've got to clean out a spot to put the coop, and I don't even want to open the box.  

I got my first order today from a company that's supposedly selling locally-sourced food and delivering to homes.  It was on the doorstep in a couple of insulated canvas bags with ice packs in them.  I don't know what possessed me to buy a quart of cream, but I did - maybe it was part of a "bundle" - and I don't use it that often.  Did you know that all you need to make a good biscuit is self-rising flour and enough cream to make dough?  That's it.  (The cream has enough fat in it that you don't need to add butter or shortening.)  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to use that cream to make a big batch of biscuits to take to work.

Fail - January 16, 2022

This morning, I had a hankering for quiche for breakfast.  The refrigerator vegetable drawer yielded mushrooms and onions.  I thought we had some ham or turkey, but we didn't, so I settled for vegetable quiche.  In the freezer were store-bought pie crusts left over from Christmas.

All of the quiche recipes I consulted said to pre-bake the crust, and to put dried beans in the crust while it baked to keep it from bubbling up.  So I poured a bunch of dried garbanzo beans in the crust and baked it for 10 minutes.  

When my filling was ready, I took the pie crust out of the oven and discovered that the garbanzo beans had BAKED INTO the crust.

I tried to pour them out, but they were stuck fast.  Had to dig them out, one by one, with a spoon.

The bottom of the crust was a pocked mess.  I smoothed it with the back of the spoon and moved on.

Maybe I should have thawed the crust, first?