I don’t much feel like talking about work today. Mostly thanks to having to take my old job back (joy), I got saddled with dealing with EMERGENCY THING at the dead last hour and a half of the day, which I haven’t done in years and was supposed to be helping Tigress with, but uh, I don’t feel like I could do much. It boils down to “here is an error report, see how much of these are actual errors,” which most of them weren’t, but frankly I wasn’t able to figure out the few she said WERE errors either.

Also, Tigress kept saying “call me,” then wouldn’t answer her phone (or set up voicemail), then I’d have to text her, and then she’d text me back in abbreviated, misspelled texts that made me go, “what the hell is she asking?!” Sigh. And it’s not like she has a flip phone either.

The strike is definitely In Full Effect, btw (big problems!), though Grandboss claims that “we just don’t know” how much of that is strike vs. people having technical difficulties. I did see that a nag email was sent out and at least one of them was responded to with, “I support the strike!”, so....

We had a long meeting in our unit that was about half training and the other half being check-in chat. When asked how I was doing, I said I was well, getting work done, and able to work, AND LEFT IT AT THAT. The sick coworker is concerned that she’s had a cough for over two weeks that hasn’t gone away despite use of hippie remedies (I was all, maybe go get some decongestant...if you can find any, that’s what I had to get to get mine to go away), and she’s all “now I see stories where people are fine for two weeks and then they get a fever....” She still has no fever but our mutual HMO says she can’t get tested unless she’s dying.

On a slightly amusing note, Grandboss dialed in while in one of the grandkids’s bedrooms, sitting right next to a gigantic bear. I got that screenshotted, at least.

That reminds me: this week’s This American Life is absolutely heartwrenching. Between the family with the virus being very sick with a depressed 2-year-old and the girl who can’t see her ill mom again... oy.

I read a depressing article online about how you’d better drive your car at least every other week while in quarantine, for at least ten miles, part of that being at least over 50 mph, or else your battery will die. Like I need other problems? It’s too dangerous to find another human to jump the car now, isn’t it? And since it’s been nearly two weeks since I drove it (March 17), I had to force myself outside.* I got in the car and realized I’d forgotten to grab my phone, but could not get up the nerve to go through decontamination again just to grab it, so I went without and had to hope there was no emergency.

* See, Jackie? I can go outside if I have to. I just don’t want to. I don’t enjoy it any more since being outside is now living in paranoia and fear.

I drove it part of the way to Winters, which made me sad but was the closest country road to get over 50 mph, then turned around and drove back and then went through the drive-through car wash, which at least didn’t involve other humans even if it didn’t get 100% of the muck off. I also got my car maintenance report email today and thank gawd, there’s nothing wrong with it this month.

There’s a lot of parking available now. Mostly it was very quiet. People walking around, albeit not close by. I saw some girl just walking down the street eating out of a bowl and I was all, wtf?

After that, since I’d been forced outdoors for the day and had to do decontamination protocols as is, I got the mail (god, I wish I could use those fast food and DSW coupons!) and I decided to attempt walking on my patio again. After like a half hour of this, my pedometer claimed I’d been walking for 1000 steps and I was all, wtf? So I timed myself: takes 5 seconds to walk 8 steps (the length of the patio), which if we turn that into a minute of walking is only slightly shorter than my usual of 100 steps a minute, so shouldn’t I be registering more steps? Well, the darn thing doesn’t get going on counting until I’m almost at the edge of the patio, so it’s not registering much at all. It doesn’t like doing turns either. I guess that explains why it took 3.5ish hours to get to 10,000 steps on the pedometer yesterday.

While I was pacing back and forth on the patio, some Chinese couple in masks* were wandering around the front of the complex. Then Diana the manager showed up, and apparently she’s selling them an apartment. I would like to note that (a) she was not maintaining six feet of distance (maybe 3), (b) she said there’s no gates on the patio due to fire regulations, (c) “nobody has ever broken in here” (I restrained myself so hard from saying, “yeah, but I’ve had my patio vandalized/stolen from twice, and you KNOW that,” because what good does speaking up ever do), and (d) she was offering them two other apartments but was going to show them my neighbors with the smoke’s instead, because “it’s a more Oriental apartment.”**

* Okay, how come if nobody can get masks, they have masks?!
**Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?! Who says that these days?!

Also, do those people know that Diana is taking people in their apartment, because THEY ARE SMOKING UP A STORM and again, that’s against the lease. And everyone knows when you smoke indoors. Hell, I’ve had smoker roommates who couldn’t stand the indoor smoke smell (hence why I was fine living with them, incidentally).

Though yeah, that leads to a dilemma: you really should not be showing people tours of apartments these days either, right?!?! Even if you don’t smoke in there, everything’s presumably germy and contaminated in your home now? God, maybe they should just take pictures of the apartments in between turnarounds and show those instead. They should anyway, really.

After fifty minutes of my pacing back and forth, the neighbor started hocking a loogie through the screen door, and then smoking again. Gawd. I gave up. What a pig. Also, pretty fucking stupid to be smoking NOW...and then I have to live next door to that if they get it. Fuuuuuuuuck.

In other news, the recording of Midsummer Night’s Dream didn’t work, so we shall record again (and throw in Act 2 since it only took like an hour to read the first time) on Sunday. I let Linda know if she wants to watch.

Also got an email from my HMO saying “Calls about cold and flu-like symptoms have declined over the past 10 days.”

I wrote this rant today and didn’t finish today’s square for the knitalong, because priorities, I guess.

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