The Second Trimester (Part Two)

I'm now close to the start of the third trimester! Alas, in the past three or four weeks, I've started to experience bigger challenges from certain side effects and symptoms of pregnancy. I'm maybe a little - or a lot - worried about what the entire third trimester will feel like, if I'm already starting to have a hard time. 

Physical Symptoms: Thank goodness, the itching I mentioned in late July went away by itself pretty quickly in the following three to four weeks. I've asked the doctor about it, and they aren't worried. My acne is a bit better for now. Most of the disruptions to my digestive system have also improved, though are still noticeable. I've been very fortunate in that the worst nausea I've had during this pregnancy in the first trimester still wasn't that bad, definitely not enough to throw off my eating habits. That symptom seems to have disappeared now in the second half of the second trimester.

Sadly, what is more difficult for me now in terms of physical symptoms is that I've started experiencing all kinds of aches and pains. I currently live walking distance from my office, with my commute on foot taking 18 to 20 minutes each way. As of three weeks ago, I've started taking public transit to and from work instead of walking - even though it doesn't actually save me any time - because I was experiencing too much pain and discomfort. 

I normally love grocery shopping - it's my favorite chore and never feels like an imposition - but I've found I pretty much need to stop running that errand alone as well, as I can't really carry a not-particularly-heavy full bag of groceries - and definitely not two such bags - for 10 to 15 minutes while walking home anymore. I end up sore all over for more than a day afterwards. I'll really miss doing this basic task on a whim for the rest of my pregnancy. (I can still maybe grab a few lighter items at a time from the nearest grocery store to home or work in a pinch, but no more big shops unless K is there to carry most of what we buy.) 

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In order to try and manage the discomfort, I've been using a fairly large pregnancy pillow, the LeahCo Snoogle, for quite a while now, since week 12 or so. I didn't really need it at first, but now I definitely do, and I've particularly appreciated having the pillow since week 15. I also bought a much smaller and more easily packable Boppy wedge-style pregnancy pillow (also here or here) for K and I's recent vacation, which also worked fairly well to keep me sleeping on my side and was reasonably comfortable. When I'm laying down and using my computer in bed, I use both the Snoogle and Boppy to lay down on an incline. 

Much more recently, I've also started wearing a pregnancy belt under my clothes, and it definitely helps a lot and is even necessary for me now, even with a bus commute and sedentary desk job. I picked one fairly randomly on Amazon, sizing up to account for how I have a few months of pregnancy and growth to go, and it works pretty well. 

One-Hour Glucose Test: My OB-GYN's office has patients take the one-hour glucose tolerance test ("GTT") for gestational diabetes during their 24th week appointments. A lot of people say the glucola drinks used for the tests taste gross - the one-hour version contains 50 grams of sugar in 10 oz, compared to, say, the 39 grams in a 12 oz bottle of coke - so I felt some trepidation, especially because I basically never drink soda or juice and only rarely get sweetened lattes. They also instruct you to drink the entire thing in five minutes or less.

The Post-COVID Era NYC Rental Market

via Unsplash

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but here in NYC the rental market has gone completely bananas! We got a sweet deal on our previous lease renewal last summer, thanks to the lingering effects of COVID on NYC rents, but those renter-friendly days are definitely long over. 

Within a few months after last year's lease term started, I was already noticing that rents in Manhattan were climbing back up, eventually increasing by early 2022 to the point where it was almost like COVID never happened. Around 2019, market rents in my not-particularly-hip neighborhood had suddenly skyrocketed over the original not-terrible-for-Manhattan norms that had prevailed since K and I first moved into our current building in late 2015. So when I say the local rental market looks as if "COVID never happened," I'm talking about fairly significant increases over the most recent high water mark of rents (from early 2020, before the COVID shutdowns). 

