Pretty sure this is what they call climate dread.

 After the hottest day (108F) ever recorded in Portland, and looking ahead to an even hotter day tomorrow, it's still oppressively hot outside, and I'm feeling a lot of fear about the future.

Vacation

 We went on a trip! Saw a bunch of lovely relatives, floated on a river, looked at mountains, gazed at the skies. And there was a puppy.

Milestone

The girls finished school yesterday - they're done with 6th and 10th grade. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's been a rough year. They both navigated online school with impressive maturity, managing their own attendance and homework without us having to coach or nag them. They struggled some with homework and bad teachers, and they both were lonely a lot. I'm really proud of them. 

 Hi! I'm FULLY VACCINATED. 

So I went to Arizona. Hung out with my mom and her dog, took a little trip to Tumacacori. 

And then I came home where it's moist and green, and flew past some Pacific Northwest mountains at moonrise.

Yep, still nothing.

Duchess, Cook and I have all gotten our first-of-two vaccine injections, and are eagerly awaiting full vaccination status. We're optimistic that Skipper will get there, too, now that's she's in the 12-15-year-old category. 

Yesterday I cancelled all the bookings for the trip to Japan that I had planned for this August, after cancelling the original trip in June 2020. I held onto hope for a long time, but the uncertainty was too big. (And Japan just reimposed emergency measures again, so the uncertainty is leaning very much toward no-way-will-foreigners-be-allowed-into-Japan-in-early-August.) This was really disappointing, but I guess if it's the worst thing covid does to us, we're pretty lucky. We'll find other things to do. And I told Skipper we'll just go visit her when she's working in Japan someday.

Skipper gets to go to in-person school two days a week, for three hours at a time, and she LOVES it. Loves it. She can't wait to go to school every week; she literally counts down the days. All her friends, even the ones who don't like school as a rule, are just thrilled to go somewhere in person, to be with other people, to see each other and their teachers.

Our foster dog is still with us. Seems like at this point in the pandemic, people are returning their pandemic dogs or just looking for labradoodle puppies, so a middle-aged bulldog with a history of cancer isn't a hot commodity, even if he is a well-behaved, low-key guy who's happy to wear sweaters and thinks every new person is his friend.

And spring is beautiful.

Otherwise, no news. We are maintaining. Waiting for the world to open up 2-weeks post vaccine so we can hug all the people.

Still nothing

Baseball season is upon us. Flowers are blooming. We  mostly just work and read and play video games and watch TV and hang out with the dog, who has amazing new pajamas. (He seems to have a slipped disc or something in his back, so nobody's ever going to adopt this poor guy.) I have begun spending hours trying to snag a vaccine appointment, to no avail. Someday, we'll have more to report, but for now... just this.

 

Update. Not that anything has happened.

 Nothing has happened. We're just waiting. Walking the dog. 

It looks like the kids will start "hybrid" school in April. Which means they're going to have to roll out of bed and put pants on a few days a week. 

I'm not sure when Cook and I will return to an actual office. Probably July or later, when we can finally get vaccinated. He may have a permanent "hybrid" situation where he mostly works from home and goes in for in-person meetings sometimes. 

As we approach the one-year mark of All Being Trapped Together All The Time, I'm feeling extremely frayed. I get up every day and walk the dog and do my job and wash the dishes, etc, but if I didn't have a job and people/animals who need me to do stuff, I would definitely lie in bed all day weeping and watching tv. (As it is, my boundaries have gotten very weird, and the other day I happily showed my new toilet paper to a meeting including several strangers. I'm concerned that I will be unable to behave even remotely normal during in-person interactions when that becomes an option again.) 

We've all been scrabbling for something to look forward to. Skipper is disproprotionately excited about the first Tigers spring training game tomorrow. I have re-planned our trip to Japan (originally scheduled for June 2020) for this August, but the absence of vaccination options for kids may kill that trip, too, in which case I may have to take to my bed after all. 

It snowed!

 We're alive! Currently enjoying a rare snow/ice storm. (Dob #1/9, who lived his previous winters in central California and has very little hair on his undersides, is not thrilled about this.)

Debilitation

 Well. We got us a president, and I, for one, am feeling cautiously excited about the new era at the Department of Transportation. 

Here's what I'm not excited about: ongoing medical problems. All the HUMANS in this family are fine, as far as we know, and the guinea pigs are probably okay (or at least are not peeing blood), but Dog #1/#9 is having a rocky recovery process from his mass removal surgery a week ago. Since that surgery he has been back to the vet three times, once to have a wound opened, flushed out and restitched with a drainage tube in it, and has had a ton of swelling and generally feeling crappy. He was really sad and in pain for the first four days, but now that he's feeling better he's very annoyed by all the restrictions on his activity. (Not helped by the fact that he's currently dripping constantly from his drainage tube and is therefore limited to the more easily-cleaned parts of the house.) He loathes cones, so we have to either be constantly watching him for any licking/scratching/chewing of stitches, or have him staggering around with the cone on, crashing into stuff and whining.  It's been a rough week. But the thing is, it's also not clear that his long-term prognosis is good. He may have a bunch more tumors recur. He may need chemo or radiation or further surgeries. 

As a person who has enjoyed generally good health, I feel a looming sense that this is the future of my own body - diagnoses and interventions that do not wrap up with confidence that the worst is now behind us. Mortality sucks.

Reporting in

Hey. It's January. It's been a hell of a January. 

Here's your update.

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas. 

Since then, we've had a few lovely sunny days, and taken lots of pictures of Dog #1. (We got Dog #1 some more clothes, by the way. 

#1 had a bunch of "masses" removed yesterday. He was not happy about it.

Now we're just waiting to see what 2021 holds for all of us. Here's hoping for good things.