THIS IS THE SECOND TIME MY ROOMMATE HAS THROWN OUT MY SHAMPOO. WHY

Quarantine, Day 103

June 22

Tonight's journal is coming to you from my balcony, where it is dark at nearly ten pm and very humid, but still pleasant with all my plants growing and the hum of air conditioners all around me. 

And fucking yikes, those are some large bugs. The inside is also very appealing at this hour. I think I will write from my armchair this evening. 

Anyway, I need to go to bed earlier than usual tonight because I have a very early morning tomorrow. Poll workers need to report to the precinct by 5am, and although I'm lucky to live nearly on top of our polling place, I still need to shower and dress and pack my breakfast, lunch and dinner before I go. We typically don't finish till 8:30pm, sometimes later, so it's a damn long day when you're not allowed to leave the precinct for any reason. Typically we make it nicer by throwing a big potluck of foods people can eat on all day long, but COVID ruins everything once again. At least there's a fridge and a microwave so I won't be stuck with PBJs and tepid water bottles. 

The procedure is going to be different this time, too. I work pollbook most of the time at our precinct, which is the computer we use to check people in. It's not difficult work, but it is exacting, and it must be done right every time. Almost every counting discrepancy in a precinct starts at the pollbook, with somebody who didn't get entered properly for one reason or another. I have not made any major mistakes yet, knock on wood! There is a special precinct captain just for the pollbook, who does not work the pollbook but watches us working the pollbook to make sure we do it right. She's very demanding, for obvious reasons, and insists that we follow a particular procedure that is the same every time, so no steps ever get missed. This time we can't touch anybody's ID, which is going to make things different since we usually hold the ID till we've pushed the key to enter the voter, and we have to hand out the ballot ourselves instead of sending them to a ballot table. I'm hoping we get off to kind of a slow start so we can get the hang of things. I really, really do not want to be the person who causes a counting discrepancy. The biggest thing we've got going in our favor is that it's a simple Republican primary, so only one ballot type to hand out, and attendance is likely to be fairly light.

Going to bed early will be easy, at least, because the new mattress topper is here! Yay! It's very soft and cushy and I love it deeply already. I've only laid on it a little because it needs to recover from being vacuum sealed, but I can tell we're going to be the very best of friends.Our super-old mattress for the past two nights has made my back and neck very sad. We can't afford a new mattress, but this is like a new mattress, or close enough for now. I'm finally looking forward to going to bed! 

Today was grocery pickup day, so we finally have milk and eggs and yogurt and such. The morning routine was disrupted when we realized that the truck's battery was flat after sitting for so many weeks, but I was able to take the battery pack we got for Christmas from my folks and use it to jump the battery, with some Facetime assistance from my dad. I know the principles of jumping a battery, but never had to do it on my own before. It's not too hard. I then had to go over to the post office, a chore that always ruins my day a little. 

I don't understand what is wrong with my post office because I have dealt with many many post offices in all the places I've lived and none of them have been terrible like this one! I went in and told them that I wasn't getting my mail and asked if they might be holding it. Officious Asshole Guy, as he shall henceforth be known, assured me that they did not hold any mail without an order to hold it. I told him that I had a hold mail for the first two weeks of May, but that my mailbox was bursting when I got home May 16, so I assumed that, per usual, the mail carrier ignored my hold. I asked if he could go check, and he did, and came back with a big bundle of mail. He informed me that it was my fault that I wasn't getting my mail because I'd said I'd pick up my mail on May 16 but I hadn't done so. I reiterated that I'd gotten all my mail up until May 16, and that this must be mail from later, after the hold mail expired. He insisted that was not the case, that they never held mail without a hold mail order and never did not hold mail that had been ordered held, and that if I hadn't gotten any mail in a month, it was because people weren't sending me anything. It was useless to argue with him, so I took my mail and left. Everything in the pile was, of course, from after May 16. I went home and reminded all my family and friends on Facebook to please not send us anything via postal mail because the probability of it not reaching us is fairly high. I am sticking with my resolution to not leave any negative comments or complaints for anybody who has to work during the pandemic, no matter how terrible they are, but this guy really, really tempted me. 

Just typing all that out has angried up my blood again, so I'll finish out with nicer stuff. The kiddo is back to using the knitting loom, which is a nice hobby and something good to do while listening to podcasts. He's been a little high strung since we got home, settling back into the routine, but it's getting gradually better. I wish it weren't so hot, so the kids could go out and play distantly with each other. Virginia is on a downswing right now, so it's not too unsafe except for the heat exhaustion part. My husband's summer class didn't make, not enough students signed up, so while that's a little less money for us this summer, it also means more time for him to work on his book. 

And my mail today included two interesting COVID artifacts I will probably save: my son's report card with all V's (not evaluated) for his fourth quarter grades and merely a notation at the bottom that he is being promoted to fifth grade, and my sister's wedding invitation with an "everything could change at any time" caveat right under the RSVP instructions. These are strange days we are living in, but the weirdest thing I saw today was a Crayola Maskpack commercial that looked exactly like a commercial for any other Crayola school products, kids running, jumping, coloring in the classroom, interacting with their teachers, except every single person except one mom at home was wearing a bright colorful facemask. It looked so bizarre I watched it through twice, couldn't look away. It really is a new world.