Better Days

 Wow. It has been a long time since I blogged. 

Some things have happened: My last Covid test was negative. I quit my job to avoid further exposures.The hospital changed their policies so that positive patients were being declared non-contagious after 10 days and positive, asymptomatic healthcare providers were being cleared to work, which is dangerous, dangerous shit in my opinion. I started hearing more "It's a hoax," and "Well, we're all going to get it eventually, so why should I wear a mask?" from my coworkers.

As a final onslaught of insults, the CEO (who makes $660K a year not including twice yearly bonuses of $60K to $70K each) cancelled next years raises (I got less than a dollar raise last year), cut the hospital contributions to our retirement funds in half from 4% to 2%. Workers on dedicated Covid floors do not get hazard pay, but we each got a $50 before tax "bonus" on our last checks. Fifty dollars for some workers to risk their health and their lives taking care of Covid patients. (What is your life worth?) And then came the numerous emails for a holiday food drive for hospital workers. They're collecting canned goods for workers who don't make enough to feed their families. And every week there are requests for us to donate our sick and annual leave hours to workers who have exhausted theirs but who still need time off because they're sick or they're taking care of sick family members. (Couldn't the hospital just provide them with additional sick leave? Sure. Do they? No.)

So I'm done. 

It means living on our savings for awhile, but we're in better shape than most and with my degree I can always walk out the front door and get a job when the time comes. 

So what have I been doing since my last day (December 1)?

I've watched a lot of Netflix. (The Queen's Gambit was good. Alias Grace, too. (Both are miniseries on Netflix.) This last season of Great British Baking Show was lackluster, but I'm glad that they soldiered on and made a season, what with Covid restrictions and all. Night before last I watched League of Extraordinary Gentlemen only 17 years late, and yesterday I rewatched a Humphrey Bogart movie, In A Lonely Place. I started watching The Little Foxes, the Lillian Hellman one, worked on also by Dorothy Parker and starring Bette Davis. So good.)

I have done a bare minimum of sewing. I filled up an online basket with some gorgeous fabric and then clicked away because I remembered I don't have a job anymore. Sigh. It's easy to go down the rabbit hole of shopping for fabric online. I have to remember that I have probably 100 yards or more of fabric here. (It doesn't take up enough space to seem like 100 of anything, I swear!) I told myself that when I empty out two of my four 12x12x12-inch storage containers, then I can shop the sales for more fabric. That will take a long time: The Brain has been drawn to tiny things recently, little zippered box bags, small Christmas ornaments and masks, always always always masks.

Neither Dave nor I are going out to stores--or anywhere really. We get some groceries via curbside pickup and some things get delivered. Non-grocery things get shipped to the casita. Once a week, Dave takes my brother for his grocery pickup.

Dave had to spend two nights with his mother recently, as her health has been bad and she had to go to the hospital a couple of days ago. She's on her own tonight and for the rest of weekend as her new team of home healthcare workers can't start until on Monday. This is the downward slide that will swallow her whole, her, along with her savings, her house, car, and horse. All of it to cover end of life care. Our system sucks.

Dave has taken up baking He has made focaccia, pizzas, cheese straws, some things with yeast, some things without. Last night he came home and made soda bread which we had with butter and honey.

We're also still eating all our meals at home, which is sometimes fun and sometimes boring as hell. For Thanksgiving dinner we had mac and cheese and roasted Brussels sprouts. We were both too full for our planned dessert, a kind of apple dumpling that we first had at an Amish-fun diner in Philadelphia. (Amish women know the score when it comes to baking, man. They're OG bakers.) 

This week, I made soup this week from some of the more ragtag vegetables in the refrigerator. I have also recently been leaning heavily on lunches of sopa seca--a "dry soup" with pasta--that was a particular favorite of my grandmother. We've even had oatmeal for dinner a handful of times. (I dislike oatmeal, but find that if I put enough stuff on it--chopped banana, maple syrup, butter, milk--I can eat a bowl of it and feel full for a handful of hours anyway.)

I'm in the middle of organizing the collection of reusable shopping bags that we have amassed (and habitually tossed behind the refrigerator until it is a jumbled mess). I stopped to feed Gray Kitty and let him have his breakfast in the kitchen in peace; he is a jumpy cat, which accounts I'm sure for his longevity as a stray prior to our adopting him and domesticating him. He is getting up there in years now and spends a lot of his time--most of his time actually--indoors. He's going a little stir crazy so he needs lots of play time and attention these days. 

I'm still happy for the results of the election. Aren't you? Who isn't? Let's hope it means better days are ahead.