[13%] Home and pandemic rambling
(from yesterday morning) Nothing like rain pouring onto the ice and snow outside to make a person appreciate modern HVAC systems... and the very fleecy pants their spouse got them for Christmas.
I meant to mention that my dad and his wife got their first vaccine shots last Friday. And the rate of cases falling right now -- a 41% drop in the 2-week rolling average nationwide, as of today? Holy shit holy shit. No, it's not affecting my behavior. I know that this drop, and the vaccine rollout, is now racing the spread of the new variants. For drama. But also that the vaccines will win, and the lower the case count is before the variants start showing up in force, the better off we'll be. I'm frankly not holding out for herd immunity, as we might not get there; maybe the vaccines turn into an annual booster shot with updates against the year's variants; but if I'm vaccinated and my friends are vaccinated, such that any mild illness we contract won't use up a hospital bed or lead to awful long-haul symptoms, then I will be more than ready to hug my friends and do acro in the park with the Monk. I realize these are conversations I need to have with my bubble, and wonder at what point it becomes about bodily autonomy again... nobody ever used to feel entitled to prevent others from risking a common cold. But the weird truth is that our bodies aren't autonomous and they aren't independent, so bodily autonomy is a funny ideal to uphold. There's freedom to, as they say, and freedom from, and I just hope we can find our way back to a consensus. Eventually.
On the domestic front -- huh, wait, is that war terminology? At home, then... Gobble meal kits are working out pretty well for the moment. They're designed to be cooked quickly -- the 15 minutes they advertise is a lie, but less-than-30 would be accurate. Thus far they're satisfying my desire to have some coherent meals planned out (for me) while also keeping the grocery shopping easy and focused on staples (for the bug). I only had heard of this service through women at work but I'm liking it.
The new home-gym setup is good too. Somehow, swapping the elliptical machine and the bug's desk unblocked a second, unexpected path of desk consolidation, and now something really big has simply gone away from our floorplan. I don't walk so close behind the bug when he's working and I need to go to the kitchen for something, so he has better privacy, too.
I meant to mention that my dad and his wife got their first vaccine shots last Friday. And the rate of cases falling right now -- a 41% drop in the 2-week rolling average nationwide, as of today? Holy shit holy shit. No, it's not affecting my behavior. I know that this drop, and the vaccine rollout, is now racing the spread of the new variants. For drama. But also that the vaccines will win, and the lower the case count is before the variants start showing up in force, the better off we'll be. I'm frankly not holding out for herd immunity, as we might not get there; maybe the vaccines turn into an annual booster shot with updates against the year's variants; but if I'm vaccinated and my friends are vaccinated, such that any mild illness we contract won't use up a hospital bed or lead to awful long-haul symptoms, then I will be more than ready to hug my friends and do acro in the park with the Monk. I realize these are conversations I need to have with my bubble, and wonder at what point it becomes about bodily autonomy again... nobody ever used to feel entitled to prevent others from risking a common cold. But the weird truth is that our bodies aren't autonomous and they aren't independent, so bodily autonomy is a funny ideal to uphold. There's freedom to, as they say, and freedom from, and I just hope we can find our way back to a consensus. Eventually.
On the domestic front -- huh, wait, is that war terminology? At home, then... Gobble meal kits are working out pretty well for the moment. They're designed to be cooked quickly -- the 15 minutes they advertise is a lie, but less-than-30 would be accurate. Thus far they're satisfying my desire to have some coherent meals planned out (for me) while also keeping the grocery shopping easy and focused on staples (for the bug). I only had heard of this service through women at work but I'm liking it.
The new home-gym setup is good too. Somehow, swapping the elliptical machine and the bug's desk unblocked a second, unexpected path of desk consolidation, and now something really big has simply gone away from our floorplan. I don't walk so close behind the bug when he's working and I need to go to the kitchen for something, so he has better privacy, too.