"Crazy weekend" has new meaning. Also "hit by a car".

That was a craaazy weekend, especially if you count Monday morning. Thanksgiving itself was fine. The in-laws visited and had travel complications, the kid had an age-inappropriate tantrum because she was so sad when they left, I got my covid booster and the kid got her second shot and we both had minor to moderate side effects, we went to a "friendsgiving" Sunday night, and more. But Monday morning!

I was taking the kid to school by bike. I went straight through an intersection in a bike lane. Someone going the other way turned right without yielding. We went onto the hood of her car and broke her windshield. The kid was screaming and I was pretty scared myself, but I'm pretty sure neither she nor I ever actually hit the ground. In fact, we're both almost fine. Her leg is sore, but she bruised it in an unrelated fall Friday, so getting hit by the car aggravated an existing injury rather than causing a completely new one. I'm sore in a couple places, but it's mild enough that I wouldn't notice it if I wasn't paying more attention due to the obvious circumstances. We declined the ambulance ride to the ER. We took her home to recover and monitor her for a bit, but ultimately brought her to school just a couple hours late. As scary as getting hit by a car on a bike sounds, we're probably a lot better off than if we had been on foot. The windshield broke our fall a lot better than the concrete would have.

Last night and this morning I've just been cracking myself up. "Well, the meeting this morning was frustrating, but I haven't been hit by a car yet today, so I've got that going for me." "Yesterday went as well as could be expected, considering the whole getting-hit-with-a-car thing!" "The booster shot side effects were so bad, it felt like I got hit by a car!"

We still aren't sure about certain follow-ups. We've had at least three emergency room trips since covid that all turned out to be false alarms. I don't exactly regret them under the circumstances, but all the same they were miserable experiences. 

Backfilled on 1/21/22, based on a summary written elsewhere with minor edits

What is this bullshit?

 Who are these people with a month of paid leave saved up? What industry is so beneficent in this country? It's mind-boggling. I have generally assumed that my job was good overall, but one of the problems with it was that I didn't get enough leave. I have only taken one week of vacation over the past year in a meaningful sense. Do I have a month of paid leave saved up, or even 3 weeks? No, I do  not. At the moment I have between 3 and -1 hours (depending on exactly when it's deducted and accrued, I'd have to check). 

I accumulate about 3.5 hours of paid leave a week. That would add up to about 4 weeks of paid leave a year. However, in addition to a day or two of paid leave here and there for special occasions, I've taken several sick days because these days we have to take every little sniffle dead seriously, and there have been several lapses of childcare for one reason or another, and I can't honestly claim to be working full-time if I'm also trying to keep a kid entertained or working on her online classes. That has worked out to about 3 weeks over the past year. All my "leisure" time this year has gone to necessities. 

While writing this I spent 10 minutes googling and apparently the money I make is merely average, for my experience and region. And the quality-of-life issues that I generally like about my job are, on reflection, mostly well in the past. So I really should look for another one. And once I finished reading the article, it acknowledged that a lot of people were in a position like mine, so I wouldn't accuse the writer of bullshit... just the editor.