I was commiserating about the state of the rental market to a close law school friend who lives not too far from K and I. Both of us were bracing for some really painful lease renewal offers from our respective landlords. Somewhat... luckily, I guess we need to call it, even if the result is still a ~18% rent increase compared to last year for both of us... we both actually ended up being... pleasantly surprised by the offers we received. Despite that ~18% increase, both offers are also significantly under market compared to what new leases currently go for in our buildings. (Each landlord also made it extremely clear our offers left absolutely no room for negotiation. It's take it or leave it!) 

It's hard to get a perfect read on what market rates look like right this moment. Listed rents on StreetEasy for one-bedroom apartments in my neighborhood recently shot up by $300+ since the last time I looked in earnest, around four weeks ago when we were considering whether to accept our lease renewal offer. If current listing prices on StreetEasy are serious - I'm embarrassed to say I've never been great at negotiating personal business matters, so I don't know have any read on how much flexibility there might be on new leases - market rents on comparable units are possibly 35%+ more than my COVID-discount rent from last year, and ~17.5% more than I'm paying for my renewed lease, which K and I signed barely three weeks ago! 

If you're a renter, how's the rental market looking where you are? I hear things are pretty tough in a lot of big cities in the US, there may actually be some cities out there that have seen more dramatic recent rent increases than NYC at the moment. 

Pandemic Life Lately

Tory Burch Tanya the Tiger Bag (affiliate link) - I would never buy this because it's completely impractical for me, but I think it's kind of cute to look at. 

Happy New Year! I hope that everyone is having a good start to 2022 so far, as much as can be managed in the places - like NYC - where new COVID cases are continuing to increase dramatically. There is some data for NYC suggesting our recent surge is largely driven by unvaccinated individuals (if you click on "Recent Trends" under "Latest" data and scroll down, there is a chart that can show data by "vaccination status"). To tell the truth, I'd hoped I wouldn't need to use the "COVID-era life" tag anymore on any 2022 blog entries, but alas, that's not the position we find ourselves in.

I got back from my trip to see my mom in California in the late evening the Monday after Christmas. Early the next morning, I got a PCR test - negative - and felt lucky that the turnaround time to get results was less than 24 hours. The first Duane Reade I went to in person also had a good supply of Abbott BinaxNow at-home COVID tests, a maximum of four boxes per customer. And I must say, home COVID tests sure are expensive, those four boxes (with two tests each) cost me $99.96! (I believe that's the standard retail price at most stores, but some retailers such as Walmart may have them for cheaper.) I then took one of those at-home COVID test on Thursday - also negative - before seeing K's parents for New Year's. I'll also be required to have another negative COVID test result from after December 31 before my mandatory return date to working in the office on January 5. 

For the time being, I've also decided to switch from my Happy Masks to Powecom KN95s, which I buy from Bona Fide Masks (for ~$1/mask, or less if buying in bulk). I find the Happy Masks a bit more comfortable - mainly because they have slightly softer adjustable straps - and I like that they're a lower-waste solution because they're washable and resuable for many months, but I don't get as snug a fit or good a seal from the Happy Masks as I do with the KN95s. (I also get noticeably more condensation and fog on my glasses in wintertime from the Happy Masks than I do from KN95s, probably because of the aforementioned less snug fit.) 

K and I will probably avoid indoor restaurant dining in NYC for a while, until things settle down a bit on the COVID front. While my international business trips that would have happened in the next two months or so are definitely cancelled, I may still have a domestic business trip or two in the next few weeks. 

Admittedly this post is kind of a total downer, but alas, it's all that's really been on my mind recently. It's hard to avoid thinking about COVID-related matters when NYC keeps smashing all-time records for total numbers of new cases. I otherwise had a good holiday season though, with minimal delays for my flight back to NYC, and I was so glad to be able to spend time in person with my family and with K's family. 

Things I Like Lately

Today's post is about a few things, both fashion-related and not, that I've been enjoying lately as things get busier for me at the office. 

First, I've recently tried two new-to-me fast-casual Chinese restaurants that are both excellent and which I highly recommend. In the years since I first moved to NYC to attend law school in 2012, there's been a noticeable trend of really good Chinese restaurants opening all over Manhattan, including one of K and I's favorites, a Shanghainese spot called Little Alley, a few years ago. 

