Coffee Break: Dream Cloud Faux-Suede Block Heel

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1. Welp, one of our friends is resigning her in-person job (running a day care, while having to fill-in in the rooms more as staff periodically rotates out due to exposure) because she and her husband are not able to juggle remote work for their two school-aged kids and also their non-school-aged kid for her to homeschool one kid, supervise the very young kid, and help the other kid muddle through with their remote schooling.

   And 5 months into a large city where private school kids are getting in-person school and public school kids are still at home, public school kids are flooding into activities (even though it is cold outside) so that they can stop being so isolated, get some exercise, give parents a bit of down time, etc. I can’t say that I blame them — I get being judicious with your risk and exposure, but hunkering down while others don’t hunker down seems to be at its limit.

   Also, our ICU capacity is at 105% (which I don’t think works, mathematically — whatever the current occupancy is, that is the new 100% of capacity, no? They just made 10 louder; no need to go up to 11). Which is not fine, as I was going into an intersection and then a woman with a red light pulled into it (I thought to make a right-on-red) and just barely missed T-boning me this morning. Oddly, I was on my way to the doctor. Who probably wondered why my blood pressure was in the pushing-pins-into-voodoo-doll range.

   1. This is a lot of anxiety spiraling I’m sorry you are in so much distress.

      1. You are missing the point.

      2. She is not anxious for pointing out that times are terrible when times are actually terrible. You might want to deal with your own refusal to accept reality rather than playing armchair psychiatrist on the internet.

         1. Quoted from a blog I enjoy:

            “He b*tches, ‘I feel like you’re too stressed about [maintaining social distance].’ And I’m like: “I don’t know what issues you’ve got with your adrenal system, but staying six feet away from you is neither difficult nor stressful for me. You know what is stressful? Caring for a dying parent. Watching your loved ones die. Not knowing if you or your family will have the medical resources they need if they get sick.”

            This is exactly how I feel. Enforcing six feet of distance is the least stressful thing I’ve seen or done all year.

         2. At my old job, someone told me that I was “really scared of the virus” because I wore masks in the common areas.

   2. I don’t know how to get to 105% of ICU capacity. Perhaps deaths and refilling the beds. Cheery thought.

      1. Perhaps doubling up and hallways etc. like it is not hard to comprehend?

      2. Back when my area was a hotspot, they were converting non-ICU floors to ICU/Covid floors, plus using small, specialty hospitals for overflow (either Covid or non-Covid, depending). It’s possible that the >100% figure reflects this increase above the “normal” amount of designated ICU beds. Yes, the state could just raise the cap to reflect the “new” 100%, but it may be valuable to know how many of those beds are not typical ICU beds, or it could be something simple like the state’s hospital licenses specifying ICU vs. non-ICU beds.

         1. This. Some hospitals have converted gift shops into ICU beds. That’s how you get 105% capacity and that is important to know.

      3. I don’t know about the #s, but our city is having a booming year in murder (and other serious assaults — a lot of people here get mad and just start shooting it seems). And it’s a car city with a lot of interstates, so it’s not like people are going to put off that traffic accident until they get their COVID shots this summer. So what do the true emergencies do? It’s not like you can just send ambulances on their way — the serious trauma cases go to the Serious Trauma Hospitals, not to the place that does outpatient surgery but mainly nose jobs.

         [I am guessing, but if I were in the hospital, I’d want a family member there with me, but I think that is not generally possible. I am sure that people are stretched very thin and I’d appreciate a second set of eyes on me not trying to do 5 other jobs at the same time.]

         1. No. You don’t get a family member. Have you been in a box all of covid?

            1. Nope — I have a dad who can’t hear and just nods and smiles when doctors try to tell him something. Note to medical peeps: most old guys can’t really hear you and need a family member listening for them.

            2. Huh? You don’t get a family member. Because there is a plague. No one thinks this is good. Yes it probably causes real harm. This is literally not remotely news.

