It's been a while. A long, long while, but we had Laura's folks babysit and we went to see a movie, in the evening. It was great. We had a great dinner on the patio. We watched Everything Everywhere All at Once.
It was glorious.
10 out of 10. Would date again.
It's bad to watch the news. It looks like we're about to start the 6th wave of COVID. The governments are starting to just ignore it and pretend that it's not there. They just lifted the mask mandates. It doesn't seem like it's going to end.
The climate forecast is even more panic educing.
And Russia is in Ukraine and people are talking about WW3.
So. That's what's happening internationally.
At home, we just came back from March break in Quebec City which was really nice. So nice to feel like doing "normal" things. We went sliding. We went and did tubing at a water park. Had the kids try downhill skiing for the first time. Generally a really positive time.
It was 703 days since I had eaten inside anywhere with people outside our household since COVID started. We did it at a weird paintball / axe throwing / doughnut place in Brockville with Kerry.
So much anxiety for something simple. Everyone else has been eating inside this entire time. It was new to me. I'm going to have a hard time adjusting when things go back... it'll be a slow road.
I even went into a grocery store the other day. I don't think that I had done that for 3 years. Wild times.
Today the kids were supposed to go back to school, but a major storm shut most things down. I think that the final count at the airport was 46cm which is pretty impressive. They mostly played outside today so I think that they had a good day.
Tomorrow is in person school.
Friday is a PD / PA day. So they only have 3 days of school this week. They are all double vaxxed now so in theory they are are protected as we can make them.
But I still worry. I worry about us all.
I hope that they are going to be okay. I hope that we are okay. I don't think that the government is going to do anything useful. Hopefully they can be safe.
But I worry.
Today the kids seemed to just be healthy enough after a cold to take them to get their first COVID shot. We had cancelled 2 appointment for them already. It was a walk in run by public health, and there was no other patients while we were there.
The kids were brave, while clutching their stuffies and watching shows. Isaac was stressed and cried a bit, but still took the shot. It was our least publicly embarrassing shots that we've ever had.
And I didn't cry. I thought that I'd be balling... but it didn't happen.
So happy that I feel that they kids are on their way to being protected.
I go through waves of despair. I can't help it. Exercise helps which Laura knows so she pushes me out the door for bike rides. But it usually feels like it starts to close in again. I'm still doing better than I was before in the pandemic. At one point I... I just didn't want to be awake anymore. It was too much. I just couldn't deal with everything or anything at all.
Now? I feel listless. It doesn't help that what I have to do at work seems unfocused. I want to help the team get things done, but for getting into the nitty gritty I don't have the background. For the things that I do have the background for, I'm really not supposed to be helping too much. For the work that I spent 10-15 years working on? It's being abandoned. Not transitioned off of like we had planned. Just straight up abandoned. And they are re-creating the same thing more or less without knowing or paying attention to any of the lessons learned. It's tough to watch but I'm trying not to care too much since it's out of my control. It seems that work is marching towards disaster with a bunch of people saying that this is bad, but because the funding is split between so many groups no one wants to take on the responsibility. No one is given the authority to take it on.
So I fall back to trying to make sure the family has a good dinner and a caffeinated father. The second being the most important.
We will see how things go. Maybe I need to switch teams. Maybe I need to do something else.
We will see how I am tomorrow.
We have the kids shots booked for Wednesday. I'm not sure if we'll actually make it though because we seem to be suffering from a cold weekly. Like, this would suck on a normal year, but this isn't. And there's news of some omicron variant. Honestly, I never wanted to learn the Greek alphabet like this.
I'm hoping the the cold will just stay as a runny nose and clear up quickly because otherwise I think we'll have to reschedule, at least for Lucy.
It sounds like places even have walk-in appointments for the 5-11. This gives me hope.
I feel like we're close. Yes, new variants might throw a wrench into things, but hopefully we'll still be moving in the right direction.
