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EDIT: Oops! Fuck, it's 4:28 pm as I write this. I finished my lunch break this afternoon and totally forgot to post today's DLU! Until now. So here it is . . .
Well, Shobhit had another sort of COVID scare, called out from work over the weekend as a result, but I booked him another test on Sunday (yesterday) and the rapid one came back negative, so he went ahead and worked his four-hour shift last night. He came home early on Friday, though, and called out completely on Saturday. It kind of worked out well for me on a social level, but I'll get to that momentarily.
This was the second time Shobhit got all paranoid for clearly psychosomatic reasons, only to find out he was not infected with Covid in spite of him being increasingly convinced he was. To be fair, this time around the chances were indeed far greater that he was indeed infected, in the midst of this Omicron variant surge.
A study in late December suggested 40% of people with COVID are asymptomatic, and
around the same time one in ten asymptomatic children getting tested in the L.A. area were testing positive. So, even without Shobhit's imaginary symptoms, he could easily have come back positive. But, with the rapid test at least, he actually came back negative.
But, as of Thursday, a supervisor at his work, who was also asymptomatic, used an extra test someone else had, evidently just to double check. Her test came back positive. Shobhit immediately said he could "feel something in my throat," and I really had my doubts when he only "noticed" that after his supervisor's test, a person he said he was only near very briefly, less than five minutes, and they both would have been masked. Still, having gone to his shift on Friday and finding it difficult to breathe in the KN95 mask I suggested he wear, he came home early. He immediately took his blood pressure and it was slightly elevated, and so he tried to ascribe it to that. When we were talking later about it to Ivan, who is a nurse, he was even more skeptical than I was: "That sounds psychosomatic to me" he said, and also noted his blood pressure reading wasn't really that high.
Nevertheless, because of his fears, he called out on Saturday. And we ended up having a pretty nice late afternoon and evening together that day. Again, I'll get to that momentarily.
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Friday evening was the series finale of
The Expanse on Prime Video, and before Shobhit had even gone to work that day, we decided to invite Alexia, who is an even bigger fan than we are, to come over and watch it with us. After Shobhit decided to come home early, I decided to text her about his covid scare situation and say that if she wanted to back out of coming over we would understand. She was just like, "I'm coming over," but she also texted "Thank you for giving me the choice." She actually still had the previous week's episode to catch up on, and we said we were fine with re-watching that one if she wanted to watch both with us, so that's what we did. She came over from her condo next door at 7:00.
I knew that Alexia had her two vaccine shots months ago, and for some reason thought I remembered she also had her booster shot—but she corrected me on Friday that she hadn't. "I still need to go do that," she said, pretty casually. She also seems to have kind of thrown caution to the wind at this point: "We're all gonna get it," she said, "let's just get it done!" Well, I don't really feel that's the best approach. I mean, I will kind of throw caution to the wind eventually too, but only after a steep decline in daily case counts. Yesterday was the projected peak date, but I can't find anything to see if we're on track for that because there hasn't been any data released yet past January 13. Not even the
Seattle Times daily coronavirus updates page has updated since the 15th, which is unusual and annoying. That said, the
King County Covid-19 Outcomes by Vaccination Status page is already showing downward trends, albeit far more dramatically among the vaccinated. But of course we all would have predicted that anyway.
Anyway, I have a suspicion that this was part of Alexia's willingness to come over: if it means she gets Covid, then so be it, in her mind, and then she'd just be getting the inevitable over with. I still don't see it as inevitable, but we'll see, I suppose.
Shobhit made a batch of mango custard for dessert and shared it with both Alexia and Ivan. Shobhit and Alexia and I found the
Expanse finale relatively satisfying, albeit with a few kind of mystifying loose ends.
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As for Saturday, first I watched a streaming movie for review:
Bergman Island (solid B), which has been available on Hulu since Friday. Danielle texted Shobhit while I was writing my review, asking for some financial advice because her work friends who were going to travel to Mexico with her later this month backed out, and her work was offering her double wages
plus another $20 per hour on top of that, to come in to work yesterday, because of staff shortages at the hospital where she works—an offer she finally found difficult to refuse.
I told her weeks ago that traveling to Mexico any time in January was probably not the best idea, and she's just so burnt out from her job, she was like, "I need a vacation, I'm making it happen." But with her friends understandably spooked by Omicron and thus backing out, her options became more limited.
Anyway, in the midst of these conversations between Danielle and Shobhit (who of course told her she would probably be accommodated by the airline, especially if she explained that she is a nurse "doing her civic duty" by reporting to work instead, so she should take the work offer), she asked if we'd like to meet up with her down in Renton. At first the idea was broached of going out for a pedicure, which I was actually open to (just with my own KN95 mask; this wasn't a restaurant idea so I wouldn't be expected to take the mask off), but eventually that idea got discarded. We wound up driving down just to have dinner with them at their place, with very tasty Indian takeout we got at a place Shobhit found in Kent.