            3. Yeah, the workaround with my family members’ doctors has been for them to get the family member on speakerphone. Which of course works out great when you’re in the hospital and have no clue when the doctor will or won’t appear to discuss your care or post-discharge instructions (a lot of “must answer this unknown number ugh” going around) but the best we can do in These Times.

            4. this. My grandma was in a hospital for the last two months (not for covid, on the geriatric ward), my dad got to visit one time. My friend gave birth to a little one three months ago, dad and big brother could not visit.

            5. At least in my city, if you are hospitalized you are still permitted one family member during your stay if you’re inpatient. The family member can’t come and go and has to remain in your room at all times.

            6. There is a lot of “Everybody knows this is the way it is everywhere” on this board when, in fact, it is definitely not the same everywhere. Based on the description, I am pretty certain that cbackson and the OP and I are all in the same city.

      4. Usual licensed capacity is xxx. Hospitals can flex up in a variety of ways, there may be some rooms/units that are not typically in use, and in the baseline bed capacity. They can open these rooms for patients, they can create new bed space in random areas (conference rooms, hallways, etc.), they can double us patients in single rooms. Anything above their normal, licensed capacity would be greater than 100% occupancy (if those beds are full). Anything >100% requires more resources (doctors, nurses, equipment) than the hospital has planned/staffed for and results in spreading those resources thinner than they typically are.

         1. Yes. Simply pretending that X+Y is the new X removes the value of X as a meaningful metric in the operation of a hospital.

      5. Uh, obviously 105% of capacity means they are using hallways, waiting rooms, gift shops etc. This is not hard to understand.

      6. its bedspacing ICU patients to other places.

         Ie. if we have 100 ICU beds but 105 patients who need ICU level care, 5 patients are placed in the post-operative recovery area or somewhere like that. They are ICU patients but there is no ICU bed for them. It indicates that you are over capacity.

   3. I believe 105% capacity means that they have 5% more patients in ICU than they can really accommodate. People being treated in hallways, repurposed rooms, by reassigned staff, with borrowed equipment etc. They shouldn’t just call it the new 100% capacity, because then they’re not communicating the overage and it looks sustainable while it really isn’t.

      1. +1, it is meant to emphasize that resources are being borrowed from elsewhere.

      2. In California, ambulances are waiting outside the ERs for up to seven hours waiting for beds to become free.

   4. In Los Angeles, the hospitals have issued a directive to ambulances/EMTs not to bring any “arrests” (stopped hearts) to the ER but to declare the person dead in the field.

      This is the beginning of the kind of serious rationing of care that we’ve been worried about.

      I realize that when someone’s heart has stopped it’s a pretty small chance that an ER can bring them back, but this was my own mother several years ago, and they did bring her back.

      So what’s next?

      1. That’s a terrifying prospect – but apparently to acknowledge that means you’re just “anxious.”

         On that note, it helped me a lot when Lauren posted here a week or so ago about struggling with not feeling bad for assh*les who have acted like there’s no pandemic, but then watched family members die. Someone posted that her therapist told her not to waste time trying to find deep wells of sympathy for people who are doing awful things. Removing that pressure I was putting on myself (same as Lauren) and turning my focus to good people doing good things has helped me deal with all of this. Now whenever someone acts like I’m crazy to be concerned about the pandemic, I no longer pressure myself to try to see the good in their actions. It’s freeing.

         1. That was me and my therapist! I’m so happy that their advice can help you too!

            1. Yes!! Thank you again!!

         2. That was freeing for me, too. I have lost a family member to Covid, and it has been brutal. I can say with total honesty that my family has hunkered down the whole time, even when others have been living their best lives. And I no longer feel bad that I judge the he!! out of people that have made this pandemic worse. I actually think about those people *less* than I did when I was trying to find the good in their actions.

            1. Exactly! It’s much nicer to just “let them go” instead of telling myself I’m a bad person for not extending an olive branch to someone who not only killed their own parents, but also killed other people’s.

      2. Yikes! Maybe we are all better off with Dr. Google in the short run (or letting the plastic surgeon’s clinic give it a go, it is still medicine, no?). Heck, my Juris Doctor is 50% “doctor.”

