— पांच हजार एक सौ छियानबे —

Well, here we are. Shobhit has covid. I don't, apparently, but in all probability I will. Why didn't we take at-home tests before leaving for Olympia on Sunday? Stupid. Stupid, stupid. We exposed about thirty people. I didn't even really think about it, but I suppose subconsciously I didn't want to have to stay home from the event. I mean, I would bet anything no one else tested at home before the party either. Not that that qualifies as any kind of excuse. I'm not going to spend an inordinate amount of time beating myself up over this, what's done is done, but if I'm going to share about this I still have to be upfront and honest about it. We were absolutely careless, and if anyone else at that gathering also tests positive over the next week or so, it will almost certainly be our fault.

Shobhit has had a kind of persistent cough for ages, since long before the pandemic, identified to be tied to his acid reflux. We both take daily medication for it now. His occasional coughing didn't sound any different from normal, until yesterday morning. And I went to work yesterday. I even exchanged texts with Danielle about booking Amtrak tickets for Monday, round trip for her from Tukwila to Olympia and back, and me one-way for returning from my planned weekend that almost certainly won't be happening now. I even booked my ticket. Danielle had not yet booked hers by the time I texted her later last night.

It didn't fully hit me until Shobhit texted me yesterday afternoon that he had a fever of 101°. Then it was like, Oh, shit. And still, I held out hope that it was something else: people are around each other way more often now, and even regular flus and colds are catching more frequently than they did two years ago. I didn't even worry that much about it as I planned to do at-home tests for both of us as soon as we got home. I left work fifteen minutes early, thinking it would give me enough time to do the tests, have dinner and still go to the SIFF movie I had a ticket for at Pacific Place—which of course I wound up not going to.

I pulled out the two home tests as soon as I got home. Every time I've done these tests, I set the timer on my phone for fifteen minutes, waiting that long to confirm that the second line on the testing strip did not appear, thus confirming a negative test. Well, that second line appeared on Shobhit's testing strip almost immediately. I wouldn't even know how to describe the feeling that came over me when I saw that, except it was roughly like, Fuuuuuck. Shobhit was laying in bed and I went over to tell him, "Shobhit. You're positive."

Ivan was in the living room sitting at the dining table, and I came right outside the bedroom door to tell him, several minutes later, after I spent a pretty long time just standing in the bathroom, trying to decide what to do next, and what should be done after whatever needed to be done next. Ivan was quite nonchalant about it, noting that he hadn't been within six feet of either of us for more than fifteen minutes for several days. He did text his work about it, noting that fact, and they told him still to come into work, but test before every shift and go back to wearing the N95 mask they all hate wearing and which apparently they had not been using as a default for a while. In any event, Ivan still went to work last night.

Before I even talked to Ivan, I called my dad, to let him know. Then I called Gina, my sister whose house the gathering had been at, and with whom I almost never actually speak on the phone. In both cases I was like, "I'm calling with bad news. Shobhit has covid." Gina met that with, "Ohhh, shit." I told her I would post to the family Facebook group with confirmed CDC recommendations, as people kept having questions I only roughly remembered answers to (when should someone who has been exposed test?—at least five days after exposure), and after I took a bit of time to find the most reliable CDC website links to include, I did exactly that. The post on the Facebook group indicates that 11 people have seen it, but no one has responded with any comments, and the only reaction otherwise was a "like" by my sister Angel. Probably, in her mind, just to confirm to me that she had seen it. I don’t think everyone realizes Facebook shows "seen by" lists to the author of posts.

I pretty much immediately decided I needed to be working from home for the time being. We already exposed nearly 30 family members, I didn't need to be exposing even more people at work—and I even had a meeting with Eric and Tracy at the office yesterday for about half an hour in one of the small meeting rooms. Instead of going to the SIFF movie, after I had some leftover salad for dinner, I grabbed a mask and took Shobhit's car down to the office to grab my laptop, keyboard, mouse and headset to bring home. Working home in the past was at my home work desk in the bay windows area of the bedroom, but I obviously want to stay as separated as possible from Shobhit for as long as I continue testing negative, so I've set up my work station at the dining table out in the living room, which is where I am sitting to write this post. I probably won't use the iMac in the bedroom at all until Shobhit gets better.

