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lus tax for 10 they re good for eight hours continuous wearing but in theory you can then air them out and reuse them if they re not dirty damaged the kids masks have never made it past a full day of wear we have spent hundreds on them in the past year rapid and molecular tests i brought 20 rapid tests on our trip we used almost all of them some of them were free some of them we bought online we used them to confirm none of us caught covid on our extended journey there we used them to gather safely with family we used them whenever one of us appeared symptomatic some relatives we spent a lot of time with nearly always had cold allergy symptoms which inevitably transferred to us so we all spent heaps of time doing rapid tests to be certain that s all it was we also had a couple of the lucira check it molecular tests which are an at home pcr level test these are really expensive 75 usd per test one of my relatives has access to a steady supply of them as a work benefit and they re able to flick a few extras on to us without easy access to pcr testing these help us determine whether we need to be masking the entire household during those days when a rapid test might produce a false negative we used one when e had a weird rapid test result a shadow not a line and not quite in the right spot for the second line and one when q was sick with the other family s cold and we had a big family event to attend both times the tests were negative both times the result was a huge relief again see privilege above co2 monitor i made a somewhat impulse decision to buy a co2 monitor right before we left on our trip i d borrowed one from a friend for a few days earlier in the spring so i knew how useful they could be but i d been hesitating over the cost in the end i took the plunge because privilege and i am so glad i did i bought an aranet4 from here no affiliation but they were fabulous to deal with and so fast which was the one my friend who is a ventilation engineer by profession told me was the best one to get quick summary the monitor provides readings every five minutes of the level of co2 in the air outside air has around 420 ppm 1200 ppm means about 2 of the air you re breathing has already been in someone else s lungs cleaner air less chance of catching covid the monitors don t take into account the impact of hepa filters that monitor paid for itself when our outbound trip took 113 hours instead of 24 it told me how good the air was in the airports in three of the four exceptional in the fourth very good it told me how good the air was in the airplanes disappointingly high although i know the air is heavily filtered it told me how good the air was in the hotel we ended up staying in very very good including in the restaurant when you are flying travelling continuously for as long as we were you can t refuse to eat or drink and just keep your mask on it s not possible or safe the co2 monitor let us make better choices about when where to unmask it s a lot less stressful to eat indoors for the first time since the pandemic started when you can see that the air is reading 480 ppm the kids had a particular public transit route they desperately desperately wanted to take it was on their list of things they most wanted to do down under we rode it and learned the air quality wasn t good enough so on the return trip we took a different option with better air now that we re back home i m going to use the co2 monitor to help me figure out which things we can add back into our lives indoor spaces can be safe with masks even without mandates if the ventilation is good enough covid isn t going away and our governments don t seem interested in doing the work to control it i would like to be able to do more things with my kids but i would also like to know that we re choosing safer environments i m also really excited about the potential of the raven cleanair map which hadn t launched yet while we were away this is an attempt to crowdsource co2 readings of public spaces to help everyone make better choices someone posted a reading for a packed movie theatre in my city no mask mandate the air was excellent we haven t been to the movies the entire pandemic and i m not sure i could cope with a full house but maybe seeing a movie that s been out for a while is a possibility for us now governments should be requiring businesses and public spaces to post their co2 readings and should have incentive programs to improve the ventilation in buildings that are found to have inadequate airflow but they won t and they don t so citizen activism will have to fill in the gaps i hope this was helpful does anyone else have good travel tips 4 comments filed under covid 19 down under soapbox what were we thinking aka travelling with small children february 3 2022 10 22 am what s saving my life right now winter 2022 covid edition the second every year at the midpoint of winter modern mrs darcy publishes her list of what is saving her life right now big things small things doesn t matter i participated i think for the first time last year hahaha i called it covid edition because i thought covid would be done by february 2022 last year i came up with seven things i read my post again before drafting this one some of it made me smile a lot of it made me sad so much of what i m feeling right now reflects exactly how i was feeling last year although now the feelings are even stronger after another full year of the pandemic right down to the difficulties i m having reading one of my most important anxiety management strategies coming up with a list this time around was hard as i have written here and here i have been really struggling over the past few months and i think you see this in the things i ve chosen because they are all little in the sense that they ask little of me and they take little time i don t have the bandwidth for anything larger wordle mel put me on to wordle at the start of december i have played it every day since it is the first thing i do when i wake up although i stop until i m more awake if things are looking dicey i feel deeply pleased with myself when i get the word especially if things had been looking dicey i have a perfect win record and a streak in the mid high 60s it took me multiple days to write this post i love it i especially love that i can only play once per day as this is exactly the kind of game that i would find addictive cough wordscapes in spring 2020 cough e has started playing it too i am sad that the nyt has bought it and may well move it behind a paywall but i also respect the developer s decision to take the low seven figures offer for a game that he made to be a bit of fun for his partner marvel shows on disney i guess it s hard to argue that these are saving my life right now since there isn t new marvel content appearing weekly and they delayed the release of the hawkeye assembled episode by three weeks so it won t be out until the 9th but they provided so much joy in 2021 that they still make the list even thinking about new content or reading about fan theories about new content makes me happy today i read that season 2 of loki is scheduled to film this summer and it seriously boosted my mood the end credits scene from the season finale of hawkeye made my entire winter break it was like marvel had read my mind it did take me weeks to get the earworm out of my head i love these because a i love the mcu and getting more time with