Haskap berry jam from Prince Edward Island. Passion fruit jam from Paris. Lingonberry jam from Sweden. Quince peach cinnamon compote from London. During our travels, we’ve been gifted or purchased small jars of jam when we come across something unique or different than what we have easy access to in New York. And for the longest time, we barely touched any of the jars since pre-pandemic, we rarely bought bread at home, and even if we did, I’d need to store it, sliced, in our freezer because we were never home enough to eat it all before it went bad. Then once the pandemic began, we started going through all the jars, one by one. And finally, we had our last smear of haskap jam (TOTALLY OBSESSED; I’ve looked into mail ordering it from PEI) from the same company), and Chris got concerned and immediately started thinking about buying raspberry jam. So he went off to Trader Joe’s, picked up a jar of raspberry jam, and on a weekend we had it on toast…. and realized immediately how cloyingly sweet it was, like TOO SWEET, like we were just eating sugar with a sprinkle of fruit in it.

This is what happens when you become so accustomed to having jams that are made in small batches, by small businesses who are interested in showing you the real flavors of fruit, rather than the mass produced, bulk packaged commercial jams that people in today’s fast moving society just readily accept as “normal.”

A couple weeks later, Chris made us do a detour to the Greenmarket in Union Square to get a small batch jar of Beth’s jam. We’ll see if it’s any less sweet than this Trader Joe’s raspberry jam.

Chris loves to look at trends in our spending year over year, and he noted that in 2020, unsurprisingly, our grocery and takeout/delivery food spend was at its all-time highest levels. Part of the reason it is like that is not just because we were all sheltering in place, not just because we couldn’t dine out at restaurants, but it’s also because all of our work and pleasure travel was completely cancelled. A lot of our spending on dining out, indulgent/specialty foods or drinks happens when we are traveling. During travel is when we’d pick up things we normally wouldn’t find here in New York, such as haskap berry jam, passion fruit jam, a South Australia wine vinegar, or a dong ding oolong loose leaf tea from a very specific region in Taiwan. In 2020, I surprisingly not only drank ALL my tea that I got in China with the exception of some high end loose leafs that I’m spreading out (and… I got a LOT), but I nearly went through my entire supply of Sri Lankan Dilmah tea, which we usually get when we’re in Australia because they do not seem to distribute to the U.S. So that led me to buy matchas, some other sencha and genmaicha green teas from the Japanese grocery store, and also a few Nepali teas. With the world at your finger tips, I’ve been relying on online sources to send me the world to enjoy through my mouth. We’ve also been more indulgent with things we normally don’t buy much of, such as Indian sweets. This last weekend when we were in Jackson Heights, we spent nearly $38 on rasmalai, gulab jamun, pista rolls, and kesar ladoos from our favorite sweets shop, Maharaja Sweets. It was a record! I normally never get more than a pound of sweets there (the pricing is roughly about $11-12/lb, depending on which sweet you choose).

We have saved a lot of money because of the pandemic, but we’ve also managed to indulge in other areas, and with us, “indulging” tends to be through food.

Chris and I are both lucky in that we randomly get days off from work because of the pandemic. At my work, we call them ‘wellness days.” At his work, I don’t know what they call them, but they are just as random as mine are. Since he had a wellness day this Friday, he suggested I take the day off so that we could go to Costco. I looked at him and said, why do I have to take the day off when it’s your wellness day, but when I have a wellness day, you don’t want to take the day off? He basically went on his little spiel about how it’s harder for him to take days off when everyone else is working because “so much is going on.” That honestly seemed like a cop-out way of trying to say that his work is more important than mine, but given the fact that I have only taken two days off since beginning this job in September, I figured I might as well just take the day off and have some time away from a computer. And also, I’m not working in an emergency room, so nothing I am doing is that urgent or needs to be attended to immediately (he also does not work in an emergency room, but he can certainly treat his work as “importantly” as he wants to).

So, I’m taking a day off. These three days are the only days when I’ve taken a day off and not really traveled… like REALLY traveled. It’s an adjustment for me, but maybe that’s what I need to do more of: take random days off just for myself, even if I have nothing really to do… because that will be better for my health overall, mental and physical. I really do need to be better about “doing nothing” in a world that is constantly judging you based on productivity.

I can’t even believe it. For the first time ever, I actually have three virtual social events to “attend” this weekend: a catch up with some female friends on Saturday night, a reiki launch session with a friend, and a friend’s baby shower. And then today, we had a Google Hangout with Chris’s parents and brother. It’s the “busiest” social period for me since the pandemic began.

