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fuck-customers · 3 years

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Our cafeteria is open for the staff of the hospital and the staff only. Stop trying to tailgate them and get in without a mask.

:( This makes me so sad because a lot of families of patients are waiting for them to die and can't just go out and get food. In a lot of towns the wait times have gone up. In the period of time you're waiting for your food, the drive there, and drive back, your mom might be dying while your brother and sister watches without you. It's really heart breaking. I know it is frustrating.. But I have worked in the healthcare industry too. And after seeing this much death? I'm so broken. I'm not angry, I'm broken. I want to cry all the time. I do get mad sometimes because of people that disregard the protocols in place for everyone's safety but I just mostly think about the families of those patients. Maybe not all of them are fighting the virus but they're scared of it too. And the policies have made it harder for patients to get visitors. Whatever visitors that do come sometimes can't leave without being heavily getting scrutinized by staff again and even tested for covid so most times people stay overnight with their loved ones if allowed(depends entirely on where the patient is and how long their stay is). When I was in the hospital the past two times my husband only visited me once each time because at least once they tested him for covid. It was negative but still no one wants something shoved up their nose each time they come to visit someone. This was at the height of the pandemic though. I was so scared that I begged to go home before I really should have. I suffered in pain for two days without proper treatment. I will not disclose my condition. I felt safer at home but was not able to get access to pain management. And that right there is what people are arguing with themselves about. Is it worth staying in the hospital after surgery? Should I stay even though family can't visit unless it's under strict rules? Heck, should I even bother calling 911 about my pain right now because I do not want to be in the hospital? I think my husband might have stuck around more if room service was offered to families to patients as well tbh and that wouldn't have been dangerous to anyone. Just deliver it with the food of the patient and as long as it is sent to the patient's room they can send you the bill. No contact needed. I wouldn't have felt so scared to be in the hospital and wouldn't have begged to leave.

TLDR-ish Families having access to food within the hospital is so important to the patient's well being mentally, emotionally, and physically. I understand the pandemic has created restrictions but in a hospital where people are dying the most human of us aren't willing to leave the side of our loved ones. Honestly, only a Karen would leave the building to get Galaxybucks when her mom was dying or a massive douchey dickweed would sit in line in his stupid ass truck in the drive thru for Chack Fa Yuck as his wife died.

The kitchens at hospitals are fucking important as hell. People shit on them because they don't always like the food but, guess what, that's because your doctor specifically said "no salt" or you didn't order it.

Buuuuut.... I can get trying to get in while not being staff. But NOT WEARING A MASK? Fuck you. Get your ass out of the hospital. Fucking disrespectful germ factory. Oh you thought I'd be all pro customer didn't you? LOL Got ya. If you don't wear a mask then you shouldn't even be around your loved ones especially! So get your asses out and order that fast food and sulk at home until you can respect your loved ones enough to wear a mask for their safety you dumb fucks.

Bottom line here it's not a grey and white situation. Yeah, there will be customers that need to access the cafeteria and if it's completely closed off to them then that's messed up. But the way that this is worded I'm not sure. I thought everyone had to wear masks in health establishments even if vaccinated which is why I'm thinking the cafeteria is just strictly for staff? I raised all of my points though.

But, jeez, now I'm wondering.... Is there a way to tip hospital kitchen staff? Right now they deserve it to high hell. Everyone talks about nurses and docs, but no one talks about who feeds these patients. - Abby

EDIT Misread this. Thought the kitchen was closed. Nope. It’s talking about people ignoring the 6 ft rule. Guess my definition of tail gaiters is different. Like someone ignoring closing hours. -Abby

#i don't know the definition to tldr #i ramble #hospital kitchen staff ftw #forgotten mvps

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24-0z · 2 years

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So, Aftg covid Andreil headcanon let's go

You see, I currently have covid and while I live with my sister and my mom I still get kinda lonely since I'm quarantined in my room all the time, so alas I have brought you pretty specific things that I think Andrew, Kevin and Neil would do in the worse case scenario that Neil became covid positive and the three of them had to stay in their dorm room having close contact with a positive :

Let's get a little backstory, the university was making tests to every student, with a quick test checkpoint next to the library, and while Wymack made it mandatory for all of the foxes to go there at some point Neil has to get physically dragged by Andrew first thing in the morning to actually go there.

First of all, imagine Neil getting the news, because this man's first thought would be "really, I get through torture, the mafia, and one petty short Japanese motherfucker for this? The nerve

But, that's it chop chop chop everyone to their dorm to get their tests done and Andrew and Kevin are quarantined with Neil until further notice because they're roomates.

Andrew knew this would happen since he had seen Neil coughing the day before so he wasn't surprised.

Kevin wants to die since quarantine means no going out and no going out means no exy.

Neil soon starts to panic after realizing this exact same thought multiplied by 10 since his fever is starting to get higher, so it's panic time.

Andrew has his own little panic moment after realizing that he would have to suffer Kevin and his exy withdrawals plus a sick and emotional unstable Neil, so things were great.

They all just get ready for the ride while listening to Neil cough for their bedroom .

All the other foxes are negative by some miracle (including Andrew and Kevin) so Andrew and Kevin have to go all the way to either the girls room or Matt's room to go the bathroom since Neil had taken custody of the one in their room .

Neil spends all his time either texting the foxes or texting Andrew who surprisingly responds in no time since he actually has nothing better to do .

Sadly that also means that the 3am texts from Neil saying he can't sleep or move because of the fever and the coughing also go to Andrew which makes him a little worried for the junkie's health, just a little. ( he is actually quite worried and has texted Aaron multiple times asking if what Neil was going through was normal but shhhhh keep it quiet) .

They have to deliver Neil's food at the floor of his door just for Andrew and Kevin to see a very sick Neil smiling to a cup of tea as if is its his long lost lover.

Also the picture that Andrew and Kevin would make just waiting for Neil to come out of the room, waiting from the other end of the hallway just to see him pick up the food, both on their pajamas and with masks on, to see Neil close the door and proceed to disinfect the hallway.

Neil asking if there's someone close by before opening either the bedroom or the bathroom door : voice cracking and low " Is anyone around, Andrew? Kevin? If don't answer I'll open the door, " waits three seconds "fuck it (coughs) I'm going to the bathroom".

Also I'm 100% convinced that Neil and Andrew have conversations through the door, like Andrew would come by and ask how he was doing and if he needed something and Neil would just get really close to the door and would rest his forehead on the frame with a bonk and silently respond between coughs that he is fine or when he is on a fever peak that he misses Andrew and that he actually feels quite shitty .

On the other hand the only conversations that Neil has Kevin are short comments by his door like "hey, the Trojans just lost their match 11/13" "yeah Kevin I know, I could hear you scream" Or when Neil is mid trip to the bathroom he just sees Kevin by the edge of the hallway saying " Neil, you should stop coughing, really, we are going to get behind if we don't train and we can't afford to lose any players, so just stop it now " "Kevin , (coughs) it's not something (coughs) I can control, (takes a breath) do you really think I would spend one more minute on those same four walls? (coughs)

Andrew has by this point taken out the batteries of the remote to prevent Kevin for putting another exy match on their TV.

And, also a classic worried Andrew going to knock on the door saying : "Neil, you're coughing too much we're going to the hospital" silent forehead to frame bonk "Drew it's okay really I feel better since my fever came down, (coughs) now it's only the coughing that gets in the way, I'm fi-" "You're on thin fucking ice Josten, don't you say you're fine to me when you've been coughing non stop since the last 4 hours " "I know, I know (chuckles and coughs) but trust me, if it gets worse you're the first one I'll call, but until then (coughs) just gimme a couple of hours " " I'll be asking for your temperature every hour so you better not lie if it changes " "Yeah , yeah now hurry and leave because I know Kevin is dying to tell you about the new Trojans line up " "I hate you Neil" "Sure thing drew (coughs)".

I cannot make myself write more since I currently have a fever myself but when I get better I guess I'll write another one with shenanigans of Neil getting better, until then he is left to perish.

#the Trojans are a comfort team #so covid its not funny and im actually struggling but hey at least i can keep doing this #bonus points for kevin screaminv at the tv avoing andrews knifes #neil has already memorized every crack on the wall by that point #also none of you cant fight me on this one beacause i know for a fact that neil would text andrew on a fever high thing like #i miss you #im not feeling so good #could you get some more medice? andrew?#and then andrew would be like #God dammit neil call me for this things what if i dont wake up from the texts #but i didn't want to wake you up #and the cycle repeats itself but im done the night #people stay safe #wear masks #please #aftg #aftg headcanon #all for the game #andrew minyard #the foxhole court #andreil #neil josten #twinyards #aftg andrew #aaron minyard #kevin day #aftg series #aftg neil #aftg au #aftg fic

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capricornus-rex · 3 years

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A Shadow of What You Used to Be (12)

Chapter 12: Fitting Into The Mould | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

A/N: I am so sorry for the delays. A lot of things have taken toll of me. One of which is learning that one of my coworkers is positive with COVID and I just happen to be one of the few people he was with the day before he stopped going to work. So I am required to go into home quarantine, only went out once to do my testing but I haven’t gotten my results yet in the past 5 days which made me extra anxious, and my time out of work will not be paid even though it’s considered “Official Business” as per my company’s COVID policy. But so far, I’ve been fine, which is good. Then my PS4 is on the brink of death just when I started playing Ghost of Tsushima for the first time, but most of the people in my forums say it just needs a deep clean but I’m too scared to take it apart because I’ve never done that. I didn’t want to write while my head’s muddled with these thoughts, but only now did the anxiety subside. I hope you guys understand. I figured the story’s quality will go bad while I have such thoughts and feelings.

