It's been an eventful grandchild summer for me. I drove to Arizona to see Muffin's Sister, her kids, her relatively new SO, and SO's son, who is just a little younger than her youngest. The original grandsons are Stud Muffin, Jr. and Mini Muffin, but the bonus grandson needs a name. Flapjack?

We had a fantabulous time swimming, playing board games, watching movies, and playing with Stud Muffin, Jr.'s telescope, then I drove back home and got back to work on the book. (Can you tell that I'm avoiding airplanes? It has something to do with getting stuck on a flight back in April in the same row with a bunch of scary-looking military dudes flouting the mask rule....)

Once the book was in the can, my sister flew here and we drove together to Muffin's Brother's house in Florida, stopping to see various vaccinated friends and relatives along the way and meeting Muffin and Muffin's SO at her brother's house. After a week of swimming, board games, and Olympics watching, I was poised to drive home alone, as my sister had flown home...and we got the news that Stud Muffin, Jr. had tested positive for COVID.

I had a little freak-out, considering that I was in Florida with a car and I had a sick grandson in Arizona and, thus, couldn't just hop on a plane if needed. I decided that instead of driving 1300 miles to Oklahoma, I would drive 2100 miles to Arizona, where I'd stay with Muffin's Sister, since the sick kid was staying with his dad, who has already had COVID and is something of a denier anyway. Everyone in my life didn't think that this was a spiffy idea, but I am never going to be rational when it comes to Muffin's Sister's health, not when I consider the sequelae of her dramatic birth. And, of course, the children are unvaccinated. I wanted to be there.

Well, three hundred-ish miles before I reached my destination, we got word that Flapjack, though asymptomatic, had tested positive. Now there was no place for me to stay that was not a house of pestilence. I decided to push on through and get a hotel room for a while, hovering in case somebody got very sick and I needed to trust my vaccination and wade in to help take care of people. Everybody in my life was not on board with this, either, and I can't say that they were wrong, but y'all. What is the right thing to do here? There is no right thing to do here.

The boys were never very sick, so I drove home after a few days to work on final revisions for the book and to get ready for the fall semester.

Yesterday, school started in the COVID hellhole that is Florida. DeSantis has canceled the online school program that my grandchildren have used since the pandemic began. The remaining options are suboptimal and the decision has been made that the younger one, Beefcake, should go back to in-person school, while Princess Cooky homeschools for a while.

My daughter-in-law posted a picture of his cherubic little face as he left for school yesterday. Y'all, I'm not okay.

Hoo boy... I feel for you.

Just got word that our in-laws were exposed in the retirement home and are awaiting test results. Grandpa's in his 90s and both are fully vaxxed, but...

Oh, no. I hope they're okay, Ron.

The Plague Years are upon us. My immune compromised spouse is nervous about all of this despite vaccination status. Our only concession to normalcy is that we don't wear masks when outside in the normal gale force winds that seem to be ever present.

Mary Anna - hope everyone recovers w/o long-term issues.

The possibility of long-term issues keeps me awake at night, and not just for my loved ones.

I really feel like our society will be dealing with (or not dealing with, based on history) the needs of people who are physically hampered by the results of COVID for the rest of our lives.

Muffin's Sister just texted. She's home sick with fever, runny nose, sore throat, sinus pressure and such.

I forgot to include in my saga above that Mini Muffin had a false alarm last week with a nasty cough, but he tested negative for COVID. He has tested positive for antibodies, so he had an asymptomatic infection at some point. Thus, the cough was probably some routine infection going around at school. He's well and back at school, so now...

...Muffin's Sister is sick. She's vaccinated, so it's probably whatever it was Mini Muffin had last week, unless his test was a false negative. Nevertheless, I am not okay. She already has lung, brain, and liver damage from the events of her birth. COVID could exacerbate those and it could give those to all of my not-able-to-be-vaccinated grandchildren. I'm really not okay.

Meanwhile, I am updating my syllabi. We are completely back to pre-pandemic operations. No required masks. No required vaccinations. No social distancing. It is as if the world is not burning. However, we are being encouraged to plan for students to be out for illness or quarantine or bereavement. It has been suggested that we lift attendance requirements and deadlines. Does this mean that all of the students will turn in all of their homework during finals week? Possibly. Does it mean that I need to essentially develop two parallel classes, one based on my lectures and one based on material that students can read at home if they are quarantined/ill/bereaved? Why, yes. It does.

Have I gotten any guidance at all on how to deal with the inane "Don't teach Critical Race Theory" law, which our legislature has defined as anything that might make a student feel bad about their race or gender? Why, no. I have not. In theory, it could be illegal to answer if a student asks me why George Sand and George Eliot wrote under pseudonyms that obscured the fact that they were women. I guess I'll write y'all from jail.

Not okay. Nope, I'm not okay.

Wow. That's a lot to go through at one time!

I'm so sorry you have all that to worry about. Offering my long distance hug and keeping the faith that all will work out well....

Thanks, y'all.

MA, hugs to you and yours. Socially distant hugs.

My friend’s 80+ yo mom has covid, in the hospital for a week. Fully vaxed at beginning of this year.

Oh, no.

I hope her mom does well and gets home from the hospital soon.

I started July trusting my vaccination to let me do some marginally normal things like spend time with a friend in a nearly empty coffee shop. I don't think we can be sure enough of our protection to do that kind of thing now.

In a note of good news, Muffin's Sister's COVID test came back negative!

Yay!

Oh Mary Anna, I'm so sorry. Here is a prayer for your grandbabies that everyone who has tested positive recovers quickly, fully and without incident! And I am so glad that Muffin's Sister's covid test was negative, here's hoping she feels better quickly!

My uni is like your uni, full of cognitive dissonance in all of its policies. No masks, no vaccine rules, no social distancing... And teachers may encourage, but not require, masks.... Magically, I'm sure that will work.

I'm in denial that I have a class of 52 first year students in a room that will barely hold all of them.... And these are students I don't know, don't have a previous relationship with, so how are they going to react to my request that they voluntarily mask up??

There go my evals...