Day 40-Governor Newsom reinstates the mask mandate in California

Bookclub today…

1/24/22. Monday

6:00 – L. leaves for her 18-hour day at Otis.

9:30-10:00 – I wake up congested and with a headache so I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog. She’s asleep on her little blanket, but rolls over on her back when she sees me so I can pet her tummy.  I sit beside her for kisses and cuddles until she eventually grabs her toy and jumps off the couch. We go outside and I examine the yard in the daylight, after all the work I did last night. It looks so nice…except for the dog shit on the patio, near one of my potted plants (sigh). The dog goes potty and we return inside: coffee for me, turkey for her. I go upstairs.

10:00-11:00 – Blog post

11:00-11:30 – I send an email blast to the students in my 2:30 class reminding them class starts in three hours and informing my F2F students that the room has changed. Recall that Administration arbitrarily changed my room and when I asked the Dean’s Secretary for keys, she told me to “try the keys I already have.” Uh, I’ve never taught in this classroom before, so why would I have a key? As it stands, I have no key for this classroom.

12:00-1:00 – Shower. Lotion. Full make-up. I put on black pants, a white sleeveless shell, and a cardigan.  I listen to The Daily. I check email one last time before leaving in case the students have questions.

1:15-2:15 – Driving. I eat a spinach salad en route and listen to Citations Needed.

2:15-5:00 – I arrive to class early in the hope that I will catch the instructor before he leaves and thus have access to the classroom. This strategy works. I notice the instructor is wearing 2 surgical masks and uses a Clorox wipe on the doorknob when he leaves.  Uh…sanitizing went out the window a year ago.  Didn’t he get the memo? You have a 1 in 10,000 chance of contracting Covid from surfaces.  

Remember when grocery stores appointed an employee to wipe down the handle of every shopping cart before they handed it off to the customer single-handedly? At least that’s what they did at Whole Foods. Although I live in a wealthy community, I’m “broke-dick” [please excuse the profanity and see “Urban Dictionary” for the definition] so I shop at Food 4 Less, one of the poorest grocery stores around, right above a food bank.  Nobody gave a shit about the customer at Food 4 Less, because we’re all poor, and this was at the  height of “OG Covid-19”, before there were even vaccines. People grabbed a cart from the stack, business as usual…nothing was sanitized then or now. 

But I digress…

This classroom sucks. The walls are incredibly thin and the Instructor next door is “mic’d” and on Zoom, with the volume turned up to “11” [see the iconic Spinal Tap for this reference] and screaming as he lectures. It gets worse…he is teaching a Spanish class.  Some of his class are F2F and some are on Zoom and, apparently, “Kevin’s” Zoom square is still black even after the teacher has yelled his name three times, in his thick Spanish accent. Guess what?  While “Kev” is having a major attendance issue, I’m actually teaching a f%@kng class! This scenario is unfolding while I’m on Slide 4, lecturing on Federalism, and pretending like none of this is going on. 

To make matters worse, there are only SEVEN  F2F students!  What the hell am I doing here? Per the College President’s mandate, I’m wearing an N95 for the first time in the classroom. I’m NOT anti-mask, but for the first time since the pandemic started, I truly feel like I can’t breathe as I’m lecturing…it’s as if I’m not getting enough air, which is something I NEVER experienced wearing a basic cloth mask. I don’t want to be that douche bag who says “masking does not allow for the appropriate exchange of CO2 and Oxygen” but I’m light headed and have to keep taking deep breaths.  Of course, all of this may be a side effect of the Omicron variant that I just contracted and beat…but maybe wearing an N95 for 3 hours of lecture is too much.  How do elementary school teachers manage? Additionally, the mask is so tight, my left ear is killing me.  

This afternoon’s agenda involves lecture and a brief video.  When I click on the link for the podcast, I discover that the speaker in this classroom is broken…this is a recurring theme for this college.  In every classroom I’ve taught, before and during the pandemic, the speakers are always out.  I submit a Work Order request in real time and use my personal Beets speaker to project the audio.  I turn it way up, too, so Mr. Gonzalez, or whatever the fuck his name is, on the other side of the wall, can listen to a video on Federalism while he tries to conjugate verbs. Enjoy, mofo. 

I take Attendance and send an email blast reminding the students that their Inquizitives are due. 

I also take the time to send an email blast to my Specialty Class 1B students, reminding them that class starts at 6:00.  Then, I publish course content early for them. 

I dismiss the class at 5:00 today, instead of the standard 5:30, because I have Bookclub at 6:00 and I don’t give a shit when I dismiss class because it’s only affecting the SEVEN people in the room…the online section continues until the obligatory 5:30 end time. 

I dutifully try my keys before I leave and none of them work.  I email the Dean’s Secretary and inform her that I still don’t have keys to this classroom. Again. 