         Looks like everything is falling apart. Time to hoard groceries and wait it out (wait — I started that 9 months ago; it hasn’t worked).

         1. It’s frustrating to have done everything “right” and still be in this position, isn’t it? On the plus side, I’ve found new wells of resiliency and I’m proud of it; on the minus side, it’s hard to take someone I know seriously when she complains about “2020” and “this damn virus” as she gallivants around the country to bachelorette parties, family meet-ups, beach weekends, Crossfit, and god knows what else – and then goes back to see patients on Monday morning. I can never look at some people the same way again.

         2. Omg can you not? No. Dr google is not better. No. You don’t need to hoard food. Please get a grip. Things are bad enough in reality without daily doses of insane anxiety.

            1. Pretty sure that was sarcasm mocking anxious posters, and totally uncalled for.

         3. I don’t understand why we are “better off with Dr Google.” What am I missing?

      3. ….cotillion.

         1. #toepick

   5. So frustrating. And I don’t think people even realize the secondary effects going on. My mom’s friend was just diagnosed with cancer. His surgery to remove it was delayed without any timing given due to the hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID (not even in California–they live in North Carolina). I hate to even think about how many people we are losing indirectly.

      1. A friend’s mom dying of cancer can’t get ahold of doctors in Southern California. She’d have been in the hospital a week ago in any other time. It’s terrible.

         1. So Cal is really scary right now. My die-hard cyclist husband has even grounded himself from the bike lest he have an accident and end up needing the ER. (And I am biting my tongue until it bleeds because his friends are mostly not doing the same.)

            1. I’m glad he’s doing that and I’m sorry for the fear you are experiencing. It sounds awful.

            2. Fear and frustration.

      2. Broken record, but: breast cancer diagnoses are down over 50% year over year. And if you are diagnosed, there is the potential that having a bilateral mastectomy, as opposed to a unilateral or even a lumpectomy, may be considered “elective.” This is just insane to me. Stay home, get vaccinated, and stop thinking that this type thing won’t happen to you. We’re all at risk and we’re all mortal.

2. I’m wearing purple suede kitten heel pumps today (first day back at work after two weeks off wearing basically nothing but sweats and flipflops). My husband looked at me and exclaimed “Wow! High heels!”

   1. Back at work?? And at a place that requires fancy shoes? Why?? (I am also “back at work” for the first time in 1.5 weeks but doing so in jeans and fluffy Fair Isle socks…)

      1. Tell me about these socks.

         1. They are from last Xmas but I think they were JCrew – they are most definitely for “no shoes” days since they are more voluminous than normal trouser socks. They have a similar pair on offer this year (snowflake pattern) :)

      2. Doesn’t require it (we were business formal in The Before Times but have gone jeans casual for the duration), but some days I like to dress up for no reason. I have all these nice things and I like to wear them.

         1. I had to run into the office around May and was late so I grabbed a little black dress and a pair of heels as the most convenient outfit. It was around lunchtime when everyone seemed to take daily walks, so there were a number of passersby. People spontaneously smiled as they watched me walk to my car.

         2. I’m surprised your office is open at all! Ours basically requires three levels of approval (starting with your manager and ending with the Wizard of Oz) to even enter the building to grab a file.

            1. +1. We are open but at 25% capacity. Interestingly, none of the women attorneys have gone in AT ALL (or if so it’s just to grab a file), whereas several of the men attorneys are there every single day!

         3. I’m considered an essential worker so…

         4. I am in California and the state courts here are open so of necessity law firms are too. In fact, I have a jury trial set for Los Angeles next month and there is a limit to what I can do remotely in terms of exhibits, depositions, etc.

            Fun times.

            1. That is seriously effed up. I know judges like to hold the parties’ feet to the fire with firm trial dates, but this is taking it a step too far.

            2. I feel like there has been a total failure of court leadership in Los Angeles County. I can’t for the life of me imagine why they haven’t taken this more seriously and cared more about keeping people safe.