Requesting to be tagged: @heavenly1927

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 | Previous: Part 11 | Next: Part 13 | Masterlist

13 of ?

Irele had a kinder three weeks in Anathema than her first week in the Fortress.

As soon as her first day started, she’s required to march her way to the training dojo—to which she got lost in finding, no thanks to the crew working in this metal maze. She’s already feeling her breakfast burning in her stomach after jogging to the dojo, after so many failed attempts and subtle peeking over doors that are ajar, and saved herself from a first-day scolding at the expense of a slight stomach cramp.

Smoke plumed and framed along the walls, colored in blood-orange as the hydraulics and power coolants flowed and hissed underneath the grated floor. At the center of the room, a lone trooper—clad in the same, onyx black armor like the previous ones she saw—stood, with a weapon at the ready; his visage standing in the heart of the dojo gave off an intimidating air around him, as if untouchable, invincible.

Unwelcoming and strict, the instructor obviously to spend every minute wisely.

“Grab a weapon.”

Irele had noticed a rack at the far end of the room; picking up his mood from the moment she saw him, she briskly walked to the weapons rack, troubled herself for a minute on what to use, took a gulp and a breath before snatching the javelin.

She kept her eyes on her faceless teacher while she walked towards him, but her hands searched for the activation switch. The weapon crackled to life, purple lightning glowed Irele’s fair, small face, and she gazed at the cracks of light dancing at the end of the lance.

“Now…” the trooper poised himself in a defensive stance, after showing off a spin with his twin batons. “We begin.”

Irele is no brawler. The only time she ever fought someone or something was a Massiff that had been loosed by its Tusken Raider owner, probably sent out to find and hunt down prey—and that was two years ago, she had shuffled her way out of that situation with a scraped forearm.

Of course, her attacks are flimsy and somewhat limp-looking to the instructor—who had been training a lifetime for combat. The trooper would retaliate with a heavier strike, tenfold from Irele’s power, and would reset his stance for another attack; whereas Irele would still be finding her footing after she’d been staggered.

“This is pathetic!” barked the trooper, relaxing his posture and twirls the left baton. “Put some back into it!”

The poor girl cannot talk back, no matter how much she wanted to. For every time she was staggered or pushed back, she could only coerce herself to poise into a somewhat satisfactory attack stance and get another shot—only to be denied.

This entire session felt like hours on end. Irele could barely notice any progress in herself, except the frustration, disappointment, and boredom all mixing together within the trooper as this day goes on. Whenever he was not satisfied, he would berate the girl—to which he thought would negatively motivate her to attack him more strongly.

Meanwhile, in the confinements of his chamber, Darth Vader watches over Irele’s performance virtually and in real-time. Hidden cameras were all over the dojo, and every feed was relayed to the Vader in his chamber. Screens panned across the half of the circular shell, he could see Irele versus the trooper exchange blows, although he kept his eyes on the girl—his young ward.

He could have sworn he feels something in her. At this time, Irele was beginning to grow exhausted and eager to finish this—she just doesn’t know how to.

“Come on, little girl, put some back into it!” her instructor growled. “I could’ve done better things than this today!”

Thinking that he can just get this over with by defeating her in the spar, call it a day, and pick up where they’ve left off tomorrow—he charges at the girl who was still gaining her bearings after feeling the weight of the exhaustion get the best of her. At this time, Vader’s eyes remained on the girl, and secretly, he hoped something would come up.

Blinded by his lax arrogance, the trooper rushed towards Irele and raised his arms—both batons at the ready—and sprung up from the floor. Just when he thought he had landed a hit on the girl’s ribcage, Irele blocked it with her javelin at the very last minute.

Finally! The satisfaction of receiving the first step to a seemingly successful attack pattern flooded the girl with a newfound vigor. Irele pushed back the trooper while javelin and batons were still in contact with each other; little by little, her footwork was gradually becoming better, not by a lot, but it was preferable than her stumbling stupor a while ago, there was balance and there was pacing. Clearly, her strikes were not as strong as the instructor had hoped, but they were getting somewhere and that’s enough.

“Your strikes still need work!”

“Don’t…! You…! Just…! Ever…! SHUT UP!?”

For every word Irele roared, a strike would follow.

Her attacks were nothing flashy, she was only using what she knows from Tatooine—one of the few fragment of her past life still clinging into her…

And now it’s being weaponized.

Vader shuffled slightly where he sits. The anger in Irele’s voice and words found their way through his thick hide of an armor—albeit virtually—the emotion was wholly familiar to him.

Anger.

Hate.

It’s something he knows well.

Perhaps too well.

He didn’t wait for the training to finish, he’s watched enough he thinks. With the touch of a button, the screens fold back into their metal hatches within the shell of the chamber; another prompted his seat to swivel so he faces the opening. He steps onto a black circular base, a white ring of light hums alive the moment his boot stepped on it and shifted all his weight on it as he positions himself kneeling.

A bust of his master buzzes into life, shrouded in black was a rather pale face, even in the blue rendition of the hologram, one could tell that his color was sickly and white-as-bone.

“Master…” Vader greeted.

The Emperor did not linger into the niceties. He had sensed that Vader was about to give word of his ward’s progress.

“Her training has begun then.”

“Yes, my master.”

“Her anger… she weaponizes them,” observed Palpatine. He slighted his head back. “I can feel it. Truly strong she is with the dark side of the Force.”

“It is a nature that she cannot seem to outgrow.”

“Good,” croaked the Emperor. “The kin of Skywalker will have no trace of virtue but the Sith!”

“And she will be our asset, my lord.”

#cal kestis #cal kestis fic #fem oc #cal kestis x fem oc #cal kestis x fem oc fic #irele skywalker #cal kestis x irele skywalker #cal kestis x irele skywalker fic #force-sensitive! OC #anakin's younger sister #skywalker! oc #darth vader's secret apprentice #long-lost sibling #anon fic #anon request #anon fic request #fic request #anon #for anon

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

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Cut for talk of COVID and irresponsible failure to social distance (my own). Also, some updates on what’s been going on here for the last month or so.

part one:

Very very long story that I am truncating as much as possible. As you all know, I am an optometrist and professor. When we shut down in March, our university made a huge, painful shift to remote learning and our student clinic ceased operations altogether. Neither students nor faculty saw patients from March 15 - the the middle of May. At the end of May, faculty began seeing patients directly in an extremely reduced schedule, and at the beginning of June, we began adding in very limited numbers of students in a rolling schedule that minimized exposure to all involved.

Three weeks ago, my dear friend Jasper contacted me and said that an old friend of hers, whom I will call Carol, was in dire straits after losing her job overseas. Carol has an extremely rocky history: a terrible car accident that left her legs and feet permanently damaged which directly led to a very bad divorce, significant student loan debt (just shy of six digits I think, compounded from the accident, since she used her student loans to pay her medical bills--for anyone reading this, do not EVER EVER EVER DO THIS--student loans are never touched by bankruptcy declarations and you will owe them until you die), and something of an inability to put down roots. She is an English teacher who has taught and traveled all over the world: Prague, Bahrain, Czech Republic, Los Angeles, Rio, etc.

When I first met her about ten years ago, she had come back to Alabama from Prague because a job had fallen through. She was completely broke and living out of two suitcases and a carry-on. She lived with us for three months for free, sleeping in Jasper’s bed because we had no other room for her, and eventually got a job in Boston and moved on. She lasted--I think--about two months in Boston before quitting and taking a job in the Middle East.

On top of her student loan debt, Carol also has significant IRS debt and is in debt to several of her friends. Over the last few years, she took several ill-advised positions overseas back to back without ever consulting a lawyer on her contracts, and did not realize until recently that one of her positions classified her as an independent contractor instead of an employee, so she owed US taxes on all her income for that period of time. Her most recent job in Prague she lost in February because she filed her visa (again, without a lawyer) incorrectly, and what should have been a brief three-week stay outside of the country became a six week stay on the couch of strangers in the Czech Republic while she waited for her visa reapplication to process. However, it was denied, and then COVID hit, and she returned to Alabama with only a portion of her possessions and tons of important paperwork left behind in her Prague apartment. She then unfortunately had two emergency surgeries on her stomach for an acute, unpredictable medical issue, and while she is well healing now, it also added on another forty thousand dollars of medical debt to what she already owed.

She stayed with her mother and sister while she was recovering from the emergency surgeries, but her family is emotionally abusive and very unkind to her, and after a few weeks she left their home and went to stay with Jasper. However, Jasper is also 8 months pregnant with her fourth child, and they both knew it was a temporary thing. Jasper knows that I have a large home with several spare bedrooms, and asked if I would be willing to host Carol for a period of time while she got back on her feet. I knew what I was agreeing to when I said yes, and Carol and I settled on a period of two months. She has now been here almost three weeks.

Frankly, I do not like Carol very much. We are unbelievably different people in every way--personality, temperament, proclivity to crying in front of other people, hobbies, interests, religion, all of it. She is a very nice person, and I think she truly does mean well. But she is the most emotionally needy and energy-sapping person I have ever met, and I cannot tolerate her company in more than small chunks. It is not possible to hold a conversation with her about any subject tangentially related to her difficulties; if I try to sympathize with her loans by mentioning my own, she shuts me down by saying at least I will have the chance to ever pay them back. If I just try to listen without commentary, she’ll wrap herself up in her own stories and talk for hours without ever needing more than “mm”s and “hm”s and my undivided attention the entire time.

