Cicadas!

 Much to the envy of bug watchers everywhere, the DC area was recently a focal point for the emergence of Brood X cicadas!  This brood of cicadas emerges only once every 17 years, so for a bug event, this one was big.

As anyone who has ever lived with me can attest, I'm not really a bug person.  Cicadas, though, are one of the few bugs I actually do like.  They don't bite or sting, they're too big to fly into your eye or up your nose, and I'm fascinated by the varieties that spend years at a time underground.

The coverage of their 2021 emergence started many weeks ahead of time.  There was much hand-wringing by people who lived in the area in 2004, when they last emerged, and didn't enjoy them that time.  They were delayed in emerging due to a snap of unseasonably cold weather, and when they finally did, I was pretty underwhelmed and disappointed at first.  For all the coverage, I was expecting a Big Event, and I felt like I was mostly seeing a few stray wings on the ground.

They picked up as time went on, though.  I never felt like they were that numerous where we lived, but they were very thick on the ground (and in the sky and the trees) near one of the schools where I worked.  Walking to the bus stop at the end of the day made me feel like I'd gotten a true cicada immersion experience, between the deafening humming as I walked under trees, and cicadas actually landing on me from time to time.

Here are a few pictures to commemorate Brood X of 2021, along with a cicada necklace I made to welcome them in style!

Sunglasses Are The New Shoes

 Lest anyone become alarmed, (a) I will not be dispensing fashion advice on this blog, and (b) I am not advocating that anyone wear sunglasses on their feet.  

I've maintained for a long time that no article of clothing can make me nearly as miserable as shoes.  Ill-fitting shoes rub blisters and put pressure on the bottoms of feet.  If you're already out walking, you have no recourse as each step becomes increasingly agonizing.  No other article of clothing comes close in my opinion, but I'm starting to think of sunglasses as shoes-lite in terms of the aggravation and discomfort they cause.

I didn't wear sunglasses regularly until the year I spent in Syria (between 2004 and 2005).  I bought an inexpensive pair of sunglasses with wraparound frames to take with me, and I finally understood the hype about sunglasses--it really is more comfortable to not have a strong, unfiltered sun in your eyes!  I wore these sunglasses for years, though they frames were quite rickety even when they were new (I actually had them repaired in Syria because a screw came out).

I tried at some point after returning to the US to get a pair of sunglasses with less rickety frames.  I got a pair, but then found that the arms of the glasses dug into my head and gave me a headache.  I decided to take my chances with the rickety frames.

Several years ago, I had a flexible spending account funds that I needed to use or lose, so I got a pair of prescription sunglasses.  I liked these a lot. The frames were more solid than the pair I took to Syria with me and the glasses were comfortable to wear.  The one problem was that if anything, they were a little loose, always threatening to slide off my nose or the back of my head.  Despite their escape tendencies, I managed to hold on to them until a couple of weeks ago when one of the arms broke.  I'm not sure what caused it to break, but decided it was beyond repair and I would need a new pair.

While I hemmed and hawed over what type of sunglasses to get, I found the old pair I had taken with me to Syria.  The frames are as rickety as ever, and the hinges were getting caught in my hair when I pushed the sunglasses on top of my head.  I hadn't remembered that "feature" of them.  I decided to speed up my search for a new pair.

I splurged a little and ordered a well-known brand of sunglasses on sale.  They have wraparound frames, which I like, and fit very securely to my face, lessening the chance that they'll slid off somewhere.  But, as I discovered while taking a walk on a hot day, they fit so securely that sweat pools around my eyes and doesn't evaporate when I wear them.  It reminded me of trying on a pair of shoes that feels comfortable in the store, but then rubs my feet raw as soon as I wear them out of the house.  I can't really return them at this point, and I feel slightly bamboozled.

I've ordered a cheaper pair of sunglasses with non-wraparound frames.  These won't provide the sun protection for the outer corners of my eyes, but I imagine they will allow enough air circulation for my eye sweat to evaporate.  Much like with shoes, maybe I just can't have it all with my sunglasses.

