I started feeling a bit off on Thursday afternoon, collapsed into an unpleasantly feverish two-hour nap immediately upon arriving home, and then continued to sleep badly after dragging myself up to eat a minimalist dinner. So I took a Covid test Friday morning and yeah. :(

I was very short on supplies since I'd intended to buy groceries Friday evening, but I was able to get some basics via Instacart (which is now incessantly advertising at me, blargh), and I have been sort of sludging along between naps and large glasses of Ocean Spray cranberry-pomegranate juice, which I honestly cannot recommend highly enough. Delicious stuff.

So far it's been about the same as my first go-round with Covid, which is to say it's like a bad cold and/or a mild flu: upper respiratory gunk, sore throat and cough, utterly drained, everything aches. Fortunately the fever seems to have been a one-off incident during the onset -- thank you vaccines for mitigating that!

I had tickets for the Cayuga Wine Trail's annual Wine & Herb Fest this weekend, but obviously that is OFF the agenda. Instead my goal is to not miss more than one additional day of work, since while this seems to be conforming to the way upper respiratory gunk usually hits me and I expect I'll feel a bit better tomorrow, I will probably still be exhausted and sore all over on Monday, plus of course there's the contagion concern.

I suspect I was infected during my end-of-tax-season Sunday brunch treat for myself, since nobody else in my office is ill and that was the time I was around a bunch of people unmasked in close quarters for a good length of time. Ah well. I rolled the dice and luck was not with me. *sigh*

I took Thursday off work on account of still being COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED although my other Covid-19 symptoms were basically gone, but Friday and Saturday I was back at the rental office, where I am religiously wearing my mask at all times (except when eating, for obvious logistical reasons) and continuing to be VERY TIRED, what the hell, can I please have my energy back already???

I got all my spreadsheets caught back up to the present, answered all the hanging inquiries and questions, reviewed and posted some pre-recorded video tours, and resumed my work on creating floor plans out of old and often outdated architectural blueprint sketches. Making floor plans is slower than photo editing, but less frustrating in that it's a more creative act -- a "see, I made a thing!" task rather than a "this process should have been completed eight months ago but here I am still tidying things up" task.

Anyway, tomorrow I will have my first (and final, probably) day back at Not the IRS, where I will have 7 or 8 hours to face and untangle whatever the hell kind of backlog I may or may not have piled up and waiting. *eyes schedule nervously* I feel like I may wind up back there Monday evening after my main job, just to finish off any loose ends.

Oh! Which reminds me: this year, Tax Day is Monday, April 18. If you haven't already, FILE YOUR GODDAMN TAXES.

Fun story: guess who took a precautionary Covid-19 test on Sunday to prep for her Wednesday mammogram and discovered her spring cold was actually Covid?

That's right. Me. *headdesk*

I have no idea where or how I caught it, but I was starting to feel like I was coming down with a cold on Thursday evening, so presumably I was infected at some point earlier last week. I know one of my Not the IRS coworkers was ill on Thursday and has been out sick (exact illness unknown) since then, so perhaps he's the vector? Then again, I do encounter a lot of people, so who knows.

I was pretty good about wearing a mask on Friday and Saturday, just on general "hey, I have a cold; maybe let's not share cold germs, either!" principles, so hopefully I didn't infect anyone else. :/

I am under quarantine orders for the next few days, which will be tedious, but I think I do get paid for the missed work as part of a state program so it's more of an annoyance than a hardship.

Anyway, thus far my particular case of Covid-19 has been acting like a normal moderate-to-bad cold -- started with a sore throat, now my nose and sinuses are full of gunk, and I am generally very tired -- and I have not experienced any of the more worrying potential symptoms. I intend to continue treating it with sleep and fluids, and maybe catch up on some household chores while I'm shut in.

I have also rescheduled my mammogram to May, because obviously Wednesday was out of the question.

Things I have done this week:

1. The endless saga of photo editing continues. *flops disconsolately over desk* The problem with photo edits is that they are horribly, mind-numbingly tedious, and yet I can't just automate them by saying, "Kick up the light by 30, kick up the color by 50, increase clarity by 15" and so on, because every photo has a slightly (or strongly) different color balance and light-dark balance and so on. Also some of them are cockeyed. So I have to pay attention to every single one, but it's all fiddling with sliders and squinting doubtfully at my monitor in an attempt to determine whether changing the red-green balance or reducing highlights or whatever other alteration actually helps anything.

2. I continued prodding Mr. Geniality into recording voiceovers for the video tours we shot while his voice was gone. We have six left, plus one that I need to record myself because it was the second video I shot without him and the timing is deeply fucked up, so I figure that I will suffer through trying to narrate something useful. Also we recorded three more intro clips (one of us stands outside an apartment door and does a little "Welcome to such-and-such building, located [fill in place]. Brief description of building. Today we're going to see Apartment XXX, which is a [style of apartment] on the YYY floor. Let's head on in!") because while I kept a record of intro clips for apartments where Mr. Geniality did the tour, I neglected to keep track of apartments that needed intro clips where I narrated the tour. Whoops! But that is fixed now.