She will often work herself up into sobbing tears over her situation(s), and she always informs me immediately of any new development in any of her numerous trials: which are usually negative, considering the situation, and usually resulting in more tears. She has cried on me probably more than a dozen times since she moved in, and she wields “I love you” like a weapon, more to hear the validation of the response than to truly express the sentiment. She constantly asks for advice on her situation but does not listen to any of it--seems more to just want to relive each tragic detail of her life over and over again with an audience, wondering why she’s continually “screwed over in her life.” (Really, really poor financial decisions and constantly trusting her own “intuition” over getting competent legal advice before signing contracts, are I think the biggest contributors.) She has told me so many private details about her personal views, relationships with her ex-husband and mother and sister, her financial choices, and her extensive travel and job history over the last few years that I probably know her history better than my own at this point.

I think she thinks by sharing so much that she is justifying to me her need to stay with me. What is actually happening is that I am forced to help shoulder this enormous emotional load that compounds my own mental health problems I’ve been having since all this started. I have told her more than once that she does not need to justify herself to me and that my home is open to her for two months, no strings attached. I believe she is making all the steps she needs to and do not need reports on her daily activities to “pay” for her lodging or electricity or internet or whatever. This has changed the behavior a little for the better but not stopped it.

There are moments that are not bad. As I have mentioned, she does mean well and want well for most people. She likes Hamlet and loves Jasper, who is extremely important to me. But she is extremely difficult to be around in so many other ways, and the way she constantly exclaims over how we basically think alike on all things (absolutely untrue) makes me think she either will not or cannot read my reluctance to engage on any of these topics.

(An example: I was watching footage of the SpaceX launch and despite my feelings on Elon Musk, really excited about the implications for space travel. She came in, and after misunderstanding for some time that I was not watching Space Force with Steve Carell, decided that the SpaceX program was morally bankrupt, obviously borne of shady backroom government deals, and everyone involved should have used the money to solve world hunger instead. For the record, she had not heard of the shuttle launch, SpaceX, or Elon Musk at all before the seeing the footage.)

(She also until last week had not heard of Playstation, Xbox, streaming as a concept, or any game more modern than the original Mario. Trying to order a grocery delivery online was an excruciating torment for her [took her over four days to get through selecting the items, selecting allowable replacements, and actually paying] and I will not ask her to do it again. She frequently makes comments about video games being a waste of time, and when she sees children playing outside, comments on how glad she is they are not inside playing video games. She doesn’t seem to realize her comments are a direct commentary on me; I think she genuinely does not understand that those games are what I am playing most of my free time.)

Right now, everything seems to hinge on her passing some teacher recertification tests next week and the week after. She spent $150 to give herself less than a week to study from scratch for a test she described as the hardest she’d ever taken. There were several other dates later in the summer she could have chosen, and her deadline is December, but she picked the soonest option for reasons I can’t fathom. She is also in the process of trying to get a car--right now I’m driving her everywhere--and she was ready to hand over $3800 yesterday for a ten-year-old Hyundai with a check-engine light on without even thinking of getting any kind of inspection. She is far more concerned with the color and “energy” of the car than its function, and would not have even checked the headlights and blinkers if I hadn’t prompted it.

She will be here another five weeks or so. We move around each other now better than we did before, and I hope it will continue to improve. But it’s a lot like a rock grinding a groove in the streambed from the repetitive friction, and it’s not the struggle I wanted to be having right now.

part two:

As I mentioned above, Jasper is having her fourth child in a month or so. One of her friends, someone I don’t know, contacted me and said she wanted to do a drive-by “baby sprinkle,” where no one gets out of their cars. You drop off the gifts, talk to the recipient a few minutes from the car window, and move on. I told her that I work in health care and am exposed to patients, so that sounded good to me.

The shower was this morning. Carol and I got up and drove the thirty minutes to Jasper’s house. There were four other families in cars right around the corner, and the “hostess” gave us all balloons to tie on our side mirrors. She told us we would drive around the corner, drop off the gifts, and loop around. Jasper’s husband would arrange for her to be in the front yard at the right time.

Cute enough. We go around the corner with little honks and Jasper sees us and starts crying, and it’s all wonderful and emotional and a fabulous surprise and I’m genuinely excited about it. And then people start parking and getting out of their cars, and Carol and I start looking at each other. They’re full families, too--three of the other moms brought all their kids, and soon enough they’re playing with Jasper’s three boys in the front yard and coming up asking to pet Hamlet through the car window. No one was wearing masks.

And what’s worse, when they all started looking at us expectantly through the car window, we didn’t know what to do. They were handing Jasper her gifts and obviously settling in for a good long chat; the women were hugging, talking about how they are “so over this COVID stuff, please come visit soon,” and Hamlet of course recognizes his original owners in Jasper and her husband so he’s freaking out, and after a few moments, we decided to just get out of the car.

It was the first time I really felt the social pressure to participate in an event I wasn’t comfortable with. I have no issue maintaining my social distance and my mask and my handwashing at work because that is where I have the position of authority, and I have the responsibility to model it for the students and patients--but here, I was a guest at someone else’s house at someone else’s event, and I really, really felt how they might perceive me as rude. While I didn’t know the other women, my relationship with Jasper is extremely important to me, and I didn’t want to make this special event for her difficult in any way.

So we got out of the car and joined the group. I tried to keep my distance as much as possible, especially since I had Hamlet on the leash and there were a half-dozen small children around, but at least twice I looked up and there was someone right at my elbow, and we made small talk for five minutes or so before either she drifted back to the group or I moved Hamlet into the shade away from the rest.

Cars drove by and slowed down more than once to look at us. Jasper’s husband made a comment about rolling his eyes if he saw their family on Facebook that evening. The women planned play dates, all standing very close together, and Jasper opened her gifts (that part was excellent). All in all we were probably there about twenty minutes.

I should mention that on the drive there, we passed a public park that has a very pretty waterfall right next to the road, and there were probably a dozen families out playing. There was a festival/outdoor market right outside the the park that had a sign up about social distancing, but the fifty or so people we saw shopping there were not adhering in any meaningful way. No one wore a mask.

And what annoys the bejeezus out of me is that I didn’t either. I didn’t even think about it until after we finally got back in the car to drive away. This is the first social event I’ve gone to since the first week of March, and while I wear masks for eight+ hours every day I go in to work, it didn’t occur to me even a single time to put on even my little cloth one that I keep in the car until we were driving away afterwards. I was so flummoxed by every little thing happening differently than I expected--people getting out of cars, how surprised I was by my own susceptibility to not rocking the boat, how normal everyone else made it to stand so close they could bump elbows so that Carol and I became almost excluded from the circle--that it never once crossed my mind. I know masks are more for the protection of those around you, not to keep you from catching what other people are carrying, but I could have set an example. I could have been the health professional I should have been in the moment.

I’m just so disappointed in myself. Disappointed in my own carelessness, irritated that I didn’t say anything, continually frustrated in a deep, gut-wrenching way by the whole situation that requires this in the first place. Bewildered that so many people are “back to normal” while this thing is still spreading, and in brutal honesty wishing I could be like them and just give up the fight myself. I’m not even mad at them. I WANT TO BE THEM. Why am I continually bothering to care and sanitize and mask and stay at home when no one else is? Literally no one would judge me in this state for it more than I’m already being judged (in most cases impersonally, though I felt the potential for it today in specific) for still watching the recommended guidelines.

I am really, really sick of this. I am so sick of feeling alone in this (of being alone in this, and Carol doesn’t count). Hearing other people saying “there there, you’re doing the right thing” honestly makes it even worse. I want people to stop patronizingly telling me to do things I already know are the right thing to do. I want other people as mad as I am that I can’t do the things I want to and need to do instead of being endlessly patient and noble about all the lives they’re saving by staying home. I’m top-of-my-head-blowing-off furious that so many people are shrugging and saying “well this is just the way it will be forever and alas, so it goes” and acting like those of us who did the right thing and cancelled our plans and our trips and our visits to dear friends but who are mad about having to do it are overreacting. I’m so fucking mad about it. I’ve stayed home for two months and I’ve isolated and I’ve quarantined and my hands are cracking from the constant sanitizer/washing at work and except for today I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do for this, and I don’t want to do it. And seeing people be so heroically virtuous and longsuffering on Facebook feels as alien and upsetting to me as the people who go to the beaches with a hundred of their closest friends.

That’s probably unfair in myriad ways. I’m really too angry, including at myelf, to soften it right now.

I want a vaccine and I want to be back in my classroom teaching to fifty faces instead of a screen in my living room, and I’m honestly freaking sick of waiting at home for them to figure this out. And watching everyone else move on with their lives back to the normal I would kill to have is just one more crack in the dike.

#quark rambles #this got really personal and mad #so sorry about that #coronavirus for ts #covid-19 for ts #quarantine for ts #carol #jasper #long post for ts

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junior-goddess · 3 years

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Ok, so a few months ago I tried to confide in my mom about how my supposed best friend had earth-shatteringly betrayed my trust and exploited a traumatic experience for me, and her response was “oh, I forgot. Anytime someone does or says something you don’t like they’re ‘being mean to you.’” and this honestly was such a stab in my heart (which I let her do to me repeatedly bc I yearn for her love and acceptance, but that’s another issue). She is constantly manipulating and gaslighting me, invalidating my feelings at any and every chance she gets. So now set the stage for tonight with this memory fresh in your mind.

At dinner every night for over a week my stepdad has asked how we’re all feeling about thanksgiving (specifically if we’re comfortable with my brother and his girlfriend, and my stepdads three kids plus one of their partners coming to dinner). We have all said we’re okay with it, every night for a week (I’ll get into why later). The household is currently me, my little brother, my mom, and my stepdad. I nanny once a week and my little brother leaves once a month to buy food for his lizard. That’s all we do, but my parents are different. My mom has 20 different students come to our home each week for private instrument lessons (she did stop for like a month and a half at the beginning of the pandemic), with both parties wearing masks, washing hands when they come in, and sanitizing doorknobs and instruments in between each student (not good but could be worse). My stepdad has not changed his work routine in the slightest and goes in to work 5 sometimes 6 times a week. Most of his department (sales) works from home at least partially, but he claims he can’t because he has to do inventory (which is maybe 4 hours of his entire work week). He’s had 2 ‘scares’ and one test since the pandemic started because he was potentially exposed to the virus from his coworkers when they were in office, but everything was negative. He didn’t disrupt his work routine for this and still went into the office daily.

