Are we done yet?

I'll give you the end line first: no we are not.

Now let's get back to this wintry Sunday where the chickens continue to hide in the barn, and the cats are patrolling farmette lands because a visiting cat is messing with their sense of ownership and territorial dominance.

Breakfast is late because there's a lot of family activity and it sucks me in completely. First there is the issue of a hacked credit card. You know how that goes! Darn thieves! Then, second one of the parents in the young household with Covid now has Covid. Now I know what you're thinking -- oh, that's Omicron for you! It does not recognize vaccination as a barrier. It just walks right in, uninvited, and takes over. But here's the other menacing feature of Omicron that I already noted in my post of two days back: it doesn't just come in, get you all sick and leave. It hovers and moves stealthily from one person to the next, not all at once, but little by little, and even though you think you're all done with it and no one else is going to get sick, BOOM! The next soldier falls. And the ones left standing can only wonder -- when will we know for sure that we are past the danger zone? Because the timeline changes with each new case. So instead of having a ten day lockdown and you're done, you have a rolling isolation that just goes on and on and on. Nasty little virus, isn't it? Has no politeness about it. It's all brash and boastful and succeeds in completely wrecking your equanimity.

I've been reading many articles about the Omicron variant and I appreciate how so many researchers are now looking at it in a new way. But here's what I'm thinking: the people who were worse off with the previous variants are still the worst off. Older people hide with this one because no one has told them that they are safe. Just lots of whispering about waning immunities. And then come the working parents: worst of all are the working parents. Just like before. Child care comes and goes. Schools open and close. Babysitters, who used to stick by you when your kid was laid up with a cold, now run away when a child so much as sniffles.  And of course, if your child is sick with Covid, then there is no one, absolutely no one to help you with the load, even if you have to work. And so long as Omicron is perceived as a public health emergency (and using one set of markers, it is that -- witness the hospital crisis), you, your job, your family, young and old, are left there like bobbing ducks on an ocean that's under a permanent storm warning, with lightening strikes left and right, seemingly random and without warning.

In other words, I really feel awful for my daughter and her family, even as I can do nothing to help them. No, they do not like chicken noodle soup. I know, right? Where is their Polish blood? (Ed and I, on the other hand, have stocked our pantry with cartons of chicken noodle soup. Just in case. Low sodium, because we're old, and organic because I'm a believer.)

Breakfast comes after I have sorted through my daughters' messages, so it is later than late. Dance will not keep her nose off of my croissant.

Photos today are all taken by Ed.

And then Ed and I go out. Me in my new warmest puffy parka in eye popping cherry red. He suggests I try skating on Lake Waubesa. He'll keep me company, though he himself doesn't skate.

Great idea!

Terrible idea.

The ice is ravaged by tire treads from slushy days of our one day warm spell. And there are drifts of snow everywhere. Miserable skating.

I give up. 

Ed suggests I next try the pond where Snowdrop first tried to skate. I'm agreeable.

Ah!

Much better! Sure, I could do without the light snow cover. It makes for a jerky glide, especially when you're trying hard not to skate too fast.

Still, it does me good to get stronger on the ice again. Skating is not like the bicycle. If you let go of it, you can lose your skating legs rather quickly, especially on textured, ravaged, snow dusted ice. I tripped up twice today and nearly lost it a handful of other times. I used to spin and do perfect figure eights. Now, I'm happy just to do long, sweeping glides. With controlled speed! It's good enough.

At home again, I brew a milky coffee and eat my gingerbread. And burn a candle. Fern & Moss from Brooklyn Candles. A hint of sage and lavender, a whiff of spruce and pine, and a long finish of oakmoss. 

With love...