fox | rundown

September 15. Himself's aunt dies following an illness of several months.
September 18. We bury her.
September 19. Himself flies out on a business trip. He is apparently one of two people consistently wearing a mask at company-wide events this week.
September 20. The prince is pukey after dinner and (worse) in the middle of the night.
September 21. I keep the prince home from school. He is fine. On the other coast, Himself has to remove his mask at dinnertime in a poorly ventilated area with other people.
September 22. The prince goes back to school. On the other coast, Himself is notified that someone at his company tested positive for covid that morning. He himself tests negative. He flies home, arriving in the middle of the night.
September 23. Himself tests negative for covid. I receive a jury summons in the mail; my boss and I agree that if this were a movie, the critics would say "The main character's Stuff is a little too concentrated."
September 24. Himself tests positive for covid. The prince and I test negative. Himself puts a mask on and doesn't eat with us at meal times; we open practically every window in the house and turn on all the fans; I sleep in the guest room. (The bed in there is much softer than in our room, which I can handle but himself finds uncomfortable.)
September 25. The prince and I test negative. Himself feels fine. He keeps his mask on, we keep the windows open, I sleep in the guest room.
September 26. The prince and I test negative; Himself feels terrible, but not sick enough for antivirals, apparently. He keeps his mask on and all the windows open. I go to the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions so he doesn't have to bring his known issues indoors. I get my flu shot while I'm there, though later in the day I regret this decision, because I do get some side effects, and what I don't need right now are ambiguous headaches and other upper respiratory symptoms. I feel kind of cruddy at the prince's bedtime and take a Sudafed, which does what it does vis-a-vis opening my sinuses but also contributes to an extremely jittery night of sleep. In the guest room.
September 27. The prince and I test negative. Himself feels a little better. (Eleven people who were at the Wednesday evening dinnertime thing are now down with covid. His boss, apparently, feels incredibly guilty—as well he should, in my view, and this company is now three for three on all-staff whatnots that turned into super-spreader events, so although Himself wasn't wild about going to this one but ultimately felt like he kind of had to, if they do another I think he is going to Respectfully Decline.) I close my thumb in the front door when the prince and I get home from school, and it is not that bad, but I'm scraped so thin I just sob for a few minutes. Himself keeps his mask on and all the windows open. I sleep in the guest room.
September 28. The prince and I test negative, which if my math is right closes the window? That is, if Himself was exposed Wednesday evening 21st and first tested positive Saturday morning 24th, that's the morning of the third day, and our last unguarded exposure was Friday evening 23rd, so the morning of the third day was Monday morning 26th; but if Himself was exposed on the plane on the way out, then his first positive test was the morning of the fifth day, and the same period for us would end today, right now, this morning.

Except for the day the prince was home from school, I'm also working full time, right, and there's end-of-fiscal-year rigmarole and some general utter lack of common sense from some higher-ups we'd like to think would have stopped making these particular bad decisions after the literal years we've been asking them to do that one thing this other way for the general benefit of everyone, but you know how work goes, so. Normally I'd probably have been gnashing my teeth a bit over that. This year, ha.

The doctors also told Himself he would likely no longer be shedding virus five days after his positive test or his last day of symptoms, whichever is later, so because he's still coughing a bit I can't move back out of the guest room yet. But I think . . . I may have dodged it? Again? Because the prince had it six weeks ago, and when he was crying his tears went into my eyes, and yet I remained uninfected; and now Himself spent two nights breathing in my face from the other side of the bed, and yet here I am. Maybe the fact that my bivalent booster had a few days longer to cook than Himself's kept me safer? I don't know, but it feels like a lot of dice rolls I've come out on the winning side of, for which I'm very grateful, although after the couple of weeks we've had over here (and about to turn the corner into October, which is annually the month in which I feel the crappiest, as it contains the anniversary of my own dad's demise), I feel like I deserve it.

rundown

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