Pandemic Daze: A Uniquely COVID-Era Annoyance

 We took Stella to the vet a few days ago for her annual check-up and rabies shot.  This was our first time going to a new veterinary practice.  The one where we took our cats before we moved is an uncomfortably long distance from our new place, particularly for a cat who gets motion sick.  Plus, our favorite vet at that practice had moved on.

As is the case everywhere (well, at least in states that aren't encouraging a germ-swapping free-for-all), there were certain COVID protocols to abide by.  Among them were that I needed to call them when I arrived rather than just bringing Stella into the building, and that I needed to wear a mask (which I'm doing in public places anyway).  When they gave me the go-ahead to bring Stella in, it turned out they had the following additional procedures in place:

1.  Questioning pet owners about their recent health

2.  Giving me a disposable mask to put on on top of my cloth mask

3.  Checking my temperature before allowing me past the entryway

4.  Making me use their hand sanitizer (the icky foamy kind that leaves a lot of residue)

5.  Making me sit in a room down the hall from where they examined Stella, rendering me unable to try to comfort her as she yowled like a banshee

Then, after all of that, the vet came in to talk to me...and was wearing her mask under her nose.

I Live A Life Of Unparalleled Glamour

 I got to talk about skunk farts today at work.  

My job takes glamour to a whole new level!

Pandemic Daze: Growing Hair Like Rapunzel

 Technically, growing hair like Rapunzel isn't necessarily a feature of pandemic life, but I suspect that many of us had at least a brief period when it felt like it was.  In many areas, including mine, salons and barbershops were forced to stay closed for a while during the beginning of the pandemic.  I remember reading that there was a run on products like hair clippers and hair dye, as people struggled to maintain their hair at home.  Pre-pandemic, I typically got a haircut every couple months, and I don't dye my hair.  I had just had a haircut in February 2020, and I figured I'd maybe miss a haircut and then get back into my usual hair care routine.

In my area, salons and barbershops reopened in the summer of 2020, albeit with restrictions.  A lot of people jumped at the chance for some professional hair maintenance.  I decided to hold off.  I had become more concerned about the coronavirus than I was in March 2020, when things initially shut down.  And there were other risks I was taking that felt more important to me, like going back to my gym, looking to buy a home, and occasionally eating out.  I decided to wait and make sure there weren't any major outbreaks linked to salons.  Besides--I was low maintenance and could keep wearing a ponytail for a few more weeks.

As we moved into late summer and early fall, the number of cases rose again.  I also moved, which brought its own set of risks (ahem, maskless movers).  I decided I'd better keep holding off.  As time went on, my haircare moved from ponytails to messy braids (I never became a proficient braider in all that time).

Of course, winter brought a lot of cases and deaths.  Plus, by early winter, vaccines were on the horizon.  After having waited all that time, I decided in only made sense to hold off on getting a haircut until I was fully vaccinated.

Finally, two weeks after receiving my second shot, I got my first haircut in over a year!  Scott went with me, having also foregone haircuts for all of that time.  His hair was the longest it had ever been in his life, so his transformation was arguably more dramatic than mine.

Nonetheless, it had probably been a good 20 years since my hair had been that long.  When it was dry, it hung well past my shoulders; when it was wet, it reached the middle of my back easily.  I hated the feeling of wet hair against my back after a shower.  I hated having to braid it every day or risk it getting tangled.  I hated the amount of time it took to comb it out.  I also felt like I didn't look like myself.  The long hair was like a younger version of myself, transplanted on an older face and body.

It may be a small and somewhat shallow victory, but getting a haircut was a considerable boost to my spirits.  I don't know what the "new normal" will look like for us all as we hopefully move out of constant risk, but even having six inches chopped off my hair made me feel like I was moving in that direction.