I used to always feel so exhausted every time certain friends of mine would talk about how “back to back” all their friends outings and gatherings were every weekend, how they would literally go from event to event from Friday night through Sunday night. I wasn’t sure if it was a way to brag or show off that one had so many friends, or if it was meant to complain because they packed their schedules so much. But for me, just having three events on a single weekend is a LOT. But I’m looking forward to it. I do enjoy my alone time. I love reading and cooking and doing things by myself. But I also miss socializing in small groups and 1:1 with friends more regularly.

Pretty much every Monday through Friday since September when gyms were allowed to open in the city, I have, no fail, gone to the gym every single weekday morning. The primary activity I do is run on the treadmill (some form of HIIT/interval running to prevent things from getting boring. Running at one or two speeds for too long of a time is incredibly boring to me), but I also add in some form of strength training, barre, pilates, or yoga every day. Monday-Thursday is intense cardio with a mix up of strength, barre, or pilates. Friday is always a lighter run day (lower speeds for about 20-25 min vs. 30-40 min) combined with about 30-35 min of vinyasa yoga. Friday is like the cool-down, transition-into-the-weekend workout. Vinyasa yoga has a lot of toning and strength, but it’s also a lot more balance and focus, so I like doing this on Fridays to unwind a little.

I also notice the regulars who always come around my same time of the morning. We greet each other and say hi/bye. I often get comments that I am likely the most diligent gym-goer in the entire building (which is likely true, but hey, what else do I have to do during a pandemic??). One of these friendly people, however, is a little weird. When I say “weird,” what I mean is… I’m not sure if he goes to the gym just to get out of his apartment or for a change of scenery, but I feel like he’s mostly there to NOT work out, and instead to sit there, vegetate, look through his phone, lift an occasional weight while sitting down… and… even watch me work out. It’s a weird for a few reasons: 1) I strongly dislike people who go to the gym to “say” they go to the gym, but don’t actually work out. If you are going to hog one of three slots at the gym, or go to the gym at all, make use of the space and time! Work out! Exercise! Do what you’re supposed to do while there! 2) Does this person “tell” other people like his significant other, his friends, etc., that he “went to the gym” to imply he actually worked out, but in reality, does it to ward off guilt because he actually didn’t do any exercise at all? Not trying to be mean, but he’s got a super big pot belly….. maybe he should apply himself… and 3) I’m not really sure if he’s actually watching me. When I’ve been a little suspicious, I’ve moved my workout setup when not at the treadmill to another part of the gym to be totally out of his view. And, he doesn’t seem to move with me thankfully, but it’s still uncomfortable to even think that he would watch me.

All I have to say is… if you are at the gym, do your workout, mind your own business, and leave! Don’t be a gawker. Don’t just use the gym as a place to “hang out” or “escape.”

For the last two days, it’s been snowing pretty much nonstop. And since I no longer go into an office for work and we’re still living in an ongoing global pandemic, there’s really no “commute” anymore, unless you want to include the time it takes me to get from my bedroom to my dining room table where my computer setup is. So I haven’t left the apartment since Sunday, and I likely will not be leaving the apartment at all this week until maybe Friday.

I still remember when I first saw snow during my first winter in Wellesley in November 2004. I was so excited, and I couldn’t wait to build snowmen and make snow angels and just feel the snow on my face and skin. Now, over 16 years later, while I still find the snowfall beautiful, especially when the snowflakes are huge and fluffy, I also admire it while I am warm and cozy inside, preferably under a blanket and with a hot drink in hand, and still absolutely hate walking through it, especially days after the snow fall when the snow becomes ice, and I have to worry about my aging bones and the potential that I could actually fall and break said bones.

If you’ve ever visited New York City, you’ll know that most of the buildings across the five boroughs are old, old, and old. What that tends to mean is…not only are the buildings old, but their entire makeup from underground and up, including the sewage systems, the pipes, the walls, are ancient. And what that tends to translate into when it comes to you? It means that every time you do your business and flush the toilet… it may not always go all the way down, or as quickly as you’d like.

Oftentimes, when you use public restrooms in restaurants or whatever common spaces in New York, it’s common to see signs that say something like, “Please hold the flusher down three seconds,” or “Do NOT put anything into the toilet other than toilet paper!” The plumbing is weak. You definitely do NOT want your pee or crap coming up. No one wants to see that, not even you. So it’s weird when you know you live in a relatively new building and you find out that the handymen recommend that you NOT use two-ply, Charmin brand toilet paper. Huh?