So, I got home, set up the work station to make sure I didn't forget anything needed to have everything functioning, and then set about pulling out the hide-a-bed from the living room couch and putting sheets and a blanket on it. I was kind of exhausted by then, probably from worry more than anything, and so I actually got into that bed and went to sleep at about 9:40.

I slept surprisingly well for the first four and a half hours or so. But, I woke up around 2:30, largely because Guru was restless and relentlessly distracting me, and after that I slept quite poorly for the rest of the night, waking up regularly and/or tossing and turning. I woke up with a slight headache and even took a couple of Aleve with my regular morning pills, but that could easily be just because I drank leftover smoothie with vodka in it but didn't chase it with water before I went to bed, as it could be because of covid. I'll test again this evening, in any case. Either way, I am very tired right now. That hide-a-bed is hideously uncomfortable compared to the actual bed in the bedroom, which I won't sleep in again until either Shobhit tests negative and the linens have been washed, or I suppose, if I test positive.

Anyway, now I'm just waiting for the probable inevitability of getting sick myself. It likely won't make any difference given I slept all night Sunday night right next to Shobhit in the same bed, but I'm now trying to keep us separated as possible until either he tests negative or I test positive, he staying in the bedroom as much as possible, me staying out in the living room, and both of us masking any time we're in the same room. I've had more than one friend tell me now that they've known people (including Tracy's sister who lived with her when Tracy had covid in February) who managed to stay negative while living with a person who was positive, thanks to taking the right precautions. I don't know that any of them had already literally slept together, though, so who knows. It's still possible I could get through this unscathed, but it's doubtful. And this expectation is a very weird position to be in.

— पांच हजार एक सौ छियानबे —

So, what of my Birth Week, then? I was scheduled for a week vacation next week for this, and I will almost certainly push it back at least one week, which is really fucking up a lot of shit I had planned, but, whatever. I feel somewhat comforted by the fact that my birthday itself is on a Saturday, so even pushing it out a week it would still include my actual birthday. I've already contacted everyone I made plans with about this, but at the moment my plans for April 30 (my birthday) and May 1 (Northwest Railway Museum scenic train ride with Valerie) remain unchanged, as that weekend will just now begin my Birth Week rather than end it, and it's still 11 or 12 days away. Even if I do get sick, so long as it's not a severely delayed reaction, I should basically be out of the woods by then, and plans on both days are outdoor activities.

The biggest issue is how to reschedule what I had planned for this coming weekend, which included a miniature train ride called Kitsap Live Steamers with Jennifer on Saturday, a thing they only do every second and fourth Saturday of the month. If Shobhit is on the way to recovery by Saturday and I still keep testing negative (an unlikely scenario), I may go there to meet for the train ride as planned, but just not stay the night as planned. The rest of the weekend was going to involve getting a ride from Jennifer to Dad's on Sunday, the day we do our annual Birth Week bike ride; stay the night in Olympia Sunday night; then take Amtrak back to Tukwila with Danielle on Monday morning. Whether I get sick in the meantime or not, I think that's too soon to stay overnight at Dad's, and I believe Mondays are the only weekdays Danielle has off. So, with the following Sunday taken for plans with Valerie, I can't really go for this same plan again, unless I also take off Monday the 9th from work. Which, I mean, maybe? There's a lot I can't decide for sure until I'm either recovered from sickness myself or 10 days out of first known exposure to Shobhit, which I should really start from yesterday.

What a pain in the ass. There's never a good time for covid to happen, obviously, but if it had to happen, it sure would be nice to be able to schedule it at better times than others. This is really shit timing.

— पांच हजार एक सौ छियानबे —

— पांच हजार एक सौ छियानबे —

I still haven't even had the chance to go over the rest of my weekend, as yesterday's post was limited to the recreation of my travelogue for Easter Sunday / Sherri's 70th birthday party. You know, the one where we may have given people covid. As in, possibly severely compromised the health of my elderly parents. What a great birthday present, huh? Sherri even texted me her appreciation for what I wrote, said I made her cry, and that Sunday was one of the best days of her life. She had no idea she was apparently the victim of an unwitting attempted murder.

Anyway! I'll refrain from feeling too badly unless she actually gets sick. Then I'll go ahead and really feel like shit.

