The 3M Aura N95’s arrived yesterday and I used one today when I went on my errands.
Holy shit, this is a REALLY GOOD mask.
They really did proper design work on this one.
– It’s a soft shell vs. the hard circle style, which makes it fit better and fit more faces. Plus, the soft style is WAY more comfortable.
– There is padding on the nose bridge below the shaping wire – keeps your glasses from fogging up!!!
– The seams are a) on the side and b) covered by folds in the mask design, so it doesn’t gap on the sides or at the chin.
– It is the *easiest* mask to breathe in, at least for me.
Right now, the only Amazon buying option is from some 3rd party seller that can’t ship for a while (of course) – but keep an eye on it, as they’re constantly getting stock back in. When I ordered mine on 1/7, it said it wouldn’t be delivered until the end of the month, and got here yesterday.
Seriously, it’s making me nuts. Hit up the market today – needed to get some things to get us to the other side of the weekend since it’s gonna snow and I am not going to want to go out in that weather.
The store looks like we had two snowstorms last week and another coming this weekend, which is exactly our scenario here. Except there was actually more bread than usual when there is a snowstorm on the way.
I had a decent sized list and got everything on it. Had to do some brand substitutions, and it’s a good thing I got a gallon of milk this past weekend as the milk was cleared out. (Not a shocker and I’m not above getting a quart from the gas station on Friday if we’re low.)
Meat case had taken some hits, but I got ground beef for tacos tomorrow and italian sausage for spaghetti on Saturday.
Yeah, there are bare spots. I got the second to last pint of sour cream. (Well, lots of fat free still there.) Had to get a tall person to get the italian seasoned tomato paste.
I’ll admit I’m still not 100% recovered from Plague Friday when the entire community bought a month of food on the same day, and I felt a bit twitchy at times.
But please, don’t panic buy – you really don’t need to.
It’s fuck my life why are there meetings so early Wednesday. And I finally remembered to fix the Wednesday schedule on the thermostat. (I don’t think I will ever decide programmable thermostats aren’t neato.)
Lily has spent the past 40 minutes smashed against the heat register. I don’t blame her one bit – it got a bit chilly last night. Excellent sleeping weather, but terrible getting up weather. But, we’re getting up to 47 degrees today, woohoo!
Of course, it is supposed to snow this weekend and I need to make a grocery run and that has to be today, because if I wait longer than that – it’s gonna be a shitshow. Upside is that since it’s a crack of dawn start to the workday, I can get out early and do it then and it will still be light out vs. trying to jam it into my lunch hour.
So, I’d best go get the day started so I can get it finished.
It’s gonna be sunny today, but we’re only gonna get up to a whopping 28 degrees today. Glad I had coffee made in the house – it’s too fuckin’ cold for a trek to Starbucks today.
Still flabbergasted that we’re seeing Covid rates higher than ever and there is no true structural support beyond “get vaccinated.” The governor declared a state of emergency for hospitals and that’s it. We’ll be able to have home test kits somehow covered by insurance. You know damn well that insurers will make it so difficult to get reimbursed for them that folks will try once and give up. JUST MAKE THEM FUCKING FREE.
Please lord, let Omicron be the last big wave – I cannot deal with this level of incompetence and indifference for much longer. Meanwhile I’m waiting on yet another version of N95’s to see if I can find some that actually fit my face. (3M Aura for anyone interested.)
Well, time to go pretend everything is fine and to do the thing to make the money to survive this capitalist hellscape.
We should be able to get Miss Lily up to her checkup – but we will be driving extra slow to be sure, and taking advantage of the remote start to have the car toasty warm.
She’s currently parked in front of the heat register – the challenge is going to be getting back upstairs to “work” and then casually lounging about until time to get her in her carrier… Her little softsided carrier is just sitting on the bed – if I bring it downstairs, she will split.
It’s always a fun game between watching the cat, watching the time, and making sure she doesn’t decide to disappear, LOL. I can hear her in the kitchen now having breakfast and I’m hoping she doesn’t decide to move to the chair on the far side of the dining room, cause it’s hard to get her out from there.
Crap, she’s gone to the basement.
Retrieved from the basement and basement door shut and she’s now been unceremoniously dropped off in my bedroom.
Time to top off my coffee and join her for the next half hour.
OK, so by the time it started raining, it was above freezing, which is good.
It is supposed to rain on and off until 10PM. It will stay above freezing until 3AM.