In addition to this current schedule of our work lives, each potential thanksgiving guest group has been over before during the pandemic. My brother and his girlfriend have visited twice from the next state over. They do not leave their house other than grocery runs and the visits to us. My step sister A has been over once or twice for dinner. My step brother has come over once a week+ since the start of the pandemic, despite having several ‘scares’ (he is a hypochondriac and also just dramatic. All of his tests have been negative). He still goes in to work every day and sees his friends. He claims he wears a mask during all of this socializing but I would be willing to bet serious money that that’s a load of bullshit. My stepsister B and her boyfriend have been over once or twice since the pandemic began as well, but we are pretty confident they make no health concious choices and know they do not wear masks the majority of the time. They claim they already had COVID (despite testing negative when they thought they were sick and ignoring the possibility they could get it more than once). And once during September we had all of the mentioned parties at our house for lunch. We were seated outside but still right next to each other. And at no point during any visits have either my siblings/step siblings worn masks, even when it was all 10 us in September.

So now the issue is, my brother wants to come see us for thanksgiving with his girlfriend. My mom has okayed this but stepdad doesn’t trust stepsister B and her partner so now wants to cancel any visits to make it ‘fair’. I want to see my brother and honestly don’t give a fuck about the step siblings. My stepdad has been trying to ‘convince’ us to tell him to cancel thanksgiving so he can do it without feeling bad, making it just the 4 of us in my household. He told us the state my brother is from ‘has gotten so bad they’re completely shutting down again’ which we (we being myself, my mom, and little brother) know isn’t true and that they’re being preemptive to combat any surges because of the holiday. Since he couldn’t convince us that way, next he brought up that cases are surging in my state with over 7,000 new ones yesterday, which while true, is misleading because those cases are mostly on the other side of the state from us. Our area is doing relatively well. Next he tried to say that even his boss cancelled his thanksgiving, but left out the fact that their holiday was going to have over 30 people there from all over, and has now been cut to just their household, which is not much smaller than our group. And In his final attempt to sway us, he said 2 of his coworkers just got it, but failed to mention that they were in a different department on the other side of the building that he’s had no contact with.

So after a week of him asking us and lying and making himself anxious, I explained to him that I still wanted to see my brother and failed to see how he was going to tell him he couldn’t come. To me, my stepdads not taking the appropriate precautions because he still goes in to work when he doesn’t have to and wears a mask everywhere but his desk, yet has still been exposed now 3 times. More than that, he’s had each member of the family over separately, AND EVEN ONCE ALL TOGETHER. If he was really that worried he wouldn’t have done any of those things. I didn’t really have a say in any of the other visits, but he asked how I felt about this one and I was honest. We’ve already done it, and if he doesn’t want his kids there at thanksgiving bc he doesn’t trust them, then he shouldn’t punish my brother for that and he needs to work it out himself.

Well, apparently he felt like I was making fun of him and making him out to be over reacting (which I think he is but whatever) and that hurt his feelings. So my mom came down to my room to condescend to me and tell me. I don’t think I was rude, sarcastic, angry, or mean in anyway. I was just being honest about how I felt and why, and I relayed it respectfully (not it like a tone or anything). I told my mom I didn’t understand why he accused me of making fun of him, and, get this, this woman said to me “well those are his feelings. You hurt his feelings”. Like, ARE YOU KIDDING?

So basically this was just a novel length explanation to why I’m now boiling with rage. I really need to know if I’m right and she actually is being pretty fucked up, or maybe am I over reacting? I honestly can’t tell, all I know is I’m offended and upset with her for treating me like this.

Also, I don’t think I was mean to my step dad at all. Does it sound like I was? Do I need to apologize or something? My mom is so passive agessive and she’s the only one who raised me so I genuinely do not know or recognize anything below absurdly mean and horrendous behaviors.

If anyone can offer some insight/clarity to this situation from an outside perspective that would be fantastic. And any tips for surviving until I get a job and can move out (other than killing myself :) ) would be greatly appreciated.

Tldr; I hate my parents and want outie

#personal

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ellie-andthemachine · 2 years

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I posted 103 times in 2021

5 posts created (5%)

98 posts reblogged (95%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 19.6 posts.

I added 17 tags in 2021

#star trek - 4 posts

#star trek aos - 3 posts

#leonard mccoy - 3 posts

#sims 4 - 1 posts

#atlas - 1 posts

#blog - 1 posts

#jim kirk - 1 posts

#hida scan - 1 posts

#gallbladder - 1 posts

#red shirt - 1 posts

Longest Tag: 16 characters

#samuel l jackson

My Top Posts in 2021

Working on an old AOS Trek fic with my OC. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. My story had gotten quite a few reviews on an old ffic.net account before I lost the email and had to restart all over. I’ve made several changes, fixes, etc and have poured my heart and soul and everything into it.

But no feedback. :(

1 notes • Posted 2021-11-10 00:43:49 GMT

I’m miserable.

Tuesday, 12/7/21 I got word that we lost my Uncle Phil. He battled a horrendous 2-week battle with Covid-19 and bacterial pneumonia.

The same day, my husband tested positive for Covid-19. He hasn’t met my uncle, so no link there. My husband has been quarantined since then in our bedroom while my 19 month old daughter and I are separated from him until December 15th. Meanwhile I have tried keeping my daughter in her room as much as possible - however she’s like me and needs some contact besides eating and changing.

So, I Lysol sprayed and wiped so much, unknowingly causing her to breakout in rashes. So now I’m battling that as well as a sore throat and coughing - however negative for Covid, and running things up and down the stairs for my husband.

I’ve had two small breakdowns. We are awaiting our daughters Covid test that I had them do just in case.

😭

2 notes • Posted 2021-12-10 02:47:32 GMT

New Year's Giveaway!

Hello everyone!

The Blogger Wife website is going to be undergoing some minor changes. We will be adding our "Team" bios, more products in our shop, and plan to acquire some sponsors!

I've decided to run a little giveaway from now until January 1st, 2022 @ 12:00am!

For everyone who subscribes to The Blogger Wife will receive a chance in the giveaway drawing. We are giving away a $10 e-gift card to Starbucks!

https://www.thebloggerwife.com/subscribe

As we receive more subscribers, more giveaways will be on the way!

If you or someone you know would like to sponsor The Blogger Wife, please contact us at [email protected].

In the meantime, please click on "Subscribe" and enter your information to be entered!

XO,

Elizabeth

2 notes • Posted 2021-11-14 23:49:17 GMT

Atlas

ATLAS

Summary: After Nero's attacks in Space, the Enterprise returns home until her next mission. Upon arriving back to Earth, Kirk finds that he has a long-lost relative, who he's never met. Will finding out that he has a Sister he's never known, impact his future as Captain of the U.S.S Enterprise?

Parings: Bones/OC, Spock/Uhura

Rating: T - For now. (See Warnings.) Warnings: If you have not watched the 2009 Reboot of Star Trek, you won't really be spoiled. HOWEVER, there are some themes here. It's major Angst, and there's a bit of Self-Harm in this story. I have rated the story as T, but that will change eventually.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Jim's sister (of whom is to be announced next chapter). The new & revised title of this fic is ‘Atlas’, named after The Score’s first album. (Psst, go peep The Score on Spotify, Pandora or YouTube…)

I apologize in advance, if some things may not make sense. What a way to start writing fan fiction again, huh? Yes, I haven't written any new material since maybe 2017? Please be patient with me. I’m rusty.

Going Home

See the full post

3 notes • Posted 2021-10-15 00:32:59 GMT

Getting HIDA scan this morning and after getting registered I am told that a “red shirt” will come and get me (transport). Um I’ve seen enough Star Trek to know anything involving a red shirt might spell your doom.

Where’s Dr. McCoy when you need him?

4 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 15:53:43 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #476

“yeah, i am the brain, some say insane”

