Debbie Downer in the Time of Coronavirus and the Great Reckoning

The toll of the pandemic, the reckoning, isolation, financial insecurity and the constant uncertainty is starting to overwhelm me. Every week starts with some hope on Monday and by the time Thursday comes, I'm close to or actually having a meltdown. Friday - Sunday are spent pretending everything is fine and making things as fun and normal for the kids. This tends to lift my spirits and disconnects me a bit from the misery. Then Monday hits and we start the whole downward spiral anew. Things are so touch-and-go that there is no choice but to live in the moment. My therapist noticed that I seem to be on a two week cycle of one disaster week followed by a renewed spirit week. Not sure how much longer I can handle that precarious "balance." 

Still no justice for Breonna Taylor, I finally heard the devastating story about Elijah McCain and the US is at the third highest daily total of new COVID-19 cases. How much longer can people pretend that there isn't a problem with the police system, that white supremacy isn't real and that COVID-19 is not a big deal. The one bright spot from the weekend was the K-Pop fans registering for tickets to the Trump rally and not showing up. I had to ask multiple people and check multiple news sources before I fully believed it wasn't fake news. Talk about creativity!  My recommendation for the week is to watch Ava Duvernay's documentary "13th" about mass incarceration on Netflix. It is incredibly eye-opening and for those of you that hate politics, this doc leaves neither party unscathed. 

And now for some lighthearted random thoughts dredged up from a tiny corner of my soul.

1. Parenthood is very weird. Liv & Javi have a new game that they like to start at 6:30am where Liv grunts/yells at Javi from her crib, "EEEHHHHHH" and Javi yells back, "No Bobo, just Mommy!" Bobo is Javi's nickname for Liv and yes, we realize it means dummy in Spanish. They can do this for up to 20 minutes every morning and now, Liv realizes this is a way to get Javi going, so she sometimes starts it up in the middle of the day. We have no idea how it started. Our best guess is that in the morning, Javi eventually starts asking for me, so we think that he got annoyed one morning that Liv started answering back. Now it has turned into a family chant with variations depending on the time of day. Breakfast?  "No bagel, just huevos!"  

2. We discovered that Mario Kart 8 automatically gives you driving help with smart steering and oh my goodness, don't turn that thing off unless you want to feel like a toddler trying to ride a scooter on a balance beam. I knew I was an average to poor driver, but Ryan was pretty devastated to find out how much help he was getting. 

3. Anyone else have an obsession with getting to bed early, so you race to get into bed by 8:30pm, but don't actually end up asleep until 11:00pm? We are going on at least 2 months of this, so I think it is time to just give up and use that time more productively. Also, I refuse to play Mario Kart with Ryan until I'm fully ready for and in bed. ShitShow 2020 has resurfaced my need for comfort items, so we keep the room very cold so I can use two extra comfort blankets.  

After seeing this picture, I wonder if the extra blankets are interfering with my driving?

4. Shout out to Alexia frozen french fries for being an easy and cheap way of satisfying Ryan's french fry quota for the week. 

That's it folks. That's all I could muster this week. I will pray for your sanity if you will pray for mine. 

(but, like, not so quiet)