fishlifter

Still testing positive and feeling a bit cruddy, so I didn't attend the folk music concert I had a ticket for yesterday and stayed home instead. That enabled me to get a bit more work done, and also to attend two Zoom meetings - the virus can't be transmitted over Zoom, so far as we currently know - one of which fizzled out when the host lost her internet connection (see, B! we're not the only ones that happens to), and the other one of which was largely occupied with listening to an adjunct professor express distress with life at a budget-cutting university. I sympathize, but the detail, and repetition of same, was more than I needed.

Dinner was takeout from our favorite local Mexican place, closest thing to a meal out I've had in over two weeks, and again I couldn't eat more than half of it, something I'd never experienced with their food before. At least this time they gave B. the burrito she ordered, instead of one she didn't.

Next week is the Banff String Quartet Competition, which I'll be watching livestream - attending in-person, which I did twice in the old days, is so not on for me now - and I don't have to go anywhere for a week and a half, and that to a dentist appointment which I can always reschedule, having already done that once. Tickets for the fall season have begun trickling in, but that doesn't start for another two weeks after that, and the first concert doesn't much appeal to me.

And so we sit.

I haven't had anything to post for several days because I've been in isolation mode, on two counts.

First, B. and I have contacted the covid. First time for either of us. We've been highly vigilant so far, but we relaxed enough to go unmasked to a family gathering just when we shouldn't have.

Covid symptoms vary in nature and severity. Mine have been mostly cold/flu-like symptoms, plus the interesting one of loss of appetite. I cannot eat more than half of what I usually do. B. is having it much worse. Due to our age and condition, we're both on paxlovid. Picking that up from the pharmacy was just about my only exit from the house lately. We've got plenty of food and we're isolating.

Simultaneously, my computer was in the shop for a much-needed overhaul, prompted by a catastrophic glitch. This also took several days, so at the same time as I was isolating, I was isolated from the online world. I had access to e-mail, more to read than to write it, but I couldn't do much of anything else. Whole lotta book-reading going on.

But now it's back, and I can start getting ramped back up on work. I'm feeling better - so is B. - but I'm going to stay isolated for at least another couple of days before I take another covid test to see how I'm doing.

A few days ago, we got a dismaying notice: our water would be turned off today for a period of 5 hours during the daytime. Some work needed to done on the valve controlling the whole complex.

If we were working, we could have been gone the entire period, but as it is, we're home. What if we needed to flush a toilet more than once? So we filled every pot, basin, and pitcher we have full of water, and prepared.

Didn't need to worry. About an hour into the 5-hour period I turned on a faucet just to check. It was running. I went out to where the complex's valve is and found a repairman. He said he was almost done. The 5-hour period was just cautionary in case something went really wrong.