What is your favorite Pixar film? Finding Nemo. Who was the last person to send you any sort of message on social media? My sister Misty. Would you rather build a snowman or a snow fort? Why? Snowman. I think you can personalize them better. At what age do you believe children should begin having screen time? I don't know. I guess it would depend on the kid. Have you ever failed an important test? Which subject? Yes; I failed my last Algebra final and the course. Who taught you how to ride a bike? How old were you? My dad. Idr how old I was. Do you know what your ring size is? What is it? Nope. When you picture dinosaurs in your head, what color are they? Like a darkish red or green. Last candy you tried that you did not enjoy? Or one that you did enjoy? No clue. Were you a chubby or thin baby? I was your average size. What is the most outrageous thing you’ve considered doing lately? Trying to get a cubicle job. Like seriously, NOBODY wants those. I don't either, but I just don't know what other options I have that don't require a degree and I'm not flocked by other people. I'd probably have some duties on the phone, but like... I'm not going to find a job I qualify for that is perfectly reclusive. Have you ever known somebody who ran away? Not personally, no. Rollercoasters that go upside-down… yes please or no thank you? NO FUCKING THANK YOU. Can you have kids? I would assume so, but honestly I wish I physically couldn't with how intensely I fear being raped. Are you a fan of Elton John? I've never really listened to his music and know very little about him as an individual. What does your town’s name begin with? "R." Are you a seafood fan? Nooooo. The one and only seafood I enjoy is shrimp. Give me a random word in another language. Tell me what it means. "Himmel" is "Heaven" in German. Odd how that was the first one to come to me, ha ha. Which city would you like to visit- Rome, Tunis, London, Madrid or Paris? Rome. New tats in your near future? Sadly no. :/ I have to focus on more important things. Did you ever participate in beauty pageants as a child? No. I don't support those. Have you ever ridden in a limousine before? No, but I've always wanted to. :( What's the most amount of money you'd pay for a house or a vehicle? Idk, considering I'm not familiar enough with what is considered reasonable and average for either. What's the longest wait time you'll wait at a restaurant to be seated? If it was actually up to me, shit, maybe only 15 minutes. I am way too impatient, and I'd rather just go to another place than wait for a while. Have you ever been given a responsibility that you couldn't handle? Did you mean: my past three jobs? Did you ever try to start a club as a child? For what? I feel like my friends and I did before... but I remember nothing of it. Who was your favorite babysitter as a child? My sister had this friend in our neighborhood as a kid whose grandparents used to watch us. The grandpa we knew as "Uncle Donny," and he was bar none our favorite. He was such a sweet man. Have you ever cared for a stray animal before? Cats, on many occasions in the past. [TW: SUICIDE/OVERDOSE] Have you ever contacted a suicide or crisis services hotline? For whom? Yeah, for me. I tried first to reach them online in one of those private chatrooms, but I want to say I waited around 30 minutes with nobody available. I was so desperate that I tried calling too, but again, it was too busy. That's when I ODed. Is there anyone from your family that you no longer associate with? I have an uncle by marriage that's an abusive, manipulative fuck that NOBODY associates with, except his brainwashed daughters. Do you have any illnesses that reoccur frequently? I mean, I have mental illnesses that flare up now and again, but no traditional illnesses. What is your sexual orientation? Queer or pansexual, idk man. Have you ever done any drugs harder than marijuana? I've never even done weed. What is one job you would never want to have? I would, no exaggeration, rather die than be a butcher. I could never in five trillion years. Do you bite or peel your string cheese? I don't like string cheese. Who crosses your mind the most? Girt, nowadays. I know, a fucking shocker who wasn't the answer. Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt? In school, yeah. Ever been to an auction? No. Are there two colors that you just simply despise? Puke green and yellow. If you were a fish, what colour would you like to be? I wanna be the Rainbow Fish. :') Did your first real significant other change you at all? You have literally no idea. Are you waiting to have sex until you’re married? No. What’s your favorite football team? I don't like football. Or even understand it. Do you have anything autographed by a celebrity? No. What’s your favorite way to eat peanut butter? Gimme a Reese's and I'm a happy bitch. :^) What’s your favorite kind of sandwich? I'm basic, just hand me a pb&j. How are you today? Worried about my mother since she has Covid now. I'm not feeling too hot, either. Was any of your home decor inspired by Pinterest? No. What is this month’s calendar picture? I don't own a current calendar. What is your last ex-boyfriend’s or ex-girlfriend’s name? Sara Jane. I prefer to refer to her as just my best friend, though; "ex" usually implies negative feelings in some way or form, and I've none of those. Do you use Snapchat? I never have. Would you rather go out for pancakes or steak? Yum, pancakes. Are you the clubbing type? No. Clubs don't appeal to me at all. Is your ex sexually attractive to you still? I haven't seen him in literally years. I wouldn't know. What is unattractive about them? The fact he apparently can't accept a mentally ill partner. Supposedly, he broke up with the girl he dated after me for the same reason he left me: her having depression. Like bro, good fucking luck finding a girl who doesn't struggle with something. Good luck finding someone who's going to be on Cloud 9 all the time. And also, he never communicated what he was feeling. Do you have a crap load of friends to hang out with? God no. The only person I hang out with is my boyfriend. Honeymoon, where? Alaska, if it's a good time of year to see the Northern Lights. If not, maybe the Bahamas to visit their black and pink beaches. The heat and humidity put me off, though... Lipstick over the actual natural lip line, your thoughts? It's capable of being attractive if done well and it's not too extreme, unless you're only looking from a distance. It can look especially great on drag queens imo. How would your wedding bouquet look like? Depends on the time of year, really. I kind of want to say black regardless, but I think that would blend too much with my dress (which I want to be black). Maybe if it was in the fall, which I want, it'd be orange and black to fit the Halloween vibe I'd love to have as a theme, perhaps a rich red, or light pink and white... idk. That's far in the future. What kind of game would you like to play that doesn’t exist yet? Bro, give me a meerkat simulator. There's the Lead the Meerkats Wii game that I ADORE, but I think the concept could be greatly expanded upon and made more realistic. What is one thing you would never ever eat? Balut came to mind very quickly. That looks like the grossest shit imaginable. I'll never forget seeing it for the first time on GMM and wondering how neither of them literally died where they sat lmao. There are a LOT of other foods, too. I'm incredibly picky. Which character in your favorite movie do you hate the most? Every single character from The Lion King is so lovable. Which non-existing (sci-fi and such) weapon and/or vehicle would you like to own/use? Bro, I want Thori'dal from WoW. A bombin' bow with unlimited, magical arrows? That shit's dope. Could save your life, and plus I love bows. How do you think the world will end? Humanity's end will almost certainly be rooted in human action. The end of the planet itself will probably be a black hole, gamma ray, or something else supremely powerful. If you could take a pill that would cure something in you that isn’t an illness - what would you be cured of? The fact I'm fat. :^) Take it all away pls. Has anyone besides your family seen you naked? If so, who? My ex. Do you remember anyone’s number by heart? Literally nobody's. Not even my own. :x Name something you will never try in your lifetime. Hunting. What’s the best place you have ever eaten at? The Cheesecake Factory, omlllll. Are you at home right now? Yep. What’s worse: Crocs or Uggs? Crocs are so fucking ugly to me. Do you knock before you open doors? Always. Does Fred from YouTube annoy you? Now THIS is a throwback. I liked him as a kid. He'd probably annoy the shit out of me now. Anything exciting taking place today? No. Who have you texted today? My mother and Becky, the receptionist at my psychiatrist's office. I rescheduled my appointment to tomorrow with my mom being sick (she wants to talk to him, and she's in no shape to today) and me not feeling well, either. Do you like grapefruits? No. Have you ever had the Reese’s PB candy bars? Omfg, the ones that are a bar of smaller squares is my FAVORITE candy in the world. Where’s your mother? In bed. She was directed to mostly quarantine in her room away from me. Are there any pets you’re wishing for? Always. :( Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies? I HATE raisins, so guess. Is your belly button pierced? No. Do you watch PewDiePie? Not anymore, no. His content changed a long time ago and doesn't interest me anymore. Do you like "Despacito?" Omg my sister showed it to me once and I hated it. Do you have any subscribers on YouTube? uhhh *checks* I have 71. More than I expected, ha ha. What’s the first word that comes to your mind if I say: "Boop!" Booping a snake on the nose. :'3 Have you ever played Five Nights at Freddy’s? Nah. I enjoy watching YouTubers play it, and I like the franchise, it's just not my kind of game to actually play. Can you twerk? Oh god, never tried, don't want to. Do you like dabbing? It looks stupid to me. It looks like you're smelling your armpit, dude. Can money buy you happiness? You are 110% full of shit if you think it can't to some degree. I would be so, so much happier if I wasn't poor. Have you heard of Blizzard Entertainment? Well, considering they're the company that owns World of Warcraft, obviously.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''the devil's rejects'' by rob zombie

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thefattublog · 3 years

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Our Covid Experience

Despite taking all precautions, not going outside for food/leisure, not meeting parents for more than 15 months, skipping important family functions or celebrating few functions without family, all of us (my whole family) tested covid positive while sitting at home.

We believe it started with Dad coughing, and then Bua (my aunt, father’s sister) and Wife coughing on 25th April, 2021. We isolated ourselves and got a home test scheduled for 27th April, 2021 for everyone. Bua and Wife tested positive whilst all other negative. Dad’s cough lasted for a day or two. I decided to stay back to take care and also I expected to test positive in a day or two because sleeping with wife. All other left for sister’s house (Papa, G ja G [brother in law], nephew [3 Year Old], sister) and to think about it, few days back I was getting ready to book vaccine appointments for rest of us

However, before Bua and Wife started coughing (showing symptoms), one day I felt extreme weakness suddenly to the point I was not able to move but next day I was perfectly fine. This weakness could have been my first symptom or first symptom in the house. On 28th April, 2021, I too started having sore throat and next day fever. Others who had left also started showing symptoms. On 1st May, 2021 my sample was taken again for RT-PCR and tested positive. On 3rd May, 2021, everyone else tested positive too.

My symptoms were: Extreme and Sudden Weakness three or four days before cough and fever and then fine next day, Extreme Dryness in the mouth, burning eyes (could be pollution of Delhi NCR), rotten aftertaste in mouth, loss of smell, taste, cough, fever, body pain, headaches, weakness.

Most of the time when thermometer showed fever, we did not feel feverish, which caused us to believe our thermometers were at fault, so we ordered more and they all showed the same reading. So, you might have fever but might not feel it at all.

Nephew was not tested for Covid but he did have fever and cough around the same time when we had, so we assumed that he also had Covid and fought it.

We sort of were preparing for this because most of our relatives were affected while sitting at home, and people in the apartment were being diagnosed positive in huge numbers around us. Also we had most of the medicines at home due to one reason or the another. When wife and Bua consulted doctor, all of us started with medications as well immediately.

After this we did few things:

Opened all doors and windows in the house to keep it well ventilated. Only netted doors and windows were closed.

Kept a bowl of water in every room to make the environment humid. Don’t know if it helps or not or placebo effect, but it did seem to help us. The bowl would be half of its original quantity by EOD. Also, used to just fill the vaporizer for steam and let it run for sometime.