The point is, there was other stuff that happened over the weekend. Friday was a solo evening, as it was now the single SIFF movie I went to at a theater (masked!): Vera Dreams of the Sea, which I liked a lot but was bummed that so few people attended—like, an audience of 15, plus the director herself who traveled all the way from Kosovo to attend. I quite liked the movie, too. But, if there's any chance I was shedding virus then (given I tested negative yesterday, I probably wasn't), I suppose it's just as well that there were so few people there.

Saturday, on the other hand, was nutso busy. Because of what I thought were my otherwise full plans for this week, I needed to watch and review two of the SIFF movies I bought virtual tickets to, so at least I was able to watch them from home, giving me a lot more time to get both of them done.

But first, I had to give Shobhit a ride to work, when his shift started at 11:15 a.m. That egg cake I had custom made for Sherri's birthday was to be ready for pickup at 11 a.m. on Saturday; La Parisienne Bakery was expected to be closed on Sunday. I took the car to the office first, after dropping Shobhit off, as I had so many sample items to pick up (a lot of pantry staple type stuff) that I filled two tote bags. Then I got to La Parisienne, where they took quite a while to get me the cake—at first they told me they were "boxing it up," but I'm sure that was a line of bullshit while they were writing the lettering, which, frankly, I found sloppy and disappointing. Plus, when they first brought it out it was in a box the egg was slightly too high for, and the lid smeared part of the lettering so I had to ask them to fix it. They did, and brough the box out with tape on the sides to keep the lid from coming all the way down.

I drove home, rearranged stuff in the refrigerator pretty severely to make room for storing that cake for the next day, put all the samples away, and then had to go and get into the car again. Because I had plans with Alexia in the evening that would be at the time Shobhit got off work, I wouldn't be able to go and pick him up. Instead of making him take the bus home, I drove the car back to Total Wine & More in Interbay, left it in the parking lot, and took the bus back home from there myself. Luckily, the buses were timed perfectly, the Rapid Ride D coming within 10 minutes of my getting to the first bus stop, and then when I transferred, the #8 was just delayed enough to pull right up behind the D when I got off of it, saving me at least another ten minutes of waiting.

Even with all that, I wasn't able to start my first SIFF movie until about 1:15 on Saturday. I watched that one on my iPad using my AirPods, so that I could prepare my lunch while watching, instead of waiting to start the movie. I made a sandwich, and then watched Nothing Compares, a documentary about Sinéad O'Connor that was great even without the licensing permission to use any of her one huge hit, "Nothing Compares 2 U," because Prince wrote the song and the Prince Estate wouldn't grant permission. She has a lot of other great music anyway though, and that documentary was very illuminating and well done—so much so that, even though I told myself I would write shorter than usual reviews on Saturday in the interest of time, that review was well in excess of 900 words.

The next film, also a documentary, was even better: a Spanish film about six trans women going on a trip to rural Spain together, called Sedimentos. This movie was incredible. I wound up writing a review that was slightly longer, even, than the previous: this one got to 977 words. On the upside, both reviews poured out of me so it did not take me quite as long as usual to write either one, so I was done in time to go over to Alexia's by just after 6 p.m. as planned.

And then we started our planned Jurassic movies marathon, in the leadup to the sixth movie in the franchise (and the third in the current trilogy) being released in June. We watched the original Jurassic Park in her condo, which she said she had seen "five or six times" before but hadn't watched in ages. Shobhit and I watched the original trilogy streaming just a couple of years ago, in 2020 during the extended months of stay-home orders. It's probably no exaggeration that I have seen this movie close to 40 times. I stopped counting at about 23, and that was two decades ago. I suppose I may have seen it closer to 30 times. But thirty, easily. It's every bit as entertaining as it ever was. It'll be fun to watch the others that Alexia has never seen before, especially the first sequel, The Lost World (1997), for which I have always had a soft spot.

I suppose it's also entirely possible that I exposed Alexia to covid on Saturday. I'm holding onto the fact that I tested negative yesterday, hoping that means that I haven't personally exposed anyone. I mean, who knows. Now I just sit and wait, working from home until either Shobhit gets better or I also get sick, or both.

— पांच हजार एक सौ छियानबे —

[posted 12:23 pm]