So the question is – will that 5 hours and 8-12 MPH winds be enough to dry out the roads or will I be waking up to an ice skating rink in the driveway and road when I have to take Lily for her annual appointment in the morning?
If I have to, I’ll reschedule and pay any cancelation fee, that’s not a problem. It’s just the sitting here wondering what it’s going to be that’s a bit maddening.
Didn’t even think about weather being a factor when I made the appointment. Combination of working remotely and a mild winter so far – it just did not even cross my mind.
Note to self: Afternoon appointments in the winter. Morning appointments in the summer.
Made it to Starbucks and a quick run into the market for the stuff I forgot yesterday before The Weather started, so today is off to a good start.
After yesterday’s bit o’ despair, it’s time for something lighter. I’ve been taking CBD oil before bed for a while now, to help with sleep and see if I can’t level off the anxiety a bit. It’s been working nicely as I’ve been sleeping very well and don’t wake up with any kind of “sleep aid hangover” – but my dreams are a wee bit more vivid/lucid.
Last night, I was getting married again (WTF?) and trying to pull it together in a week. The photographer wanted $300 and a tiara. The catering was going to be ice cream – vanilla, and rocky road (I don’t even like rocky road?) and I was having a hella time trying to find a shop that would sell me enough ice cream. I finally decided it should probably be canceled but I didn’t really want to, cause, how embarrassing – and then had the though of, “well, you could just wake up and it would be canceled and you couldn’t have to actually *cancel* it!”
Then, not one, but two owls in my old bedroom. (I got them to safely leave out the windows.) And the late, great Moxley dog somehow took down a deer and then dragged to the carport roof.
They say your dreams reflect your subconscious or something like that… Planning & canceling an event, I’m guessing that is the whole pandemic cycle of plan & cancel. Mox & the deer and the owls? I was half-watching a nature documentary before bed, so that could have gotten in my brain.
I’ll absolutely take a few weird dreams in exchange for the improved sleep.
Past times pictures! Oooh, 13 years ago, I was in Aruba. That was pretty awesome. The hotel kitty was the best.
Our case counts are higher than they’ve ever been – 3 times higher than our peak in January of 2021.
And we have zero structural mitigation. No mask mandates. Our new AG has announced they’re suing the feds over the vaccine mandate. Not a single local business that I know of is asking about vaccination status, and very few are requiring masks. I’ve seen more maskless folks in this surge than in the whole damn pandemic.
I just cannot wrap my head around it.
I know the folks who *could* do things care more about the economy than they do about us. I know this.
But I don’t understand how anyone can look at what is happening and think “let’s get Covid positive folks back to work sooner in unsafe environments” as the best course of action.
Love the weekend. Wish they were 7 days. Probably should sit down and look at my retirement plan again. HAHAHAHAHA.
And I have to venture out later to hunt for milk and stuff and frankly, I don’t wanna. It was 23º when I went out to grab coffee, and about a quarter of the people there didn’t have masks on. I mean, the county posted more than 3700 new cases today, why would you want to take even the smallest of precautions?
Just not excited about going out in the cold with a bunch of plague rats.
Why would you go out when you could be a puddle?
Canceled my appointment for next week with the acupuncturist – she wouldn’t let me pay for the missed session (I didn’t want her scrambling to fill the spot) and was very understanding about it. Who knew I’d be longing for the days of a couple hundred cases a day in the county?
What makes me extra bummed is that the last time I started canceling appointments, I didn’t get a haircut for a year and a half.
Obviously, I’ll do what I have to do, but I really hope that this surge/wave/whatever is done soon. It’s just been really nice to be able to do some personal care things.
Yes, I’m vaccinated & boosted and mask up everywhere which is a big risk mitigator. Breakthrough cases are less than 7% of new cases, which is not terrible – but we’re also looking at the law of large numbers and all that. It’s one thing when you’re looking at 200 cases a day in the county, and quite another when it’s 3700… So, semi-hermit mode it is for a while.
But I will say, DAMN, I have gotten good at the high speed grocery run over the last two years – my list is in the same order as the aisles (I can do that without even actively thinking about it these days) and I am in and out in no time at all. (Which is a good thing since I never mastered the art of putting together a good order for curbside pickup.)
I know I am obscenely lucky – I work remotely, I can afford good masks, I have a small stash of quick tests, and I was able to get vaccinated & boosted with no issues beyond waiting to be eligible and a brief argument with a pharmacist over the definition of 6 months. I have the mobility to race through the grocery store. And I want to keep this lucky streak going.
Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female. 