One of these new-to-me restaurants is Milu, which serves a few slightly nontraditional dishes, their duck confit-like dish is somewhat unusual, as is their interpretation of a pineapple bun stuffed with pastry cream and pineapple curd. My favorite dishes on their menu are the Yunnan-style brisket - so flavorful! - and the smashed cucumber salad that comes as a side with most of the rice bowls or entrees. 

The other new-to-me restaurant is Awesum Dim Sum, which is a fast-casual spot serving really great dum sum that's at least as good as any of the popular places in Manhattan's Chinatown. (I haven't gone out for dim sum in Flushing or Sunset Park before, so I can't compare to the restaurants there.) The menu here is more traditional, and all the dishes I like from bigger, sit-down dim sum restaurants are available here. Some of the dishes I tried are pictured above. The standout dish for me was the Phoenix Rolls served in broth towards the left, it's not normally one of my favorites, but Awesum Dim Sum's version was really good. And the har gao, shrimp cheung fun, baked bbq pork buns, and egg tarts were also great, as was everything else we tried. 

Second, I've been really enjoying the F1: Drive to Survive documentary series on Netflix. Outside of gymnastics and figure skating, I don't really follow any sports at all and definitely don't have any interest in motorsports or Formula 1. But this series does a good job of playing up the inherent drama of the sport and making things reasonably accessible to viewers like me who don't know anything about the sport. The personalities involved in the sport are, let's just say, incredibly dramatic, so the series is fun to watch.

COVID-Era Life Lately

Kushikatsu at Izakaya Toribar. We were mainly there to eat yakitori, but those dishes were less photogenic. The restaurant was very popular, all the indoor and outdoor tables were full when we came in around 7:30 PM on a Saturday, but we were able to sit at the bar so we didn't need to wait.

Very brief post today, as I'm quite busy with both work and personal matters this month! K and I's courthouse wedding will happen very soon, and even if there really wasn't that much to plan at all - we're doing this wedding in just about the most informal and low-key way possible - it's still a bit stressful. 

I've now been back in the office full time on a mandatory basis for roughly two months. Much more recently, my workplace finally got around to formalizing a policy that if any employee develops cold or flu symptoms - in other words, possible COVID - they should, in fact, stay home from the office. In hindsight, it's pretty wild that even though my colleagues and I have been required to return to the office full time since July, this particular issue was not explicitly addressed by our workplace policies until barely two weeks ago. 

I guess because most people in NYC are still masking on public transit, in grocery stores, and in many other indoor settings, no one at work had actually gotten sick with a cold or the sniffles in the past few months. So we're lucky that the lack of quarantine policy never really became an issue. Well, at least we have such a policy now, I was getting a bit worried that we were never going to get clear instructions on what we should do if we got a cough or sore throat. 

We're also officially back to being required to wear masks while around colleagues indoors. Though as I've mentioned, I never actually stopped wearing a mask at work - and in other public indoor settings - whenever I'm around people from other households, except when I'm actively eating or drinking. 

Because I'm a pretty big fan of US women's gymnastics, I originally wanted to attend the Simone Biles Gold Over America Tour ("GOAT" tour), at Barclays Center on November 6. But because that's the type of event that would almost certainly attract a significant audience under age 12, I don't think I'll ultimately be able to go forward with it, even if I'm happy to stay masked throughout the show. 

Under NYC's current rules, I believe all attendees over 12 at large events would definitely need to show proof of vaccination to attend. Maybe that means the NYC Simone Biles GOAT tour stop would actually be a relatively safe event for all guests, and I shouldn't worry so much? Either way, I'm more than 95% sure I won't be attending. It just doesn't feel right to me at this time, and I'm not optimistic that I'll feel better about it by early November. 

