Laura, he started last week. So far, so good.

Oh no, dcp! I hope you feel better soon.

Glad you’ve gotten this far ok, Sheryl.

Definitely feels like there's more covid around again. I'm having second thoughts about the office holiday party on Thursday.

But not second enough to prevent me from making my sister's popular cranberry-white chocolate cookies.

I’m working the outlet sale this coming Thursday and Friday and I’m a little nervous about being in amongst potential crowds of people, but I’ll certainly be masked so probably it will be ok. It might not even be that many people most of the time.

I think, as a teacher, I've just accepted the risk at this point. I don't want Covid again, but I've been a close contact practically every other week the past 6 weeks, and the bivalent booster seems to be holding it off. We won't fully mask again as a school unless all of LA County goes back to indoor masking, and teaching with a mask is really hard (much harder than I would have guessed a year ago) in terms of connection and communication. I have to mask for 10 days every time I get listed as a close contact even if I test negative multiple times due to county regulations (currently masking until the 9th when the latest wears off), but otherwise I'm just rolling the dice. I did have some other nasty little bug (I'm guessing RSV based on symptoms) about a month ago. Otherwise, my overall teacher immunity seems to be building back up again. YMMV, of course; I've moved to a place of acceptance with whatever my friends, colleagues, and students decide to do, but I'm not changing too much else for the moment.

Pix, I think that is pretty much where my friend Maria is as well. She teaches second grade. She will get exposed. She actually hasn’t had it yet, which is amazing because I did in September. I blame that on the fact that the buses dropped the mask mandate- I now mask on the bus and so do a lot of other people. We still need to mask at work when we walk through the hospital, which is a little humorous because the only reason I do so is to go to the cafeteria, where I can take my mask off to eat! I think the little cafeteria near the School of Nursing is a permanent casualty of COVID staffing shortages- it closed September 2021 “temporarily” when we fired all the workers who were not vaccinated and has not reopened.

Dcp- feel better soon.

Sheryl- I am glad the school is so far so good.

I'll be able to get the booster in about a week. They said I needed to wait for 3 months after the bout I had in September. Still annoyed that I socialized in a crowded venue where no one was masked, and it never even crossed my mind until the next morning. Then I knew I was probably screwed, and 5 days later, positive. I blame the wine and late hour. Left the safe outdoor open-air event when they closed at 11 or so and saw many go across the road to the local bar for after-event socialization. Still annoyed with myself for thinking joining in was a good idea. I miss socialization, but really need to do so outside.

I have had more exposures and close contacts than I can count, and am constantly in large unmasked crowds, it's part of the territory with my work unfortunately.

I still don't know how I've dodged catching this thing.

I do think some people are more or less naturally susceptible. In my many decades of life, I have never had the flu, strep throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, or any of that stuff. And I haven't had a flu shot since the 60s. That just made me more annoyed when my vaccinated self did get Covid!