So we got to Danielle's house in Renton around 5:10 on Saturday evening, and were just there for a few hours. Neither of the girls were home when we arrived, but Rylee was at a birthday party not far from there (it was nice to see that all the kids at the party were wearing masks, the far lower efficacy of cloth masks against Omicron notwithstanding; still better than nothing). Danielle kind of inadvertently tricked Shobhit and me into walking with her to pick her up instead of driving, saying it was "about three blocks away." It turned out to be half a mile! This would not have been a big deal, except it was after dark in January, and Shobhit and I had only brought light jackets. We were so cold that, by the time we were actually walking back, I booked ahead in a sort of speed walk just to warm myself up.
I stayed in the house while Rylee and her friend Ghost went to her bedroom, and Shobhit went with Danielle to go pick up Morgan from her boyfriend's house. Morgan just had her wisdom teeth pulld, so there was a little bit of drama regarding food getting stuck in the spaces where her teeth used to be. Anyway, once Danielle and Shobhit returned, I made hot buttered rums for Danielle and myself with the batter and rum Shobhit and I brought. I think I used a bit much; I felt some level of minor hangover basically all day yesterday and only feel normal again today. Oh, well.
It was incredibly foggy Saturday night and Shobhit was concerned about driving in it, but we got home fine.
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As for yesterday, it was a bit of a hot mess of frustrations, starting with my doing a load of laundry that was maybe too large, and the machine up and stopped spinning. It works otherwise, but won't spin. Shobhit is convinced, based on literally no evidence whatsoever, that it will work again once water fully dries that spilled over the lip of the inner container and onto the motor or something, it will work again. He keeps insisting that this has happened before, but he's talking out his ass. So, right now we're just keeping the laundry close door open and the washing machine lid open to air it out for a day or two, then will try to run a load again and see if it works. I have about an 80% expectation that it won't.
I did text Alexia about it, to see if she'd ever had any similar experience. He washer still works but is having issues of its own, so she actually has a brand new unit set to be delivered in about a week and a half. She even forwarded me emails to both the repair service consultation that told her what was wrong with her washer could not be fixed, as well as from the place from which she bought the new unit.
The thing that sucked the most was that I had a large load of completely soaked clothes, now separated into two smaller loads in Rubbermaid bins. We actually did try a smaller load later yesterday and it still didn't work. Shobhit remains convinced that letting the machine rest a day or two will fix it. We'll see. In any event, Alexia offered to let me finish the two wet loads in her washer, which was incredibly kind and generous of her (how nice to have such a neighborly neighbor!), after which I brought them back and dried them in our drier, which continues to work fine-ish (it's not as hot as it used to be). So, the darks got washed; the lights are still unwashed in the laundry basket. We may or may not take those to a laundromat. I have discovered that Capitol Hill has, like, one traditional laundromat; otherwise we seem to be surrounded only by dry cleaners and "laundry service" places that, like, pick up your laundry. I shudder to think what that kind of service would cost. Apparently a load in the laundromat washing machine is now $6. I have a feeling we will likely go that route with the lights we still have left to wash, only if the washer continues not to work, and then we're faced with paying $110 for a consultation visit, before either a repair job or having to buy an entire new stack washer/dryer unit.
A big part of Shobhit's push to "air out" the washer is the slim hope that, if it works, we can save ourselves that $110 consultation visit fee. I guess I can't really begrudge him that. I just feel bad because this also means Ivan can't wash his laundry at home, and his wardrobe has always been very small, so he'll run out of clothes a lot faster than we will. On the other hand, well, sometimes shit just happens.
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Aside from all that, I went with Shobhit to get his COVID test at the same Northgate place we went to last time. I didn't get tested this time, only he did; and as I already said his rapid test came back negative, so he went to his 3-7 pm shift last night after all. While we were in Northgate we did a little bit of shopping at Target. Oh, we also went to Costco for gas before going to the test, which we got to half an hour early and they actually accommodated him surprisingly fast, well before his 12:39 appointment.
In fact, the parking lot was far less full of people getting tested yesterday than they had been last time. Another sign, hopefully, that Omicron has peaked and is now on the way back down.
So, while I sporadically went over to Alexia's condo to either load or bring back my darks, I watched another movie for review, this one on Apple TV+ and a movie I found utterly delightful, as I had no idea it would be so funny:
CODA, which stands for Child of Deaf Adults. It's about a teenage girl who is hearing but has two parents as well as an older brother who are all deaf, and all three are played by deaf actors, including the always-wonderful Marlee Matlin as the mom. It's the dad, played by Troy Kotsure, though, who garnered the one individual SAG Award acting nomination; the film otherwise got an Outstanding Cast nomination. This means Shobhit will get a screener, and I will absolutely watch it again with him. I look forward to it, in fact.
Shobhit got home shortly after I finished writing the review. We watched the first episode of the new series
Peacemaker on HBO Max. It's a little uneven but ended in a delightful battle scene that I think single-handedly convinced us both that we want to keep watching.
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[posted 4:30 pm]