            3. This is totally effed up. My 76 year old dad was called into in-person jury duty in late December in downtown L.A. during a time that covid numbers were getting out of control. He was able to get it excused, but really there shouldn’t be groups of people sitting around a (non-ventilated) courthouse waiting to see if their number is going to be called or not – that is precisely what we should not be doing during this time.

3. I started a new journal today (bullet journal but not fancy, just a to do list and calendar) and cleaned out my wfh desk. I put things where they belonged, recycled some stuff, trashed other stuff, and found an old visa gift card with 16.83 left on it. I bought a t-shirt online. Woo hoo! Haha

   1. This sounds totally satisfying!

4. I’m a single apartment renter and I upgraded my living room furniture over the holidays. It will be delivered in the coming weeks. My current couch is a cheap couch I got for $500 at a big box furniture store after I got my first “real” job when I was 22. The rest is cheap particle board stuff from Target (that I am actually repurposing as closet storage) that I won’t miss.

   I’m really excited about my new couch, but I’m oddly…sad?… about getting rid of my old couch. It was the first piece of real furniture I ever owned, it has been with me through several moves, two states, a long term (now ended) relationship. I got it around the same time as I got two pets who have also enjoyed it. I have had a love-hate relationship with this couch for years, mainly because the cushions don’t hold their shape and I’m rotating and fluffing them daily. Why am I sad about this? It’s just a couch! I was so excited to order my new one and I’m still looking forward to receiving it, but I wasn’t expecting this weird, wistful emotion.

   1. The show Insecure features an Emotionally Significant Couch. Different circumstances, but you aren’t the only one who has felt that way!

   2. “It has been with me through several moves, two states, a long term (now ended) relationship.” That’s why! It’s a companion. You’re allowed to grieve it as such.

   3. Take a picture of it to keep. You can even frame it and put it on your end table next to the new couch for awhile if you are feeling silly.

      I also feel bad when I get rid of things. I project human emotions on them. I cried when I traded in my last car. I thanked it for keeping me safe and getting me where I’m going and it was time for it to go help another person.

      I always thought I was a bit crazy for this but I hear it is part of Marie Kondo’s strategy – thanking things before passing them on.

      1. Wanted to cite Marie Kondo here. I’m always sad getting rid of things, but thanking them (while cheesy) helps me. Also, are you throwing it out? Can you donate it, so that you can feel good knowing that some other person is going to make new memories with your old couch?

   4. I felt so sad when my old minivan bit the dust. I remembered putting the baby seats in for the first time! I should have been thrilled to finally replace it, but I found myself getting all emotional.

5. Ladies, I had such a xxxx end of the year – two of my aunts died of COVID One on NY eve and the other on NY day. And due to restrictions, my mom (these were her sisters) cannot even join the funeral (they lives abroad and my father has a scheduled surgery and needs to quarantine before it). It seems they contracted the virus from my cousin who is a kindergarten teacher, as they all met at a birthday lunch (10 people). I am not commenting on their idea of social distancing, the whole family is heartbroken . Just glad that my parents take the virus seriously.

   1. I’m so glad your parents take the virus seriously. Have you told them that? It might help them stay the course as things get ever harder around us. A note of gratitude can go a long way.

      1. Yes, we talk often to make sure they get the reassurance and also discuss new questions (should I get vaccinated, before or after surgery). We talk often (we live in different countries), so that I can check on their mood/mental health and cheer them up.

         1. That’s great. I’m sorry for your loss, but glad that you and your parents can support each other during this time.

   2. I’m so sorry. One of my friends lost her husband to COVID last week. She is now a widowed mother of 3 at age 39. This is so heartbreaking for so many families. I cannot fathom how people are out there living their lives like normal and that people are unwilling to get vaccinated.

      1. Both OP’s and your stories are horrifying. I’m so so saddened.

      2. That is so, so horrible.

   3. I am so very sorry to hear this. These are real people, with real families that are affected forever.

   4. Hugs, Anon. I’m so sorry.

   5. Thank you all for your support. @KW, sorry to hear that, it is really sad to see such a young person go.

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