We started noting down our respective SpO2 levels and body temperature every 3-4 hours.

If AC had to be used, it was at 28c and doors and windows were still kept open.

We minimized our work to bare minimum. Weakness was hitting us all badly. Food was mostly ordered in.

As with illness, we weren’t hungry most of the time, but we needed energy too, so we ordered sweets for ourselves which we liked.

Things you should have at home now and the brands I trust:

Brands: Rossmax, Dr Trust, BPL

Atleast one Oximeter

Nebulizer with separate mask for each user. Extra masks are good.

Digital Thermometer. We had separate thermometer for everyone. Infrared thermometers are mostly inaccurate, avoid.

Plenty of N95 and Surgical masks

[UPDATE BELOW, REFER TO EDIT 7] As of now, we have almost recovered. Everyday we tend to feel better than yesterday. Nephew, Papa and Bua were first ones to recover. Wife and G Ja G’s cough lingered on for quite long. G ja G still has extreme weakness. I have reduced sense of smell, can’t taste salt, mouth feels rotten always, have weakness and occasional headaches. None of us has fever now. Blood reports were mostly normal for us. Blood tests done: CBC, CRP, D-Dimer and Serum Ferritin. On 10th May, 2021, Sister, G Ja G, Nephew, and Papa came back to Indirapuram.

We got infected sitting at home. Literally, no-one was allowed to leave house except me and G ja G. We used to double mask, wear face shield and literally bath in sanitizer when out. Still we got it but we were lucky in the sense that none of us was affected enough that we had to go to hospital for treatment. Be careful. If anything which is not normal to your body, treat it as symptom and get tested. I am not mentioning the medicines that were prescribed to us, though, just a suggestion to check with your doctor if you do have symptoms (don’t wait for the positive RT -PCR report) and whether if you should take Paracetamol or Dolo for a fever of less than 100. Latest definition of fever is body temperature >= 100.3.

As for people who are still doubtful or apprehensive about the vaccine, here are 6 cases in which vaccines saved my family, all of whom are 60+, from having serious symptoms :

Papa: Heart patient, operated, least affected. Fully vaccinated. Covid +ve in early second week after 2nd dose. Covishield

Bua: Diabetic, mildly symptomatic, high d dimer, recovered the fastest. Fully vaccinated. Covid +ve in early second week after 2nd dose. Covishield

My Another Aunt (Chachi): Extremely asthmatic, mild symptoms, recovered quickly. One dose. Covishield

Grandmother: probably 90 years old, asymptomatic. One dose. Covaxin

Mummy (in law): Probably remained asymptomatic, tested negative twice. Was in close contact (multiple times) with someone who was severely affected due to Covid to take the same person to hospital. Fully Vaccinated. Covishield.

Papa (in law): Cough and Fever, fully vaccinated. Covishield.

Vaccines prevented them from getting seriously impacted. Please take the vaccine as and when it is available. It prevents people from going into ICU.

[EDIT 1 – 19/05/2021] In-Laws started showing symptoms few days back. Struggling to get blood tests done because no1 is willing to come for home collection.

[EDIT 2 – 22/05/2021] G Ja G and Wife had their Kidney Function Test and Blood Sugar tests done today owing to the steroids that were prescribed to them. Results of both tests for both came out normal.

[EDIT 3 – 23/05/2021] Wife left for her hometown for in-laws house, finally, after trains that were booked were canceled, preferred flight was getting canceled for 4 days, so avoided, booked flight got rescheduled. Despite having previous day negative RT-PCR report, wife was stamped for Home Quarantine of 7 days. Mummy (in law) tested negative, papa (in law) is positive. Both of them are fully vaccinated (Covishield, more than 2 weeks since second dose). None of them have fever. Papa has cough, X-ray was fine. Meanwhile, in Indirapuram, we all have tested negative in latest RT-PCR test.

[EDIT 4 – 24/05/2021] Papa (in law) had slight fever 101 (max), hovered around 99 most of the time.

[EDIT 5 – 25/05/2021] Getting the in-laws tested was a task in itself. No-one was ready to come for home collection. Had booked LFT, KFT, Fasting Sugar, Urinalysis, D-Dimer, CBC, CRP and Serum Ferritin for Papa (in law) and CRP, CBC, Serum Ferritin and D-Dimer for Mummy (in law). Finally, one guy agreed if we paid little extra, which we did and blood sample was taken for both at 11:30 AM instead of scheduled 06:30 AM. Blood tests finally done for both were CRP, CBC, Serum Ferritin and D-Dimer.

[EDIT 6 – 26/05/2021] One set of reports came and they are so so, could have been better. CRP was in normal range for both but CBC could have been better for both. For D Dimer and Serum Ferritin, we will have to wait another day (as per the guy who came for home collection).

[EDIT 7 – 27/05/2021] Indirapuram: I still can’t taste salt, slightly heavy voice, headaches and mouth feels rotten though it has reduced. G Ja G and wife no longer have cough even though it lingered on for quite sometime. Weakness (of varying degrees) is a symptom common to all. For me, the weakness that hits post covid after doing some heavy duty work is something else. It literally makes me drowsy, the kind you cant even keep your eyes open but also cant sleep. Just lie down and wait for it to pass.

[EDIT 8 – 28/05/2021] Papa (in law) has slight cough and no fever for 3rd day without Paracetamol/Dolo. Weakness will remain. Mom (in law) remains asymptomatic. Also, today is 11th day since he started showing symptoms, so he is essentially free of virus now. D-Dimer and Serum Ferritin reports are delayed because sample is sent to Kolkata from Jameshedpur and that was delayed due to Cyclone Yaas.

[EDIT 9 – 29/05/2021] D-Dimer and Serum Ferritin reports came for both (on 5th Day since giving blood sample) and all seem to be fine. Today is Papa’s (in law) 12th day since symptoms came and 4th Day without fever and Paracetemol/Dolo.

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hongsside · 3 years

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covid rant

you do not understand how PISSED i am

if you're gonna be irresponsible and not wear a fucking mask when you go out don't even BOTHER coming to a small family reunion. COVID IS STILL A THING.

when i say NO ONE in my family was experiencing symptoms until my grandfather had the audacity to go out to the gym, the café, etc without social distancing and most importantly without a mask, then insist on coming to the Christmas food preparation reunion which he wore a mask to.

this just shows the difference a mask makes, because if it weren't for him not wearing a mask while going out we would all be testing negative.

what boils my mf rice MORE is the fact he didnt even fucking wear his mask right, and blew his nose on the fucking food. and now the man is hospitalized with severe pneumonia testing positive for covid.

karma is a bitch, but my family did not have to pay for it.

when i say everyone ranging from my uncle, aunt, cousins, sister, parents, grandma, as well as myself tested positive for the virus i fucking mean it- ALL of us have it.

this reunion wasn’t big at all either it was just family and everyone was negative, everyone was wearing their masks and if not they were always home. the only people there was a family of five, one of four (us), and two couples including the man i’m ranting about.

my family specifically wore their masks everywhere, we’d avoid contact with people etc. everyone who was at that reunion did-- except him. We all previously had been negative for the virus before that reunion so we had no problem holding it, but once he started experiencing symptoms my grandma herself told the man to keeps his balls in his pants and stay home but he was stubborn enough not to, and now it enrages me how we all have it.

he’s apparently not doing very well at all in the hospital, but my family is recovering well from it.

recently i was hit with some symptoms but not much, originally i had a headache and a sore throat nothing i couldn’t handle and now i have really no symptoms other than the loss of smell and taste. My entire family hasn't left the house in FEAR that we could contaminate someone else.

i hate the fact this government is so ignorant to what’s happening with the virus, from claiming that its a hoax to pretending like its not even happening. Florida is guilty of this ffs.

once the new year starts and school starts again, my mom who is a TEACHER-- a fucking NURSERY instructor, is being forced to go back, the administrators are doing/did nothing about the MULTIPLE staff members that ha/have covid. Back in early SEPTEMBER a few teachers had started experiencing symptoms and the administrators and staff didn’t tell them to go home into quarantine-- THEY TOLD THEM TO FUCKING STAY. The students of those teachers were not informed and neither were the parents, the teachers were put into a one-day quarantine and that’s it. The only reason i’m aware of all of this is because i go to this same school and my mom works there. Its honestly ridiculous. As a student i’ll most likely be told to go back as well, and i’m so incredibly against it you have no idea.

i don’t care if you have breathing problems, i don’t care if you’re old or young, i don’t care if you’re a veteran/part of the military, i don’t care if you’re black, white, gay, straight etc, i don’t care about who you are just wear your fucking mask and stay home if you are experiencing symptoms for fucks sake.

#teehee #june rantz

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clingyhopia · 3 years

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F*ck you 2020

The year 2020 has been very unexpected, difficult, challenging and what not for all of us.

Personally, it started quite great. In January, I met someone and it made me very happy. In February, I was able to go to Boracay for the first time all by myself.

But things started to change. On February as well, I was denied to travel to Dubai and meet my ex. On the same month Mt. Pinatubo erupted.

Wild fire devastated Australia while parts of Africa was severely flooded.

March, the lockdown started due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A great number of people were infected, died and suffered. People lost their job, a family member, morale and what not.

April, I met new friends despite of the lockdown.

May, I met John who became one of my solid friends. I can go on forever if I’ll go into details on how lucky I am to know him and the unforgettable experiences we had together.

June, it was my anniversary month with Okada Manila but I lost a friend, sister and batchmate because of the retrenchment.

July, I celebrated my 26th birthday in Okada. Away from my family.

August, I suffered several health issues and think twice of my actions. I quit smoking as well.

September, I resigned from my work in Okada Manila and luckily employed in the same month to a different company.

October, it’s my first month in Manulife as a Contact Centre Associate.

