I’ve had a few things on my mind this week that I wanted to blog about, but I just haven’t had the time and/or energy. I think I’ve finally gotten to a point now where I can sit down and ruminate a bit. It’s Saturday, and my chores are all done, and I’m not so tired that I need a nap yet.
Last Sunday was the Somerville St. Patrick’s Day parade. A lot of people came out for it. I watched parts of it out of my window, but I didn’t really pay too much attention. I spent most of the day reading comics and watching TV.
And Monday was my birthday. It was definitely a low-key birthday. I got a lot of “happy birthday” messages on Facebook, as usual, but I didn’t do anything to celebrate. It was a normal work day. I’ve realized that I’m now closer to 60 than 50, which is a bit alarming, but I guess it’s OK.
Friday was St. Patrick’s Day, and I took that day off as a “well-being” day. That’s a new thing we have at work this year. We can take two days off as well-being days. There’s a whole different workflow for requesting a well-being day, vs a regular vacation or sick day, for some reason. We’re supposed to use these days for “mental health” or charity/volunteering work. And we have to select which one we’re using it for. I put down “mental health.” I had some ideas about stuff I could do with the day, but most of those got tossed out the window. I got up late. I walked to the mall, ordered a new pair of glasses at LensCrafters, and walked back. That pretty much killed the morning. All I did in the afternoon was watch TV and take a nap. I guess that qualifies as useful to my mental health.
Ordering new glasses turned out to be surprisingly difficult. For the frames, I just asked LensCrafters to get me the same ones I have now. I’m not sure if we found the exact same frames, but they’re close enough. But the salesperson couldn’t figure out how to order my prescription in those frames. It kept coming back as impossible. Now, my new prescription isn’t that different from my previous one. But I guess it was different enough to cause a problem. So, after nearly an hour of futzing around, involving both the salesperson and an optician, we settled on plastic lenses that are cheaper than the ones we were trying to order, which were the same material as I have now. I’m honestly not sure if they’ll be better or worse than my current glasses, but there’s a 30-day guarantee, so I guess I can return them if they’re no good.
I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with my vision lately. I guess I’m still not anywhere near the “legally blind” stage, but I’m definitely having some problems. The next thing to tackle is my hearing. I’m overdue for another visit to the audiologist. I last went in March 2021, and should have gone again in March 2022, but never got around to it. So now it’s two years, and I should really get back there, and see about maybe finally getting a hearing aid.
Another topic I wanted to mention in passing is the third anniversary of the start of the pandemic. My company is still letting us work from home three days a week, which is good, but there’s some talk that they might want to get people to come back into the office more often. I’m honestly having some trouble with the current schedule, mostly because I don’t always have enough energy to deal with commuting and working in a cubicle anymore. By the time I get home after a day in the office, I’m often quite exhausted. I’m not sure how I used to commute into the office five days a week. And I’m not sure if something is wrong with me, or if this is just how I’m supposed to feel at 56 years old.
Anyway, at least I appear to have gotten through the last three years without contracting COVID at any point. (Or, if I did, it was post-vaccination and mild enough that I assumed it was a cold.) I’m still masking up at the grocery store. And I still wear a mask at work, but only when I’m moving around the office. I’m one of only a few folks who still do that. I’ve slacked off a lot with regard to masking when I’m going out to pick up take-out food or coffee. I used to wear a mask all the time for that, but now I’ll skip it sometimes, if I know I’m going into a place that won’t be crowded, and where I know I’ll be in and out quickly. I actually haven’t gotten sick in a while, at least by my standards, so that’s good. (I was a bit sick on Presidents Day, so it’s been almost a month. And I wasn’t that sick, then.)
Reading this post back, it sounds a bit bleak. But I didn’t intend it to sound that way, and I’m actually doing pretty good, all things considered. Maybe I should write another post later, talking about all the cool stuff I’ve been reading, listening to, and watching. Oh, and I have another post to write about Microsoft certification, and probably some other tech stuff, so that’ll be more fun than this one.