characters overlooked in the films or with new characters in the slower paced world of the tv shows is great b when a show is streaming i get a new episode every week so i always have something to look forward to and then something to read about online once i ve seen it c the shows take less commitment than a movie i ve seen the new movies that have come out on disney too black widow shang chi eternals and enjoyed them but it is really hard to find enough time to myself to watch a movie these days one episode though i can watch that during lunch on wednesdays when the kids are at school and q is teaching and that makes it a little treat just for me there is very little that is just for me in a house where more often than not all four of us are home funny people on twitter i m not actually on twitter but i spend a lot of time more than i should doom scrolling twitter mostly checking covid stuff from the people i trust or keeping tabs on what s happening in the province s schools i m not on most other social media so i m usually way behind with memes and things but i do really appreciate a clever take on things neoliberal john snow addressing preventable disease through deregulation and individualism is fabulous just recently noelle has been dedicating her days to listening to the zillow channel for the trucker protest in ottawa scare quotes because most of them aren t truckers because the truckers are vaccinated and doing their jobs and because it s not a protest so much as it is a temper tantrum what those on the channel are saying is not meant by them to be funny but it really really is again short time investment big boost to my mood also this tweet also about the protest in my opinion won the internet hawks in the city we have a pair of red tailed hawks who live in our area plus some smaller raptors it makes me happy to see them circling overhead it reminds me to look up it reminds me to slow down it reminds me how blue the sky is how lucky i am that my legs work that my lungs work that my body does all the things my father s body no longer can hawks help get me out of my head and into the present the best blue skies come on the coldest days when the snow squeaks as you walk on it april our semester ends in april neither of us is teaching in the summer if we can just get to april we will have some time to try to put ourselves back together or so i tell myself about fifty times a day i know it is bad practice to put goalposts on uncontrollable things because when those goalposts are met and things don t change it makes it harder to keep on keeping on the appearance of omicron really hurt i hadn t realized how much i had been counting on my kids second vaccination as an end point so many things could still prevent the summer months from being restorative school closures for all of may and june as an example i am maybe setting myself up for crushing disappointment but right now the thought of april is the only thing that keeps me from curling up under my desk covering myself in a blanket and crying pretty much every day so i am going to hang on to it and that i think is it everything i said last year about privilege and what s actually saving my life still holds true in the grand scheme of things we remain immensely fortunate but even with all our privilege q and i are shadows of our former selves so when i find a moment of lightness i try to really acknowledge it taking suggestions for a fairly light well written series bonus if fantasy sci fi mg or ya target audience welcome something like becky chambers wayfarers or rick riordan s trials of apollo which brought me so much joy last year or louise penny s inspector gamache ooh i just learned guy gavriel kay has a new book coming in may so that s something to look forward to if you read all the way to the end please tell me dear reader what s saving your life right now 1 comment filed under blink and you ll miss it covid 19 daily life february 2 2022 7 11 am the postscript like i said in my last post we sent the kids to school on monday morning they both had a great day late monday afternoon we got the email that a parent had reported a positive case in p s class to the school there had been no such emails in the previous two weeks when we d been keeping them home while they built immunity from their second dose we debated but ultimately decided to send her back and take her out if any more cases arose we pulled p back out at lunch on tuesday because we learned of a second case i heard about it from parents at drop off and i would have turned around and taken her home with me right then except she was already in the classroom a third case was announced via email by tuesday afternoon the parents of that child haven t self identified on our group chat thread but i suspect it might be the kid who had a play date on the weekend with the second case and whose mother was the one announcing the other kid was positive and that her child had had a play date with said child as she was sending her kid into the classroom where they i only later learned from p sit at her table so e is still going to school and p is at home until at least monday and q is grumpy because for the first time in the entire pandemic our assessments of the risks do not align q is of the view that we ve done everything we can to make ourselves safe that omicron is so widespread and so transmissible that it is inevitable that we are going to get it and that the disruption from having the kids home especially p not her fault she s just younger is unsustainable and has to end i am of the view that we should refuse to accept infection as inevitable and that we should continue to remove ourselves from high risk situations especially during times of peak infection when the health care system is overloaded and dangerously close to collapse i get that my kids are extremely unlikely to end up in the hospital and the evidence is looking better on long covid if you re vaccinated but if covid turns out to cause problems after infection years or decades down the road i don t want to be part of the group that learns that the hard way it s becoming increasingly clear that one and done doesn t apply with covid infections the idea of let s get it and then we ll have gotten it over with just isn t true q is right that at some point we are going to have to reenter our lives he is also right that we are losing our minds after two years of teaching online while juggling the kids who have been home far more than they have been in school but i can t rationalize keeping her in a situation that would have shut down the classroom in december the only thing that has changed is the public health guidance which is based on our government s decision to give up on the pandemic and just pretend everything is fine especially in the schools full of un undervaccinated children our public health protocols are bad protocols so she stays home until the situation looks better even if that means i get up at 5 am to do the marking i thought i could do during school hours p s schooling right now is low stakes she s not even legally obligated to be there she misses her friends and she s concerned that the class is learning french letter sounds without her but a few more days even a few more weeks over the course of this year will not have grave long term consequences for her what keeps me up at night is that it might already be too late the day and a half she was in school might have already given her covid i keep sa...