I was unemployed for quite some time due to the lockdown. During those times I talked to people every now and then but I was always left alone.

In the same month I met someone who made me feel loved and appreciated.

November, I had a mental breakdown because of the revelations I knew that day.

December, I had a covid-19 scare but fortunately my swab test came out to be negative. It was a very difficult month for me because of my mental, emotional and social state. It was very depressing, emotionally tiring and physically exhausting.

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chimaeracabra · 3 years

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I’m literally so angry that I want to scream. I called my usual hair dresser, Gertrude, who has been braiding my hair since I was like ten, and explained to her how my little sister tested positive for corona the other week, but was quarantined for 14 days at school before she was released, and came home yesterday. At first, Gertrude said she was still okay with doing my hair tomorrow. I explained that I tested negative last week and that I have not had any physical contact with my little sister. Then she called me back about half an hour ago changing her mind about doing my hair tomorrow. Obviously, I’m not going to try and force her to do it. I expressed to her that if she wasn’t comfortable, she didn’t have to. But I’m fucking angry.

Almost every fucking time that I want to go and do something and end up being unable to, it’s because of my fucking little sister. I hate her. I can’t stand her. Since she was a kid, her very existence has continuously foiled my plans. I want my fucking hair to look nice on Christmas and next weekend for a double date my twin and I are supposed to be having.

I’m so sick of my little sister. I know it sounds bad, but I wish that my parents had gotten me the dog they always promised and never got instead of having her. I’m tired of this fuckery. If she didn’t go out and copy me getting her septum pierced (she literally got an opal barbell septum piercing, the same type that I have) the moment she went back to school after Thanksgiving, I have a strong fucking feeling that she WOULDN’T have contracted COVID! She’s such an imbecile! You don’t go and pierce your body or get tattoos during a goddamn pandemic.

And my mom is a fucking hypocrite, freaking out about me spending nights at Nick’s, meanwhile she ACTIVELY brings someone directly into our house who she knows TESTED FUCKING POSITIVE. I hate everyone.

I don’t feel confident when my hair needs to be done. I don’t want to feel unattractive during the holidays. Come on!

Since I was a teen, EVERY time I’ve wanted to be free and go do something, like going out to a place with friends, I haven’t been able to go like I want to because someone needs to stay home to baby sit this idiot, or because she’s afraid to be home alone, and now I can’t seem to get my hair done because of her!!!!! It’s always because of her fucking bullshit!

#personal #angry

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itsamethystyo · 3 years

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so since. this is my safespace...

before we even get started, i was just reminded about how the person whom i will soon speak of used to tell me “i dont want you on that tumblr sight anymore, too many same sex kisses and people doing drugs”, lmao if only he knew my life.

well hello dears. today was a pretty shit day. i had a covid scare yesterday and got rapid tested: came back NEGATIVE. my family hasn’t been very happy with me lately even though i wasn’t the one who came up positive. shockingly enough, it was my mom’s mom; my nana. she’s not as old as one might think, she’s actually 63. when she was diagnosed, i was at work. i had to lie to my coworkers about why i had to immediately go get tested (i work for my nanas business) and then proceeded to self isolate for 5 days after that. i came up with no symptoms after that so i continued to go to work. i went and got tested again later that week and it also came back negative. in total, i’ve been tested four times and all have resulted in a negative outcome. while i’m here i should state that when my nana tested positive i immediately started staying at another house we own. my papa, who’s test results also came back negative, decided to stay with my nana a few days after she came back positive (idfk why, he’s 11 years older than her and much more susceptible) and soon after that he joined me at our other house.

as i was saying, i had a covid scare yesterday... and i also stated it came back negative. so can someone tell me why my uncle (who i already have serious issues with) is flipping shit about me still possibly carrying the virus even though the only person i have come in contact with that had it (the whole reason they’re tripping shit) has not been around me in a week and one day?!?! i’m probably wrong and venting about this in the wrong area, i’m sure some of y’all might agree with my uncle. BUT hear me out... after everyone got tested the last couple times, everyone was praising god and ‘oh so thankful’ but i seriously feel like an outcast currently. i might save my uncle and i’s past issues for another time but he literally only has a full on conversation with me when we cannot agree on something or when he is upset with me and my choices. i’m currently on probation and had to go to a marijuana prevention class and learned for, pretty much the first time deadass no cap, about *boundaries*. i thought about one i could set with him today even though what i have in mind might not even be considered a boundary set... anyways, what i would like to do is: tell him straight up “hey man, i know you have a lot to say and lecture me about but here’s what i want: every sentence you say that is gonna piss me off, i want you to even that out with saying something nice or positive. every word you say that isn’t gonna strengthen our relationship has to be equalized by some saying, ANY SAYING that will help our relationship.” i know that ‘so much’ to ask for. idek if he’ll fall for it. as a kid, this man would lecture my sister til the wee hours of the morning telling us we’re amazing, smart, capable, and now he only lectures me when he knows i’m fucking up my life or the life of others. ifi cannot fix this situation what are possible coping mechanisms i could be using?

#asking for a friend #sos #help #fuck my life

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bestwishes-beana · 3 years

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COVID Craziness

My life has gotten really crazy, really fast. My dad was exposed to COVID at a poker game and my family has been in shambles ever since. While I don’t live with my father, I had contact with him when he was asymptomatic but after he was exposed. I found out today, about a week after his initial contact with someone who was confirmed with COVID, that he tested positive. He’s not one to complain, but he’s not doing well; please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. My dads healthy and persevering, but I’ve seen this disease wipe out the best of people. I can’t even entertain the thought.

What my family and I have been struggling with is the selfishness of our reaction to the situation. I am one of 3 girls, and at the news, all of us were distraught, not out of fear for our dads, but for our social lives. My youngest sister was in hysterics, ugly crying about how she couldn’t see her boyfriend or attended her sport practices. My middle sister, forever the real responsible one, the uptight one determined to keep a straight face, is currently in her room virtually auditioning for her school musical. She’s gotten so much more talented than I ever remember, and I hope auditioning virtually doesn’t put her at a disadvantage. She’s been going through a rough patch and when she doesn’t rely on family, I hope she can rely on her friends. It’s her senior year and while she’s trying to make the most of it, she’s already losing so much.

And then there’s me. I felt like I was finally on an upswing in terms of my depression. I was making plans, no matter how small- a trip to the dollar store on Monday, coffee on Tuesday, fast food on Wednesday, dinner date Thursday, weekend trip on Friday. I felt good finally having plans to put in my planner, no matter how small. And then at the news, I knew all my plans were going out the window. All these little things gave me a reason to get out of bed and get dressed in the morning, and now I had nothing. I had been planning and looking forward to this trip for a long time - really just an excuse to have some well deserved alone time with my long distance boyfriend. I felt crushed and bogged down and overwhelmed by it all. And then there was the guilt- sitting here worried about my own life when my dad was bedridden by a mysterious disease that had taken who knows how many lives at this point. That selfishness only drove me deeper into this bitter cycle.

I like to think I just needed a day. My sisters and I all tested negative, but we have to quarantine for 14 days since our exposure to our father, just in case we develop COVID in that window. Working from home got a lot harder and while I’m still feeling anxious and overwhelmed, I’m learning how to deal with it. There’s so much more family drama, but I can’t bring myself to go into it. The rest of it having to do with my grandmother, who currently lives with us. Our aid quit rudely and unexpectedly and along with a full time job, 3 girls, and her own personal life and shoddy mental health, my mom has to worry about taking care of her mother. I’m thinking of quitting my job to become an aid for my grandma so we don’t have to deal with this anymore. I would make less that I’m making with my current job, but it would be a big stress off my mothers plate. It would be nice to not have to deal with strangers yelling at me anymore.

So I guess this is my life update as I try to process my world. I’m stressed and overwhelmed and relying on CBD probably more than I should. COVID is stressful in general, but when it affects you directly, it is all the more so. I hope people are being conscientious and staying safe. It’s either put your life on hold now or later.

I hope things get better. If you want some insight into my mind, listen to “Karma” by AJR. But until next time.

Best wishes,

Beana

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socialjusticeartshare · 4 years

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First She Was Separated From Her Family, Now She’s Separated From School

A refugee child, once separated from her mother at the border by Trump, now struggles with online school.

Every weekday morning, a 12-year-old refugee named Génnezys logs into her seventh grade online classroom. She sits at a tiny table in a corner of her cluttered living room. Before logging in, she tapes her phone to a chair and dials my number on FaceTime. Once we’re connected, I peer into the screen of a laptop lent to her by her public middle school. For hours, I observe coronavirus pandemic-era education for Génnezys and about 20 other children of multiple races, nationalities, and economic circumstances. What I see is both heroic and tragic.

Génnezys is one of the thousands of immigrant children who were torn from their parents in 2018 by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. I wrote about the desperate efforts of Cruz, her incarcerated mother, to find her 10-year-old daughter. They were reunited after about six weeks. Cruz later borrowed $6,000 from a friend for a coyote to smuggle her three-year-old daughter into the U.S. The child was detained for a few days then released to Cruz.

I asked Génnezys to invent a pseudonym to protect her family from U.S. government reprisal, and she came up with a fanciful one based on the Spanish pronunciation — HEH-neh-sees — of the first book in the Old Testament.

Today the family resides in a small Southern city. Cruz works as a janitor, earning a bit less than $10 an hour. They live in a small apartment with one bedroom, which Cruz and the girls share with her boyfriend. He is also an immigrant, and he pays half the rent. He’s employed in construction, and he leaves for work very early in the morning. Cruz goes to work after taking her four-year-old daughter, whom I’ll call Bety, by bus to a daycare center. With school strictly online now because of Covid-19, Génnezys stays in the apartment all by herself from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., often supervising an 8-year-old girl who has her own school computer with headphones. This child’s Latina immigrant mother works, too, so Génnezys acts as babysitter. Before online school started in September, she worried intensely that being without an adult in the home would be lonely and scary. I live hundreds of miles away, so I volunteered to sit with her via FaceTime. She says that she feels much better when I’m with her.