Pandemic Daze: Returning To School

 One of the great debates during the pandemic has been what to do about the schools.  I think many people agreed that closing them at the beginning of the pandemic was a smart decision.  After all, we had very little information at that point about how Covid was transmitted.  But I also think most of us thought we would ride out the school year with virtual education, but then have the students return in the fall.  In my area, most (if not all) of the public school districts initially had plans for the students to return for hybrid education in the fall, generally with a plan for one day of asynchronous virtual learning for everyone, and then everybody going to the actual school for two days so they could have half the student body attending at a time.  As Covid cases rose during the summer, they had to revisit those plans.  The public schools in my area opened virtually in the fall.

Since then, the reopening process has been controversial.  I work as a contractor for one district in my area.  They had initially started a phased reopening in the fall, with groups of students coming back in relative order of need for in-person instruction.  They had to pull back as cases rose again.  After winter break, everyone was initially virtual again.  They have since phased in reopening again, to great controversy.  On the one hand, there were concerns that virtual learning was just not working for some students, and that students with existing struggles (special needs, challenging family circumstances, etc.) were at a particular disadvantage.  On the other hand, people have legitimate concerns about getting sick.  Data showing that transmission levels in schools are low when mitigation measures are in place is small comfort if mitigation measures are difficult to enforce (try enforcing social distancing and mask-wearing around preschoolers, for instance).

I can really see both sides of the issue, and I haven't been able to fault anyone for having strong feelings about it one way or another.  But the reopening that I have seen in my district has been eye-opening, to say the least.  In my district, parents were given a choice of whether to return their children to in-person instruction.  Of my current caseload, less than half are returning to in-person instruction this year.  Of those who are, most of them will only be in-person two days per week.

In order to accommodate as many family's wishes as possible, many kids are switching teachers mid-year.  At least a few of the students on my caseload have been pretty unhappy about that, and especially for kids who are already struggling for any reason, it seems that switching teachers in the middle of the year is counterproductive.  It also puts an additional burden on teachers, needing to get to know a whole new set of kids in the middle of the year.

There is also the question of what actually happens in the school.  I went into a kindergarten classroom recently and saw a bunch of kids sitting in desks spaced apart, with a taped-off square for each one.  Every kid was on their laptop, watching a teacher do something.  It looked like their at-home virtual learning had just been transplanted into the classroom.  I've also seen the very real challenges of trying to simultaneously engage students who are in the room and students who are learning from home.

I think the bottom line is that there is a lot we just can't predict.  We can't predict whether reopening schools under these less than ideal circumstances will benefit students enough to justify the risks.  We can't predict what sorts of gaps in learning will become evident once our lives return to some version of normal.  I'm hoping that while we're still stuck in this limbo we can move beyond whether schools are open or closed, or whether the learning is in-person, virtual, synchronous, or asynchronous, and think more about how to help kids learn as well as possible under any circumstances.  

Pandemic Daze: Finally Vaccinated!

 Well, in spite of the complete lack of confidence I expressed in my last post, I received my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday!  I purposely scheduled it for a Friday so I would have the weekend to recover if I had any side effects.  So far, the side effects haven't been bad, and I tend to think I'm beyond the point at which they would be likely to get worse.  I'm feeling achy and tired today--if I hadn't had this shot yesterday, I would probably think I was coming down with something--but I'm still functioning.

I also feel relieved and grateful.  I think most of us have spent the past year worrying about the consequences of ordinarily inconsequential decisions (was the weekly trip to the grocery store going to land me or someone else in the ICU?).  Now (or at least a couple weeks from now, after I've had a chance to build up immunity) these small things will probably feel less consequential.

Many thing will stay the same.  I will still be careful to wear masks, especially since we don't know if the vaccine will prevent us from being carriers.  Most people I know have not been fully vaccinated yet (or even received their first shot), so it will still be a while before I can socialize in person.  But I think in a couple of weeks, I can feel safe getting my first haircut since last February, and maybe even eat in restaurants again.  It feels like good progress.