We’ve been living in our current building for the last 3.5 years, and never even once have we ever had any toilet problem… until today. Chris noticed that the toilet was flushing slower than usual, and so we called the handyman to come up. He came up and looked at the toilet paper on our toilet paper handle. “Is that Charmin?” he asked us. We responded that it was, and he said he’d strongly recommend we not use it anymore because the pipes here can’t handle it.

This building just opened in 2016 and isn’t even five years old. How can a NEW building have pipes that cannot handle two-ply toilet paper from a mainstream toilet paper brand???? If new buildings in New York cannot handle two-ply toilet paper, then the rest of the city (if not the world) is screwed.

So after endless doctor visits for bloodwork and ultrasounds, and nearly three weeks of self-administered injections, I finally get told today that the doctor thinks I’m ready for the procedure to extract my eggs this Saturday. This is called, in doctor speak, oocyte retrieval, or in everyday speak, egg retrieval. The nurse calls me today to ask me if I’d just like local anesthesia or IV sedation. In my head, I’m thinking they serve pretty much the same purpose. Well, guess what? I’m wrong since I know very little about this stuff.

The nurse explains that the local anesthesia would be an injection in my vagina (!!!!!). This would numb the area, but because the procedure goes so quickly, the actual numbness would not go into effect until about 10-15 minutes in, and this procedure, depending on how many oocytes there are, is only between 20-30 minutes. So in other words, I’d actually feel the doctor sticking aspirating needles into EACH of my follicles. Ummmmmm, NO.

The second option is IV sedation. This is when an anesthesiologist would stick an IV into my arm, and when the doctor was ready to begin, he’d have the IV activated, I’d initially taste a bit of metallic in my mouth, and within ten seconds, I’d be sleeping. So I’d have no recollection or feeling of anything that happened during this procedure.

This is a very easy decision to make. I absolutely want IV sedation!

But get this: the nurse explains the reason they have to ask this is that because most women who go through this procedure have zero insurance coverage, so having IV sedation would be yet another line item on your bill. I confirmed with her that my insurance does cover these benefits, and when I gave her the name of the provider, she then said, “Oh, then they will definitely cover IV sedation then!” (And because I’m paranoid, I contacted the insurance provider to confirm in writing that they’d cover this).

This really doesn’t have to be this complicated. But because we’re in the U.S. navigating healthcare, it has to be this insane.

So as I’ve been reading about fertility treatments and medication and also undergoing some of these myself, I was curious to understand… what the heck are you supposed to do with your meds if you do not need all of them? Are you supposed to donate them, give them to your clinic for patients who cannot easily afford… sell them on a black market….?! For your FYI in case you have never learned anything about American healthcare or infertility…. but this is actually a BUSINESS. Insurance companies, hospitals, doctors are profiting off of your diseases, every 15-min appointment, your inability to conceive naturally. Once you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year and have failed, you’re basically deemed “infertile” regardless of your age, and the ‘ka-ching!’ goes off at every single nearby fertility clinic around you. Billions of dollars are spent on healthcare here in the US every single year with pretty terrible outcomes, and I’m sure millions and millions are spent on allowing families to expand. For a basic IVF medication package, assuming you have zero coverage through your health insurance, the approximate sticker price for one IVF stimulation cycle is $8,900 USD. This number is assuming you don’t require extra meds because your follicles take longer on average to mature. If that number is not terrifying and absolutely absurd to you, you need to leave right now and stop reading this post because frankly, you are out of your mind, and I want nothing to do with you.

So I did look up what you’re supposed to do if you have leftover meds (and, inevitably, you WILL have leftover medications). It is illegal (yes, illegal) to give your meds to someone whose name is NOT on the prescription. It is illegal to try to sell these drugs to a friend or via Craiglist or some black market. It is illegal for pretty much anyone else to use your drugs that is not you. When I think about that, I realize… wow, this system is so unbelievably fucked up. You spend tens of thousands of dollars on trying to conceive, and you cannot even legally give your drugs to someone else who may be in financial need (or need, because some of these drugs have actually had a shortage, or try to recoup some of the insane dollars that were spent on this entire effort? And when someone else may run out of their drugs, be given last minute notice by their doctor that they need to continue medication for a drug they no longer have enough of that has also run OUT at their local pharmacy, they’re technically breaking the LAW if they accept it from someone who wants to give it to them nearby?????

The only people winning in these situations… are the doctors, the clinics, and the health insurance providers. It’s such a sad and infuriating process.