During the first two days of remote school, the teachers, all young or middle-aged white women, cycled though a dither of confusion and kind but mostly fruitless efforts to actually see and hear their students. One problem was that the online platforms were glitchy. The class links often crashed, leaving the students, including Génnezys, with blank screens. But by week’s end, the kinks were worked out — yet the students remained silent phantoms.

“Know that I see you. I hear you. I’m with you,” one young teacher intoned to the kids right after introducing herself. They had names like Hassan, Rasheeda, Yennifer, and Travis. “Black Lives Matter,” the teacher added. She was met by silence from her new students, and she could not see their reactions either. She asked them to turn on their mics and cameras, but getting them to comply was harder than pulling their teeth. “What did you do all summer? How did you deal with Covid? Talk about your family!”

A boy with an Arabic name turned on his mic just long enough to say that he had a baby sister. Indeed, the loud wailing of an infant could be heard. The teacher skipped a beat, then the boy’s mic went dead. No other students turned on their microphones. Not even Génnezys, who had earlier proved she was not shy. When the teacher mispronounced her name on the first day of school, Génnezys politely but firmly corrected her. She is a brilliant girl who knew no English whatsoever two years ago yet speaks it almost perfectly now, and who scrolls through the internet on her own initiative for details about the accident that crippled Frida Kahlo.

Though she has defended her name and sometimes has been the only student to answer her teachers’ questions about math, Génnezys remains strenuously silent about most of the details of her life. The family all got sick in late May, with many days of fever, coughing, muscle aches, nausea, dizziness, and diarrhea, as well as loss of appetite, taste, and smell. They recovered, but Cruz is suffering now from hair loss — a condition just recently recognized as a complication of Covid-19.

When Cruz got sick, she was employed in housekeeping at an upscale chain hotel. She said she fell ill after being ordered to enter and clean a room occupied by a woman who was coughing. She was not given PPE for the job.

Cruz estimates that in her building complex of a few dozen apartments, about 20 other people came down with Covid-19. “No one died, but some were carried off to hospitals in ambulances,” she said, adding that all were immigrants from Latin America.

Latinos comprise fewer than one in five residents in the county. But they make up about half of the people in Cruz’s census tract, while just across a main thoroughfare almost everyone is white and owns a house. In Cruz’s tract, many of the Latinos live in cramped little rental apartments.

During the outbreak and their own illnesses, Cruz and her children were never tested for Covid-19. Nor did she contact me, though she instructed her preteen daughter to call me for help if she took a turn for the worse. The family just stuck it out, but Cruz was fired by the hotel because of her sickness and missed work. She got the janitorial job just as soon as she felt better. She couldn’t self-quarantine: She had rent to pay, kids to feed. None of this is something Génnezys wants to talk about in online seventh grade.

She doesn’t turn on her camera either.

It’s hard to know exactly why the students as a group refuse to show themselves to their teachers or to each other. Middle school is the empire of peer pressure — pressure not to stand out, even in normal times, when rows of children are looking at and breathing with each other, along with a teacher in a real room. But the kids’ reluctance now seems at least partly due to how dispirited and disconnected their virtual classrooms feel. Génnesyz’s teachers practically stand on their heads coaxing interactions with the students, but the teachers’ energy seems TV-ish, abstract.

The kids are alone. They have no books. The only class that resembles normal school is math. As in times past, the teacher writes figures on a board and explains what they mean. The other classes are a mishmash of hyperactive YouTube science videos with men who speak too fast, and a woman with a white coat and test tubes performing experiments — work the students normally would be absorbed with in a classroom lab, but which they can only stare at now from afar, wall-eyed. An art class features hip-hop music, whose teaching intention is muddled, and digital choose-and-drag stickers and emojis. Strange, sci-fi cartoon people in Génnezys’s American History class purport to recount the high points of the antebellum human bondage, the Civil War, and the Black Codes. After that lesson, I asked Génnezys if she understood what a slave was. She still didn’t know — though she did remember the cartoon guy saying that a man named Frederick Douglass had been forcibly separated from his mother. She knew what that meant, from firsthand experience, but didn’t mention it in class. With me, she minimized her experience. She’d learned that Frederick Douglass was an infant when he was taken. “But, um, I was 10 when it happened,” she said. “I was a big kid, not a little kid.”

One teacher conducted a lesson about why students should participate in small- group, online “breakout” chat rooms. “Because they help us get to know each other?” said Génnezys, daring to speak.

“Very good! Thank you for that, Génnezys!” chimed the teacher, saying all the syllables correctly. Then she warned the students that they must use “appropriate language” in the chat rooms, and that their language was being watched.

This teacher also held a “correct answer” contest, with her pupils silently checking T’s and F’s on their screens. “True or false: If you fight at a school bus stop, you will be punished as severely as if you’d fought a school. True! Right, Brian! Brian gets a point! He’s pulling ahead of Corinne! Next question. True or false: If you touch the private body part of someone else at school, whether on purpose or by accident, you will be punished the same, either way. Yay, Corinne! She’s back in play!”

But there are no school bus stops now. There are no “someone else”s at school.

Génnezys has another reason not to turn on her camera: She is ashamed of her clothes. She fits a girl’s 14 now, but her wardrobe dates from a year ago, when she was size 10 and 12. Her shirts are too tight for her rapidly developing body. In the morning she puts on her mother’s dresses. They are several sizes too large.

Read Our Complete CoverageThe War on Immigrants

Cruz can’t afford to take her daughter shopping. She just lost another week of work, and wages, due to Covid-19. Two co-workers at her janitorial job tested positive and one is in the hospital. Because Cruz worked closely with both infected women, she was quarantined for 14 days. She had no proof that she had already contracted Covid-19. She had to stay home, along with Bety, who ran around the apartment laughing, yelling, and rifling Génnezys’s little desk while her sister tried to pay attention to online class.

An employee from the county health department came by to deliver some onions and pieces of fruit. Cruz finally got a negative test result but still had to finish the quarantine. Génnezys did not tell her teachers what was happening.

Génnezys also avoids the camera because of what Cruz calls “her obsession.” On the second day of school, a teacher asked, “What is your favorite thing to do?” Amid the mass silence, Génnezys activated her mic and bravely answered: “Play with slime,” she said.

“Slime?” said the teacher, nonplussed.

“Yeah. Slime.”

“Ah. OK. Yeah. Slime. Well, that sounds relaxing!”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Slime” is a faddish kid product that’s been around since the 1970s. Back then, it was valued by boys for its gross-out appeal. Now it’s prettier, smells nice, and is all the rage among preteen and teen girls. Many make it from a home recipe involving glue, borax, food coloring, and plastic beads from craft stores like Michael’s.

Génnezys was already into slime by age 10, back in Central America. Cruz’s partner there, an extremely violent man who was neither of the girls’ fathers, was terrorizing and assaulting Cruz and the children, threatening them with death. The girls witnessed the violence. Cruz made plans to hide Bety with her sister and flee to the U.S. with Génnezys. Meanwhile, Génnezys discovered slime. “In my country,” she remembered, “it was called moco,” which is Spanish for snot. She pushed it, pulled it, rolled and wrapped it, over and over and over. It calmed her, Cruz remembers.

After a grueling trip north, including a stay in a filthy, crowded stash house, things got worse at the border when the Trump administration took Génnezys from Cruz and shipped her 2,000 miles away to a child detention center. There, she was warehoused with mostly older Central American girls who’d come to the U.S. by themselves, pregnant or already with babies.

After spending six weeks with these young women, according to Cruz, 10-year-old Génnezys was using racy language and discussing sex. After she was reunited with her mother, she experienced night terrors and walked in her sleep for three months. She had three sessions with a psychologist. Then, said Cruz, “She entered a new phase of her life: adolescence,” and “she hardly talked about what happened.” Even so, Cruz added, “Two weeks ago, after Génnezys had an eye exam that showed a problem with one of her eyes, she mentioned to me that an older girl in the detention center hit her hard in that eye with a ball. That was two years ago. She’d never told me till now. Sometimes I worry about what’s in her head.”

Outside of her head is slime: jars and jars of it in all colors and textures, from shiny and glistening to rough and frothy. “I love YouTube slime videos,” Génnezys told me. The site has a plethora of young girls extolling their slime collections, as well productions with sexy women’s voices doing ASMR routines, and images of long, manicured fingernails digging languorously into the goo.

“I worry about it,” said Cruz. “It’s such a waste of money. But she would rather have slime, even, than clothes that fit her.”

If Génnezys were to activate her camera for her classmates and teachers, they might see her furiously and endlessly twisting, pulling, and punching her strange doughs as she fidgets at the computer and tries hard to do her schoolwork. A few months ago, Wired magazine interviewed a neuroscientist and psychologist who suggested that people might be gravitating toward slime during the Covid-19 crisis to simulate the feeling of touching actual people.

As a Central American refugee child, Génnezys has been traumatized by murderous violence, forced family separation, poverty, and plague. More and more, however, nonrefugee children in America are joining her in the grief and fear of being apart and alone. How many of these kids are scrunched over their own computers, secretly toying with slime?

“I don’t know,” Génnezys said when I asked her that question. “Maybe I’m the only one. Before the virus, I didn’t play with it in school because school was good. Now, I don’t think I could do school if I didn’t have slime. Without it I’d be dying.

“Dying of what?”

“Boredom.”

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#separated children #separated school #separated families

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