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Archive for October, 2020

Incoherent, pandemic-induced ramblings

October 30th, 2020 at 03:37 pm

I've been away for a while and see there's been some issues with posts...hope that has been resolved! I really like the much wider field when you're typing your post here.

I'm having a rare moment and feeling bored. Heavy rain changed my plans yesterday (the one time each week I interact with a live human being) and today it's snowing! Enjoying a cup of tea just now.

I was able to check a certain website online and see that my early absentee vote was indeed processed. Gave me some peace of mind, given the state of things.

Luther made a 2nd trip to the vet in just the past month due to the constant scratching of his ears and an unusual discharge from his eyes; he got his meds and is doing much better now, but twice-a-day drops in both ears and eyes is a bit much for him. 

Not a whole lot to report....my days all meld into each others. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from home, and I purposefully socially isolate all week long so I can have peace of mind when visiting with my dad every week. He's homebound, so he can't give the virus to me unless he got it from my sister (low risk) or my brother in NJ, who periodically visits. This I worry about a bit more as he lives with his family of 3 others, including 2 kids who go to school and I'm not sure how careful he really is.

Besides seeing dad, my only routine outings are to get gas and groceries every 2 weeks. Sometimes I venture out to work in the yard, walk or do pickups from my Buy Nothing Facebook group. Oh, and now I have to deposit my paycheck every week myself. No direct deposit for independent contractors. But that's done at the drive-up window.

Up til now, Dad and I were able to continue our weekly lunches eating outdoors, but now that it's cool, we're gonna have to rely on takeout more. Dad wants to dine indoors, but I won't do that. He usually would take the mask off as soon as we were seated while I would put the mask back on whenever the waitress approached us.

I recently paid one of my biggest bills of the year: $1300 for homeowners and car insurance combined. In December, I'll have the last big bill of the year, my biannual property taxes, at about $3300.

I feel very fortunate that the pandemic has not yet affected me on a financial level: the stock market has recovered, it seems, my retirement profile looks pretty good (that just really means no losses since pre-pandemic times, but no gains, either) ok and I managed to stabilize my income/paychecks after talking to employer. Work seems so easy now that I'm working from home. I anticipate continuing work from home at least til June 2021 and maybe into the 3rd quarter. Yay.

I'm closing in on having reviewed my 1,000th loan for Kiva as a volunteer editor. It's hard to believe I've already been doing this for over a year now.  I think it's a wonderful program.

To ease my social isolation, I recently began having long phone conversations with an old friend of mine I haven't seen in over 30 years, someone I once rented a room from when she was a divorcee on Cape Code and I was a broke 20-something trying to make ends meet on a news stringer's income. She is delighted...it was actually her idea after she reread some old letters I'd sent her years back. She said I was the most loyal of friends. Smile I enjoy reconnecting with someone from way back. I find this kind of friendship more meaningful as the friendship "ages."

I also reached out to another old friend, a man whose interest in romance I didn't return, but who was a super nice guy nonetheless. I met him maybe 20 years ago when he founded a biking group and invited me to join. (The guys in the group joked that he mostly invited pretty women. Smile It was a lot of fun. There was a core group of us, maybe 10 people, with extra stragglers now and then, and we rode all over the state.

My injured knee is still a work in progress. I believe it's headed in the right direction, but recovery has been very, very slow. Still, I will consider it a success if it heals without surgery. The slow recovery is due to the anatomy of the knee: it lacks blood flow to the area. I've recently begun taking a few walks and have been doing daily knee exercises I learned in physical therapy since physical therapy ended in June/July. Since my injury, I've come upon a lot of people who tore their meniscus and had subsequent surgery. Most people aren't as patient as me, nor as risk-averse as I am. I didn't name myself Patient Saver (old blog) for nothing!