5:00-6:00 – When I get to the car, I discover that the strap on my N95 has cut off circulation to my left ear.  It’s a miracle that it didn’t fall off. I take off my mask and my ear is so painful! Driving. I have the “overnight oats” that I made yesterday for dinner.

6:00-7:00 – Arrive at Bookclub!! Bookclub is held at my local library and “Leslie”, the librarian, is there again! with some old Japanese man who clearly did NOT read the book, but lied and said he did. Leslie’s super excited that there are two of us at the meet.  I missed last month due to stupid time constraints at College No. 1. 

-Specialty Class 1B is in session.  While I’m at Bookclub, I’m assuming the students are logging in and accessing their course content.

 Friendshipping addresses the art of making friends and was written by a podcasting female duo – Gen Zers who provide, for the most part, useful tips for securing friendships.  Originally, I held off writing a book review for my blog because I thought I might receive some enlightened insight from the other bookclub members, but I realize now that ain’t gonna happen.  

Leslie has a list of questions designed for discussion on this book, but every time she asks Mr. Toyota what his thoughts are on the book, he dodges the question and starts pontificating on the philosophy of friendship, talking about how his Dad had a best friend, but ultimately both of his parents were each other’s best friends, and the Zen master says friendship is blah, blah, blah.  This guy is probably 70. Why are we talking about his parents, who have long since passed? 

Bookclub gets interesting when Mr. Subaru and Leslie reveal that each had a person close to them who committed suicide. They discuss how this affected them and then Leslie says, “Uh…that got pretty deep just now”, before transitioning to some of the lighter sections of the book.  

I did like this book.  Friendshipping is a compact, little book that makes for a fast read.  I have one positive and one negative takeaway.   

First, the positive: I like how the authors define virtually any consistent contact as a “friend.”  It’s okay to call “Margie”, the woman you run into at yoga every Thursday, a “friend.” That person whom you spar with at your 2:00-3:00 tennis class on Tuesdays, is also a “friend.”  This means that Gary, Awshook, and Cliff, the regulars at my Saturday Bird Watching class, are technically “friends”, even though I don’t know their last names or phone numbers. I kinda like their loose definition of friendship…it means we can label a lot of people we come in contact with as  “friends”, which means that, due to this re-framing, which is a “cheat”, I actually have lots of friends [insert smile emoji here]. Leslie said she liked that about the book, too. 

The negative: The authors recommend that you “give your pronouns” every time you introduce yourself. Here’s an example in a new situation/group:  “Hi. My name is Ellen and I identify as ‘she’ and ‘her.’ “  If I would have led with that phrase at my first Striders [night walking group] meet, the rest of the members would have avoided me for all time – I would have been a pariah. I find identifying my pronouns  extremely off-putting, but this might be a reflection of my age demographic so I asked L. about it and she said none of her peers do this. When I bring it up to Leslie, she relays a Librarian Conference that she recently attended, where they wrote their names AND identifying pronouns on their nametags, but that was it.  

Leslie reveals the title of our next book – Professional Troublemaker; the Fear-Fighter’s Manual and has extra copies ready for us at the library. I’ll be back next month because…I like Leslie. Mr. Suzuki?  Not so much. If he doesn’t return…no loss.  

7:00-7:30 – Driving home

7:30-9:00-I bring all my bags into the house and unpack, then log into class to check on my students.

-So far, no crises, so I take this time to listen to TWO AUDIO lecture, on double-speed, for my Core Class.

-A student emails from the 2:30 class and says she is having difficulty accessing the Inquizitives so I email her the link to the publisher’s Help Desk.

-I take Attendance for Specialty Class 1B.

-The Census is due at College No. 1, so I complete it and submit; then

-I have some cheese and crackers.

-Class dismissed.

9:00-9:30 – I submit my FLEX [Continuing Education] contract for approval.

9:30-9:45 – I send a final email blast to the Core Class students reminding them that their Inquizitives are due at midnight.

-I check my email and print out the directions for tomorrow’s hiking spot.

9:45-10:00 – I bring in my trash cans;

10:00-10:30 – then finish the blog post I started this morning.

10:30-11:15 – I take a brief power nap; then

11:30-12:00 – I do a 30-minute Insanity Max – Tabata Power workout. It’s hard to get through and I’m experiencing the same “moldy lung” phenom that I discussed in a previous blog.

12:00-1:00 – Unfortunately, I’m starving, which is a real problem this late at night. I pack a lunch bag and ready my coffee as I eat a leftover piece of pizza that L. got from somewhere??? and a small bowl of L.’s cinnamon graham cereal. I know I’ll pay for this weight-wise in the morning.

1:00-1:45 – I take the dog out and set out my hiking uniform for tomorrow. Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m.