Scheduled Moderna booster (my first two shots were Pfizer) for Jan 25. Kaiser is making appointments for a month out, which reassures me that demand for boosters is still strong out here.

Not much holiday news -- we're staying at home except for my daily walks, and folks in our neighbourhood give each other lots of space on the road/sidewalk.

Wishing all of you good outcomes and slog-through-it-ma.

We made it to Cleveland, and I remembered how to drive in snow!

Yay Mr. S negative Sheryl.

Yay driving in snow Kate.

Did I mention that now my work is requiring the booster for students to come back. But there are no details until after New Year. They start on January 10th. And my students are weird and can’t go through University Health Services. I am gearing up for another shitshow. Why can no one have a plan? Or at least a plan that takes into account these little pockets of students? My students aren’t “on break”- they are still doing clinical hours. Also, I am just randomly stressing about this on vacation, but January is already sort of a shitshow for me work wise, and September was SO BAD.

Sophia, I want to tell you to stop worrying and enjoy your vacation, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have another absolute shitshow on your hands, so...

I'm still testing negative for COVID and I'm scheduled to fly back to California tomorrow. When a relative asked me yesterday if I was going to stay in Michigan through my birthday, I managed to reply with a breezy no even though I wanted to say, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I'm ready to be in my own home by myself.

I think I just need to have radical acceptance that this will happen and it will be terrible. I feel like I am stuck being David in an eternal loop of “fold in the cheese” from Schitts Creek.

I am glad you are testing negative.

I'm sorry about the shitstorm, Sophia, it does seem inevitable. Although it also seems very preventable if other people would just be sensible, which is even more frustrating.

Ugh Sophia, good luck with all that. Just FOLD in the cheese.

I'm trying to get my old computer ready to bring in for them to transfer the data onto my new computer I am buying, and I can't figure out the password. IT people can get past that, right? Argh.

Ugh Sophia, good luck with all that. Just FOLD in the cheese.

Sophia, we cannot show you everything.

ltc is at my inlaws house for two days! She woke up before 6 AM for them, and we slept in until 10:30. She is having so much fun that she could barely spare us 5 minutes on the phone.

How has this meeting already lasted 15 minutes?!?

It seems like we got through the family wedding and Christmas celebrations mostly unscathed. One person tested positive a week later, but no one else in her family, including kids.

I have such mixed feelings about it all. Was it a bad idea to have these gatherings? Probably. But it was also important to gather the family together. I'm angry that I missed two years in the lives of my parents and relatives. And the day after we got there, my parents had to put their dog to sleep, so we missed the last two years of her life when she was mostly healthy. (Sad animal news white-fonted)

Really pissed about all of that. Everything is such a fucking mess.