Yesterday was the cotton anniversary of the pandemic in Canada. I missed marking it as I was busy conferencing. That and I am exhausted. I look at last year's posts on the high's and low's of the first year, the lessons learned, and the feelings, and I marvel that I could write three separate posts on this. I just don't have the energy this year to discuss this stuff all the time. So, instead, let me just consider those three posts and what has changed, and then rank the years of the pandemic, because ranking is an old Spew theme.
I learned a lot in the first year of the pandemic. Did I learn more in year two? Not really.... it was mostly more of the same. Either that or I don't have the energy to figure this out (a recurring theme).
I charted the high's and lows after year 1. Year two did have more highs and less lows, although it may not have felt like it:
- More losses in poli sci (three big figures from my time at UCSD plus a few gods of IR), but no close friends or family this year. We did lose Bob, our cat, who became super friendly in his last months with us.
- More covid in the family--all the nieces and nephews have had one bout, I believe. My daughter has dodged it entirely--her discipline and enthusiasm for testing are marvels to behold. One niece has had a series of injuries on the mountains--bike and ski--which absolutely sucks, but no serious cases of covid.
- Vaxxed--everyone in my family is vaxxed, and only one side of the family is short of boosters.
- Last year, I missed most not seeing my daughter. I got to see her at the summer vacation, Thanksgiving, and Winterfest this year. Much, much better. And I got to see the rest of my family multiple times. My sister crashed the 30th anniversary celebration as she joined me on the slopes of Whistler! Definitely a highlight.
- Did I mention I got to ski Lake Louise, Whistler, and Fernie in the same winter? I was definitely willing to fork out a heap of $ to make this work after a year of denial.
- Most regretted pandemic decision of the second year: probably the VR headset as I, well, suck at VR games too and haven't made the time to play.
- Furthest I traveled: Copenhagen. For a civil-military relations conference that pissed off the Danish military. It was a great trip--I learned a lot, got to hangout with some civ-mil scholars who are sharp and silly, meet new people, and enjoy a terrific city (I even dared to bike!)
- Average pants-wearing: went up a bit as I started teach in person a few weeks ago, but probably only 1.3 days a week as I stayed home most of the time, except for grocery shopping. My wife was shocked to see me wear my pj's as I would go get the mail at the community mailbox.
- Until classes started, I had gone to campus only three or four times--to deliver baked products to thank the Dean for travel permission, to get a shot, to swap out books for the new terms. Only in the past few weeks have I been on campus for more than a few minutes at a time.
- Ultimate! I played last summer until my body said nay, nay. And then I started again this winter and have been able to stay on the field!
- The fave recipes remains mostly the same although the NYT gnocchi/cheese/burst tomatoes recipe rocks mightily and is super easy. I did make another batch of CCCPD's to celebrate the pandemic anniversary.
- Not much snowshoeing or cross country skiing this year--it was often too cold and then travel (downhill skiing!) got in the way.
- Favorite mask is now the Costco KN-95.... so much for style as the focus is now on efficiency.
- Less re-watching this year as we got a heap of great new stuff with the faves being Hawkeye, Free Guy, Invincible, Mitchells vs the Machines, We Are Lady Parts, Only Murders in the Building, Yellow Jackets, and now the Adam Project.
- Movies in the theater: Shang-Shi and No Way Home!! Black Widow was fun, too. The Batman was ok.
- Podcast of the year: Dead Eyes, about an actor who got fired by Tom Hanks from a small role in Band of Brothers. It finished beautifully.
- Biggest Surprise: that 2022 would be worse than 2021.
- and the highlight of the year was the silliest poker game at Chez Saideman
Are the feelings the same at the end of year two as in year one? I think I am even more angry. That the availability of vaccines should have made things much better, but we had people and parties push back hard against something that could have saved even more lives. The wasted lives, the wasted time, the unnecessarily stressed health care workers, the fucking idiots who occupied Ottawa, all of this is so enraging. That everyone is reopening now even though rates of vaccines in the US and boosters in Canada are below where they should be, that there will be a new wave even without a new variant simply because governments are opening too soon does indeed trigger this lib. Frustration? Hell yeah for the same reasons. The learning curves seem to be so flat. The ups and downs can be most frustrating--that we thought last summer that we had this thing beat and the Delta kicked our ass and then things got better and then Omicron was all over the place. The second year was less lonely as we did start to go out and do things again. I had an awesome poker game at my house in between waves (just barely). I have traveled a bit to go to a Copenhagen conference that might have done damage to their civil-military relations, to three, yes, three ski trips to hang out with friends and family and celebrate 30 years of Mr. and Mrs. Spew! So, year two was less lonely, although not as good as pre-pandemic life certainly. Fear? Having three shots has mostly reduced the fears. Relatives and friends have gotten very mild bouts of covid, but travel still is a bit unnerving with the need for tests and the concern of being a vector. Grief? Jeez, the casualties from this thing have mounted--that year 2 was far more deadly than year 1 and mostly unnecessarily so. Still lucky that no immediate kin or friends paid the highest price for this, but I am mourning the loss of yet another year in the life of younger folks and older folks, for which one year is such a big thing. Relief? Damn, I don't know any more. Things are better, but I worry about more waves and less willingness by people and politicians to do the right thing. Which means, yes, the second year did diminish my hope. Vaccines had so much promise and yet here we are. The treatments are better, the promise of even better vaccines is around the corner, and all that, but, damn, so many people seem determined to value their political identity more than their health, their families, their friends, or their communities. So, perhaps less acceptance than last year? Definitely more exhaustion even though I am baking less. Maybe I need to bake more?
2020 seemed to be the worst year of this thing because of the uncertainty and the change in how we lived our lives. But more people died in 2021, and year 2 of the pandemic had more toxic politics even if Trump was no longer in power. That we have vaccines is great, that many folks aren't getting them because their political identity gets in the way or because they are in parts of the world that we have failed is awful. So, I'd have to rank the second year of the pandemic as being worse than the first even though I got to see more of my family in the second year. Year three starts with a tragic war in Europe, so.... yeah.
Best of luck to you and yours as we keep working our way through this thing.
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