Days like these

Some days life seems to just smile at you, because everything happens so smooth and effortlessly: the kids get ready in the morning fast and without complaints, the traffic is manageable, you are joyfully greeted by a colleague in the corridor and even long-stuck problems seem to miraculously find a solution almost by themselves. On those days one can only be thankful for their luck and might even be inclined to buy a random lottery ticket, just in case the fortune is really giving a hint. But today was not one of them.

It could be related just to the fact that it is Monday (we could call it "the Garfield syndrome" although I do not see why a cat should hate Mondays more than any other day of the week), but the boys had given me a really hard time this morning. Jason was all worked up because he had a physics exam and was scared that it could be insurmountable, even if he has invested quite some time on it in the last few days. Trevor did not "feel like going to school", so I had to bitch and moan before he finally got up and dressed.

Photo: Bob Reck

Today I was also committed to slowly return to a more regular presence at the institute, aiming to be there every morning and then coming home for lunch and finishing up work in the late afternoon and the evening. This change of environment did not seem to be particularly taxing, but I cannot completely discard the idea that I has weighed on me a bit. Many things work reasonably well, but I hit a wall halfway through the morning and most of my colleagues are still working primarily from home, so I had a hard time to get help via chat, and even then it was not that easy to figure out how to continue. And then I hit a second obstacle just in time to pick the kids from school and drive back home, what left me a bit uneasy for the next few hours.

Also, before sitting down to work for the afternoon session in my home office, I had to drive Trevor for a quick medical check-up, but what should have been a routine visit turned into a discussion on the directives of when (as soon as possible) and why (just because) to vaccinate young people against COVID-19. I am not skeptical against vaccines in general, but the mRNA technology is so new that I would prefer to wait a little longer to see how the data turns out in a few months from now. Myocarditis has been reported in Israel as a severe and not-so-rare side effect, particularly among young men, and the Scandinavian countries have just banned their vaccination with the Moderna preparation precisely because of this reason. Considering the amount of time that it has taken for this information to come to light, I am adamant to hold the fort as long as socially possible and keep my kids with regular testing but un-vaccinated. Mainly because once you get the shot you cannot remove it, and if later eventually shows adverse effect there will be no way to undo the damage.

This opinion, which is not only shared by Karen but also strongly supported, has fired up the discussion the moment we got home and I told her about the conversation with the doctor, who insisted on wanting to inoculate Trevor. Unfortunately, she has sometimes a way of spinning up the arguments in circles that lead nowhere and, not finding a satisfactory solution, takes another go at it. In the end I had to interrupt her line of thought because I risk spending yet another hour on a subject that will not find an answer in the near future, so all we can do is sit still and keep an eye out for new information in case we need to revisit our position.

Luckily I have finally managed to complete at least some of the work that I intend to do today. The test that I conducted was good enough to demonstrate that the new function works as intended even if other errors occasionally show afterwards. Fortunately they are far enough removed from one another that one can discard a connection between them. I will certainly have to repeat the test once the other issue is solved, but at least my part is doing its job.

Northern Irish composer Van Morrison sings to the days when everything goes perfect, but that is not the same as openly recognizing that there are also other days, days like today, where the complexity of life just manages to beat you down and all you wan to do is keep yourself together, stick to the few things which you are absolutely certain that cannot go too bad and crawl into bed looking forward to the opportunity of redemption that the new day will bring. I hope your week also looks up.