3. Last week I pinned a bunch of architectural blueprints to the wall in Mr. All Hat's unused apartment. (Insofar as I am aware, Mr. All Hat's company position is "brown-noser to Company Owner." As part of that, he gets a complimentary studio. We started using it for storage last year because fuck him, and after I cleaned up his mess (ewww) we also use it as a sample unit for tours.) I then took good digital photos of the blueprints -- both each floor as a whole, and every individual apartment -- and I have been using those to create nice clean floor plans for all the apartments that did not have extant floor plans, what the hell were they even DOING before I moved to the downtown office??? *headdesk* I can do about two a day, which I think is not bad considering my only graphics program is MS Paint. *double headdesk*

The thing is, I can't just clean up the blueprints, because they are not always up-to-date! So I need to check them against photos of the apartments to see what, if anything, has been changed, which direction doors actually open, and so on. If things have changed, I then have to draw new walls, move doors, delete closets, and otherwise rearrange things as needed, so there's a creative element as well as the general "turn a grainy, grayish drawing with occasional wobbly bits into a clean, readable, sharp-edged black and white diagram." It's more satisfying than photo edits, but equally tedious.

4. Prepping for a special board meeting on Wednesday, to discuss ministerial options and things we need to make sure get addressed in our meeting with a UUA representative next Saturday morning. The UUA rep was originally planning to come to Ithaca for the weekend and give our Sunday sermon, but given the Covid-19 situation, the UUA has imposed a travel ban on national staff. So our Saturday meeting will be on Zoom, and the sermon will be pre-recorded and inserted virtually into the service in whatever fashion makes most sense to the Celebrations committee.

5. Mom's birthday was Thursday! I sang her Happy Birthday over the phone. She has safely arrived in Minnesota and is staying with Nick. :)

6. Cat's birthday was Friday! I texted her Happy Birthday, and she said she had a great day. :) Hopefully the card I sent arrived today. (I should have mailed it at the same time I mailed Mom's card, but I was distracted and didn't remember until a few days later, oops.)

7. Mr. Geniality has decided to get back into a fitness routine as his New Year's resolution. I have never had a fitness routine, per se, and since I have had regular possession of a car, I don't walk nearly as much, which was previously my default exercise. Driving is really convenient so I don't think I'm magically going to start walking a lot again, but I do want to do some kind of activity.

What I really need is a gym buddy, but I have no idea where to find one. :/

And now I think I will go websurf a bit, because my brain is kind of fried from editing photos and floor plans all day. *wry*

1. I got my Covid-19 booster shot on Saturday. The overall effect has been much more similar to my first shot than my second -- no fever or general flu-like malaise -- but after the initial muscle soreness in my left shoulder wore off, I seem to have developed some joint soreness and possibly a slightly sore/swollen lymph node? Or then again, maybe it's just some pre-existing soreness in my left hand interacting oddly with vaccine side-effects. I dunno, bodies are weird. Mostly I am taking ibuprofen and trying to find resting positions that don't make my shoulder, elbow, and forearm/wrist burn. :/

2. I had my 6-month dental checkup this morning. My gums are doing better than last time and my fillings seem to be in good repair, which is nice. I have been advised to purchase a water flosser to aid with general gum health, so that has gone onto my to-do list. I should also get a call from my pharmacy in the next day or two once my new prescription fluoride toothpaste arrives. Hopefully this one will be mint flavor instead of the weird fruity bubblegum flavor I have been suffering through since my last dental checkup!

Five things make a post:

1. Covid-19 test came back negative. \o/

2. The new tenant of a unique apartment that I badly wanted to stage, photograph, and video told us in July that they would arrive on Friday, August 13. I had been putting off staging that apartment because it's a third-floor walkup and I thought I had some breathing room to get more pressing apartments dealt with, and planned to do the staging today. I even brought in some of my own wall-art to help make the unfurnished rooms look good.

Well, it turns out the tenant actually arrived on Tuesday, August 10. Mr. Geniality did not notify me when they picked up the keys (I might have been able to squeak 45 minutes out before they actually moved in), so they've now moved in all their own furniture and whatnot and it is far too late to do anything.

I'm a little annoyed about that. *sigh*

3. My parents got delayed by traffic and will arrive circa 10pm instead of 9pm, so I am kind of killing time for an hour and a half.

4. It continued to be beastly hot and humid, so I decided to wear my pretty, lightweight blue-green broomstick skirt with the purple flower design. It was indeed very comfy! Then I accidentally tore a hole in the back hem this afternoon, when it got caught in the wheel of an office chair. I am unpleased.

5. I successfully remembered to text Landlord Dude about my living room light and bathroom sink maintenance issues, and he said he'll come fix them on Friday. \o/

Today I worked 10am-3pm (yes, that is an hour more than I intended to work; tasks have a tendency to slop over, alas!) during which period I took photos and video of four apartments and un-staged three of them. Either Awesome Temp or I will un-stage the fourth tomorrow or Thursday -- it was less urgent, since the incoming tenant doesn't plan to arrive until, I think, Friday.

I also answered some phone calls and updated our waitlist, which are useful tasks.

