🎶 Every week we're strugg-l-in' 🎶
There’s a new tool in my office this month: a Blue211+.
I wish it were a robot that refilled my water bottle or massaged that pinchy point in my neck, or an A.I. that made my every thought beautiful, but it is no such thing.
It’s an air filter, originally bought to make a kitty-allergic houseguest more comfortable. But this month its job has been to filter out the smoke wafting down from Canada, where forests are ablaze.
Fires make the daylight weird: dim and diffuse, occasionally amber-tinted when the sun is “shining.” And I think the poor air quality gave me a weeklong headache.
But I’ve finally finished the rough assembly of my second podcast episode!*** That’s basically a first draft, audio-wise.
I say "finally" because the week before was all about wrestling the demons of technology. Day after day, hour after hour, on help forums and live support chats and video tutorials, I was trying to get some basic functions of this very snazzy audio editing program I’m using—which heretofore has been amazing—to function.
It put me days behind where I thought I’d be, which is a feeling I hate!
But natural disasters and the evil app gods are only two nemeses in this part-time-working-parent’s battles.
We've also just had a little wildfire of disease running through our home: Coxsackievirus, otherwise known as hand, foot, and mouth disease. 👋🏻🦶🏻 👄
Here's how that throws a grenade into your life:
First, you hear of an outbreak at your kid’s daycare. She’s been exposed. You may be incubating it in your home right now. You must cancel all plans outside the home, immediately, for the next four days.
The kiddo's not sick so far, and in case she hasn’t caught it, it would be better not to be around other potentially Coxsackie-incubating kids at daycare, so you keep your healthy kid at home.
Then the sickness hits. Dealing with her pain and discomfort becomes an around-the-clock job. Your cortisol level spikes as you don’t know what each hour will bring, or what will soothe her distress. A popsicle? Is it time for more medicine? Can I go check my email now? You seem to lose those routines – and their accompanying little sanity breaks – that you have on a normal day.
Come up for air several (sleepless) days later, with no memory of what you’d been all about the week before. You’ve lost your page in the book of your life. Your old to-do list looks like an artifact from another era.
I realize Covid was exactly this for millions of people, with people literally returning to their offices to find their calendars still turned to March. What I guess I never anticipated was how having a kid could mean there are little Covid-like explosions … all the time.
Which is why, now more than ever, I’m willing to spend money on any gadget that might save me time or trouble. Gizmos, doodads, devices, appliances? The more specialized the better! Or the more multipurpose, the better the value! I'm a sitting duck.
So we have the Blue211+ and we have humidifiers and we have space heaters and standing fans and happy lights and hand warmers and stroller organizers and portable changing stations and white noise machines for home and another for away and and and … and.
And there’s still a wildfire that’s got you stuck indoors, worried about climate change and your kid’s lungs.
And there’s still a virus spreading in your community with no treatment other than tylenol and popsicles.
And you just try to get something done. A LITTLE something, anything, to keep your fingers in the books of your life.
Here’s wishing you ease and, if you want it, progress.
*** Podcast, what podcast? I know, I know! I'm working on a podcast. It's pretty exciting and cool, if I do say so myself. More on that another day.
