Days until 42nd birthday: 12
Days until Christmas: 17
Days until Holiday PTO starts: 11
This entire weekend has been about recovering, slowly, from the depths of Covid. I am almost completely normal again. I have a mild sinus infection, as I will generally get one anyway after I'm sick with almost anything, but thankfully it is very mild. Sinus infections generally clear up pretty quickly for me these days, unlike the old days when I was a smoker and they would take weeks to heal -- sometimes requiring antibiotics. Most of the time now I can kick them out of my system in a few days with minimal discomfort.
Daisy has been mostly okay, but she is also still slowly recovering -- as mentioned previously, she's a few days behind me in that process. We've both spent the weekend doing as little as possible, just trying to rest. Her parents are not doing so hot -- Mama says yesterday was the worst day thus far, and Dad is struggling too.
Because we've been isolated and haven't really been doing anything but, well, resting, Daisy and I have had a lot of quality time together this weekend -- quiet time where we're just on the couch together or in bed together hanging out with the cats. I expect this trend to continue throughout the day today as well; while I'd normally be up early-ish on a Sunday, it's usually for football -- the Chiefs are the evening game this week, so I can sleep as much or as long as I want into the afternoon.
We do, however, think Pete has Covid. Cats can get Covid -- it was pretty well-documented during the pandemic. Pete has had pretty terrible anxiety again this past week or so when for the past few months, he's been mostly okay -- and he has diarrhea. Diarrhea is one of the telltale signs in cats. Given his propensity to sleep with us like a teddy bear and be right up in our faces no matter what, well...it's likely he's gotten it.
I told Daisy not to worry; he more than likely had it last year when we had Covid at that time as well, and he (or any of the other cats) do not seem to be suffering from any adverse or otherwise strange health concerns at the moment. Diarrhea in the pans are nothing new for this household as we have five cats and five pans. Cats get upset stomachs from time to time just like we do.
Anyway, "cat Covid" basically just has to run its course like it does in us. I guess.
I have nine working days left until my holiday vacation starts. I'm sure they're all going to go as slow as mud. This week is the last full week for me until after the first of the year, though. All five days this week, four next week, and then I'm off for ten straight days. Trying to fill the schedule for the holidays at work has been a nightmare thus far, and I can't help it if people don't want to work over the holidays -- I certainly wouldn't. I also can't force anyone to work the holidays, as per our company they are paid holidays and they don't have to work them if they don't want to.
We've also lost a lot of our team in the past several weeks/months; about fifteen or so agents from the After Hours team were either outright fired or moved to other programs. I lost three of mine. Now, granted, none of them were huge losses to my team or the program in general, but warm bodies in seats does mean something when it comes to holiday coverage, and two of those three would always volunteer to work every holiday.
The whole program is going through a lot of changes and it is going to look very different after the new year. I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled about the direction it's heading in, but I still have a job, a paycheck, and my nightly duties to perform, even if those duties become more difficult as time goes on. As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, not one of these changes my workplace rolls out ever makes the job easier or makes it better. Ever. Not one, never, not ever, not one single thing. I absolutely long, absolutely lust for a change that would make my job easier, with less responsibility and accountability, with a higher paycheck.
So, that and the Covid have both been weighing heavily on my mind and have really stopped me from getting into the Christmas spirit as much as I would really like to. The election results last month didn't help much either. I'm in a weird headspace enough as it is without all of that stuff not grinding me down.
I've written here before about my nostalgia of holidays past -- when times were simpler, when times were very different than they are now. I've gone into that here a lot in the past, so I won't rehash it again. I do miss Christmas Shopping Trips™ though -- just making marathon runs through malls and stores one after another, the excitement of it being part of the season, seeing all of the people and all of the lights, and being excited; I miss the anticipation and the build-up of knowing no matter what else happened, around my birthday there would be the big mall trip to Pittsburgh.
And then I think and realize that the last time I did this was easily twenty years ago, and it's been eighteen years that I've been living on my own away from home. Hell, my parents don't even live back home anymore. Everything is so different now. Nearly all of my Christmas shopping is now done online, via Amazon or Walmart (or, as of late, the Tiktok shop). It feels so impersonal, and trust me it also feels much more expensive.
Christmas this year will just be the four of us -- me, Daisy, and the parents. There were supposed to be a lot more of us but that's not how plans ended up going. I am okay with a quiet and more subdued Christmas. I honestly just want to be comfortable and at peace, with my wife and the family. Some food, some presents, time spent with the cats on the couch watching a Christmas movie, etc.
More than anything else I long for rest and recuperation. I'm beginning to feel exhausted this month already, and I'm sure the Covid isn't helping that. My body just wants to sleep. It wants 2024 to stop. It wants quiet time without stress and without responsibilities. My body, and psyche, want my holiday vacation days to feel like a true vacation. I don't want to think about work, I don't want to think about the bills that need to be paid or bad weather or the fact that this will likely be the last Christmas for Sadie and maybe even for Pete -- I desperately want all of that pushed out of my head, off the table, and set aside for just a few weeks.
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