Then I headed out for a Board of Trustees listening circle to discuss our feelings about recent congregational events -- mostly our minister resigning, but also ancillary stuff. My general takeaway was that I am too goddamn tired to have much emotional reaction at this point, which is itself a valid trauma reaction, I suppose. *sigh*

Anyway, then I knocked the July 21 minutes into shape and posted them, with one section almost completely redacted because I don't think we have an official policy on how to handle confidentiality issues relating to Executive Session portions of Board meetings. I mean, I have all the data! It's nice and secure on my laptop! I just don't feel quite right putting it in a Google doc that I know people other than Board members have access to, and which will eventually be posted as a PDF on our website. *deeper sigh*

I really should have done that two weeks ago, but see above in re: too goddamn tired. Also normally I take minutes directly into Google docs, but our church wifi was glitchy as hell during the meeting so I just copy-pasted the template into Word and took minutes there. (Our wifi is from a simpler time, before we needed to support hybrid Zoom and in-person meetings on a regular basis. We are working to upgrade it, but for now... well, it's struggling, shall we say.)

We met outdoors this afternoon, at a pavilion in Cass Park. Finding that was a bit of an adventure, because I have lived in Ithaca for... uh... 21 years now (yeesh) but had never once been to Cass Park before today. So I drove around a lot of access roads until it occurred to me that the green space on the other side of Rt. 89 might also technically be part of Cass Park. And lo, after a minor detour around a soccer field, I did find the pavilion.

The reason for the outdoor meeting, btw, is that the Delta variant of Covid-19 is now running rampant in New York, so we're backing off indoor in-person gatherings again.

Also, on a more personal note, I learned this afternoon that my coworker Ms. Random Numbers has Covid-19. Apparently she got it from her husband (no idea where he got it) and started showing symptoms Friday night, though her husband didn't get a positive Covid test until Monday so she didn't even get tested until then. I have definitely been in the same room as Ms. Random Numbers on multiple occasions last week, mostly without a mask (we stopped wearing them in the office since we are all fully vaccinated), so, you know, that's not great.

I have scheduled a test for tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed...

I got my second dose (Pfizer) this morning at 8:30am. There was a slight mishap with the injection -- nothing serious, just the 1-in-a-thousand chance of nicking a teeny-tiny vein so it bled more than expected and the technician had to apply pressure with a gauze pad for a minute, before wiping the area down again and applying a bandaid.

I felt nothing until the afternoon, when my left upper arm began to ache.

By now I ache in multiple places and am feeling a bit wobbly and sweaty to boot, so I am going to bed in hope of sleeping off any further side effects.

And then in two weeks, immunity! \o/

1. I got my Covid test results back yesterday. I am negative, as I expected -- I didn't have any direct contact with Mr. Commercial, and we've been pretty good about wearing masks whenever more than one person is in the same room, not to mention wearing masks any time we're in the communal parts of the office rather than our own tiny rooms. But still, it's good to know!

2. I put in a prescription refill request with my doctor, and I should be able to pick up my new Celexa tomorrow.

3. I have an orthopedic specialist appointment on Wednesday morning to talk about my carpal tunnel symptoms and whether they're caused by my wrists, my shoulders, or both. (I am fairly sure the answer is both.) I don't know what will come of that, but I have been getting slowly but steadily worse over the past year and now am at the point where I get pain and static every morning when I shower, when I dry my hair, and when I get dressed -- to say nothing of when I'm at work -- and I have more than once woken up in the middle of the night because of pain and static in my hands, so, you know, here's hoping.

4. We're due to get clobbered by a winter storm tonight and tomorrow. I am not looking forward to that.

5. Today at the rental company office was a Day Of Many Packages, which is particularly impressive considering it was a federal holiday so we received nothing from the US postal service. Also our automated package notification system is broken, so I had to send all the notices manually. (This happens now and then. The usual culprit is Microsoft tweaking its spam filters (which are what Cornell uses on its email service, even though I think the actual email runs through Gmail???) and all our messages getting dumped into spam and/or blocked altogether. *sigh* We're going to yell at the relevant parties until they fix what they broke. Again.)

6. Tomorrow I am scheduled to be at Not the IRS from 9am to 9pm. I have no appointments. This is going to be a very slow day.

...

I will bring a hardcopy book.

But for now, I think, I will just go to bed. :)

Mr. Geniality was out sick today, and it's apparently an upper respiratory thing.

Everyone at the rental company is crossing our fingers it isn't Covid.

Upon receiving the news, I promptly felt short of breath all day, and I have no way to tell if that was an actual symptom, or just psychosomatic nerves and the usual way breathing through a mask always leaves me feeling vaguely short of breath plus a slightly bent underwire in my bra.

...

I have scheduled a test for myself for 9:30am Friday morning.

Cayuga Medical has switched from the nose swabs to the saliva test, which on the one hand is less invasive (those swabs really do feel like they're scraping your soul) but on the other hand requires more preparation on my part, in that I can't eat or drink anything for at least half an hour before my test appointment.

So I'm going to get up a bit early and make sure I'm done with breakfast by 8:45am.