2021 – Year in Review – part 1

Another One Bites the Dust – 2021 retrospective

So, yeah. COVID – still a thing. Now with exciting new varieties! Find Delta and Omicron in a location near you!

There was a lot over this year that I thought about blogging. But, for another year, COVID had me feeling like life was on an epic pause. “But, well, pandemic,” became a common phrase whenever the topic drifted to things I’d wanted / planned / should be doing, but didn’t / couldn’t do. Like:

• Writing letters to all my pen pals from LetterMo.
• Writing in November for NaNo WriMo.
• Or writing, really at all.
• Attending writing conventions, like the Writer’s Retreat in Iceland that was supposed to happen this past October.
• Evaluating my job situation with more consideration for how I feel about where I am.
• Visiting people / having any real sort of social life.
• Getting my sh*t organized, like the physical and digital clutter I cling to.
• Getting a hair cut¹.
• Basically, life as I knew it / as it had been BC²

There is plenty of information (both valid and misinformation) to be found about the pandemic we optimistically treat as nearing it’s end, but which keeps staggering back to life. Because of all this wonderful data and anecdotes and guidelines and articles and memes, I won’t go much into the facts of the pandemic in this post, but rather, my observations and how the pandemic has impacted my life.

I live in Florida. I am unhappy with how our Governor, Ron DeSantis^3,4

Ahem, sorry, tangent(s)⁵. Anyway, our right wing sock puppet not only has removed masked mandates, but has enacted legislation that makes mask mandates illegal. That’s right, local governments or hell, any entity that survives on state funding, cannot require masks be worn. Despite the prospect of localized hot spots. Despite the new variations of the virus. Despite the people in the area who may vote to have such a rule implemented. Nope – can’t. RdS says not (RdS is not nearly as cool as RGB, btw)⁶.

Oh, another line of his is no “vaccine passports.” So, businesses are in a tizzy because they can’t require masks, or vaccines for employees. People who don’t care are maskless, treating the world as though it was early 2019 – remember – when the COVIC-19 virus wasn’t a thing in humans? Our university is limited to posting signs that state “masks expected” indoors.

So, we are facing no real governance that is designed to address public safety, and it shows.

And, in completely unrelated news, I just got my latest COVID-19 test results back (lost count of how many this is), and unfortunately, I passed. My system does contain that sneaky virus that’s lulled some folks into a false sense of health and safety, because the good folks in front of the podiums say it’s okay⁷.

I’m not horribly surprised. I’ve had some symptoms since last week, that is, since a couple of days after a negative test result I received the same time my husband’s came back positive. Symptoms haven’t been horrible, and this is how we attribute it.

1. Hubby, vaccinated, and boosted⁸, and wearing a mask always at work, and mostly when out and about, was exposed to the virus and got infected.
2. Because he was vaccinated and boosted⁹ he had lesser symptoms, and the virus in him was knocked down a bit – not as transmissible, not as strong.
3. I got the virus from my husband, living in close vicinity, and all the glory that goes with that^10,11. But, what he sent my way was possibly weakened. And then I’m also vaccinated, and boosted,¹² so I don’t get as much, and my body is already fighting this thing, so while hubby is down for the count with fatigue for several days, I’m only really out for the count for one day¹³

Anyway, long story short¹⁴, we have super awesome and supportive family and friends who are brining us supplies, including food, gatorade, medicines, at-home antigen tests, and Christmas cookies. We’re both managing okay, but Toby is, according to CDC guidelines, supposed to isolate through Dec. 30, and I’m home-bound¹⁵ until after Jan. 2.

Well, that kind of got away from me – and didn’t cover nearly all the things that have been brewing in this brain of mine this year. So, I’m renaming this post as “part 1,” and ending on this (not-quite) unexpected ramble on life with COVID, rather than live during COVID.

See you in the next one!¹⁶

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1. Seriously, last time I got it cut was, what, in 2019? I did re-henna it in 2021, though. So.
2. B.C. – Before Covid
3. a.k.a. Ron Death Sentence, a.k.a. Trump’s mini-me
4. Holy hell, just looked him up to get the spelling right – how am I almost 2 years older than the idiot who is trying to destroy our state?
5. Which I have now moved into footnotes, which makes this statement moot, really, unless you are reading the footnotes as you go, in which case, good for you!
6. I would have made this a footnote, but then the image I’d included with the paragraph would lack context. So, yeah.
7. No, not those guys in masks. The other ones, the ones who say what we want to hear.
8. Really, who decided this is what we’d call it? Sounds like he was the object of a grand theft auto…
9. Or hefted up to look over a fence, maybe?
10. Takes “what’s mine is yours” to the extreme level, don’t ya think?
11. Seriously, I love my hubby, and if I had to be isolated and surviving through a pandemic with anyone, I’d choose him.
12. I wonder if I was booted, would that help? I got these really spiffy hard-soled boot/slippers….
13. Though I have been napping most days. That could, however, be as much influence of being off work and around 4 cats all day.
14. Mostly because I’m cutting this post into smaller posts, and not just one.
15. No, that sounds like I am heading for, or bound for, home. Like bed-rest – where you stay in bed, but I’m bound to(more like constrained than heading toward) my home.
16. Provided you want to read it. Provided I write it. Provided COVID doesn’t mutate and become a computer virus and kill the Internet