Corner of Bourbon & Division

I am *wiped*, so you are getting the tl;dr version tonight and I will post a more detailed entry tomorrow.

1- My mother is fine, apart from a fine goose egg on her neck and an impressive blood stain on her bedroom carpet.

2- My father is less fine, but is home from the hospital. He has fucking Covid, because he seems to labour under the misapprehension that wearing your mask firmly under your chin is an effective strategy for avoiding infection. *headdesk* He has a bunch of stuff going on all at once (digestive, some sort of kidney/UTI thing, plus the 'rona) and has been given antibiotics to help fend off the infection, but nothing else of immediate major concern.

3- My mother, who has COPD/emphysema, is freaking out about potentially getting Covid, because she doesn't mask reliably either (the masks make her feel like she can't breathe, because of the aforementioned COPD, which as I understand it is quite common).

4- My father is NOT freaking out enough, and insists he wants to go grocery shopping with me tomorrow with his active case of Covid. *headdesk* He has been exasperated with my refusal to let him go spread infection around the city. *rolls eyes*

Luckily for me I have been masking the whole time around him with my N95 (well, not so much "lucky" as "fucking cautious") and I was vaccinated a few months ago, so the odds of my getting infected are much lower. Not zero, but lower. I've given them pointers on quarantining once I go back home (probably tomorrow), but I have little faith they will stick to the guidelines, so I've also been priming my mother on what to do if she starts feeling symptomatic. She already has a medical action plan from her pulmonologist, so this is just to reinforce that with her. She also did a rapid test at home today, which was negative, so that's something.

I am going to load them up with groceries and easy meals tomorrow morning, and then I have to go back to Ottawa to my very neglected night shifts.

Okay, detailed account tomorrow, I promise. Right now I am going to go pass the fuck out.

Those of you who are more recent arrivals to this LJ (i.e. less than ten years ago, ahem) may not know that I actually have crazy nutbar prepper tendencies at heart. One of the reasons I've always wanted a hobby farm is to be more self-sufficient. I don't have any delusions about rugged homesteading and becoming 100% self-sufficient, because that's just not feasible, no matter what the Libertarians would have you believe. ;) Nonetheless, being less reliant on The System(TM) has always been an aspiration of mine.

For the past five or so years, I kind of let that dream die a little. I didn't have the money to put down on a property, and after the Saga of Cruella de Froot Loops (named thusly by blackmare, actually), I kind of went into a bit of a tailspin about everything from finances to keeping the house clean to being organized about anything at all. I was a bit of a trash fire for a few years, although I did mostly keep myself from completely falling apart. During this time I stopped all of the "emergency prep" I used to engage in, and actually made my way through my stash of food *right before* the pandemic hit, because of course. The one time I could have used an emergency stash. I had to laugh about that one, because the irony was THICK. I also didn't engage in any kind of gardening, because my yard is tiny and it's mostly just been where the dogs go to do their business. I kept telling myself that where I was living was "temporary" and that I'd be buying a house "soon," and here we are five years later, and I am still renting the house I had to move into in a rush and which still doesn't really feel like home.

I was hoping to purchase a small property in 2020, and we all know how that turned out. I have a small hope that maybe this year will be the year I can do it, but it will depend a lot on whether the housing market will have calmed down enough that I can afford what I want. I have only my income to depend on for a mortgage, plus the down payment I've been saving for (which is okay but not as much as I'd like it to be), and while my salary is decent (more than many, but rather less than the median salary in Canada), the price of real estate is far outstripping the buying power of a single salary these days. If I were a much handier person, it might be worth buying a fixer-upper and putting some sweat equity, but I don't exactly have the skills for that at this point, and my plans at the beginning of 2020 to learn all about carpentry and home renovation got scuttled HARD by the pandemic). I'd likely be biting off more than I can chew, given that I have pretty limited amounts of energy on my days off work, and I don't think KK would enjoy living in a house that's one giant reno project.

This whole subject is never far from my mind, but it has been weighing on me especially heavily since the pandemic hit. I have been acutely aware of how vulnerable we are, especially in urban centres. I have no energy alternatives other than the grid. I am pretty much entirely reliant on the current supply chain for everything from toilet paper to dog food to clothing to fresh vegetables. I have a single rain barrel in my back yard which is currently frozen solid, so no reliable water source other than city plumbing.

I have been watching the beginnings of the Omicron variant wave with mild alarm, is the short version.( Dooooooom... )

Like the title of my post says, it's not all doom and gloom. In spite of the above rant, I am actually cautiously optimistic about this coming year. I have plans to try to pay down my debt, maybe finally buy the property I've always wanted, and to learn new skills. I want to learn to spin (wool, not the exercise), and some basic carpentry, and to start thinking about planting a vegetable garden again (although I keep hesitating about starting seeds, because what if I move in the summer and have to leave it half done?). I take great delight in my dogs (although KK informs me that Pixie peed in her car on the way home from doggie daycare today, oops), and am really looking forward to doing more training with them this year.

I think that we're mostly going to make it through all of this terribleness, although not all of us will, and not all of us will come out unscathed even if we do make it. I worry about my friends and my family, and I worry about society at large, too. In all the scenarios I had envisioned in the past, it honesltly never occurred to me that I would have to keep going to the office during the apocalypse. ;)

It kind of reminds me of this:


On that note, dear friends, I will leave you for tonight. In the words of R.E.M.: The world serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs. Be well. <3