Money Diary: Typical-ish Week Back in the Office, Part One

Hoka One One Bondi 7 running shoes (affiliate link)

Approximately once a year, I get inspired to write a money diary post in the format used by the now-defunct Man Repeller, with some added resemblance to Luxe's weekend money diaries. Unlike in the Refinery29 money diaries, I do not provide extra commentary about my overall finances to these posts, which focus instead on daily spending for a week. To date, I've done a 2018 "atypical week" money diary (part one, part two); a 2019 "slightly more typical week" money diary (part one, part two); and a 2020 "COVID-era staycation" money diary (part one, part two). And now, here's the 2021 edition, depicting a fairly typical week from after I was required to return to the office full-time starting in mid-July this year. 

During this week, I wasn't very busy at work, so there won't be a lot of commentary about my time in the office. I'd arrive at my workplace around 9:15 A.M each morning; would step out briefly for a quick walk around the neighborhood to try and get my daily step count up before picking up a takeout lunch - mostly Sweetgreen, just like in my 2018 and 2019 money diaries - sometime around noon or 1:00 P.M.; and then head home around 5:30 P.M. or so. 

I wear my mask while I'm at work, except when I'm alone in my office with the door closed. Like I mentioned in my 2020 money diary, I typically wear a Happy Mask - I ordered mine before demand dramatically increased recently due to the start of the school year - though sometimes I wear a disposable KN95 instead. I find both types of masks equally comfortable because they're both cone or beak-shaped, preventing the fabric from resting directly against my nose and mouth.

This year's money diary starts on a Friday. I set my alarm for an unusually early wakeup call - 7:00 A.M. - because I plan to go running before work, as part of my recent new health and fitness goals. Since I set those goals for myself, I've been reliably running/jogging outside once a week, slowly increasing the distance I'm able to run each time. This particular outing was only my third jog since I started pursuing my new health and fitness goals. 

Within a minute of starting to jog, however, I stop abruptly because my feet and ankles just don't feel right. I'm pretty familiar with this type of feeling, the old pair of running shoes I'm currently wearing have had it, they're completely worn out. I'm surprised by how suddenly this issue came on, however, as these shoes felt just fine during my previous run last week. Whenever past pairs of running shoes became too worn out and started causing pain or discomfort, it usually happened very quickly, but I don't think I've ever previously started feeling it in the very first minutes of a workout before! I usually only start feeling it that evening, or the next day. But it's also been years since I've run outside. (Since graduating law school, I only ever ran on a treadmill until this year.)

I decide I can still walk for a while before heading home to shower and change for work. While on my way to the office, I pick up a small iced latte with skim milk at a coffee shop that's part of a small local chain. It costs $5.75 including tip. 

Life Lately: A Spendy Month (or Two)

The green chickpea hummus at ABCV, which is quite tasty and also a suitable dish for my current health and fitness goals!

As of last week, NYC now requires restaurants and many other businesses to check for proof of vaccination before allowing guests over the age of 12 to participate in various indoor activities. K and I have been indoors at a few restaurants since the new policy took effect, and we've seen... a range of different levels of verification. 

One restaurant checked our vaccine cards - using the New York state Excelsior app, because K and I both got our shots from state-run sites - and our photo identification. Another asked us to self-attest to our vaccination status, but waved away our attempt to pull out our phones to actually show our vaccine information in Excelsior. Yet another restaurant didn't ask us anything at all. We'll see whether restaurants become more uniform in checking vaccination status in the next few weeks. 

Since I officially finished paying off my student loans last month, I've sort of been spending money like it's going out of style. There was that substantial jewelry gift to myself, which was planned out ahead of time, and then a round of orthodontic treatment, which was a bit less planned out. (I'd had a vague notion since the accident in 2017 that I'd seek out an orthodontic consult for it eventually, but had no concrete idea of when that should actually happen.) Our recent trip to Crested Butte, CO was also on the pricier side. 

K and I have also decided to move forward with a small, immediate family-only courthouse wedding ceremony, leaving any bigger celebration and reception for an as yet unknown date down the line - only after the COVID situation has calmed down both domestically and internationally - so there are also quite a few expenses related to that. For instance, K bought my engagement ring so I'm buying our wedding bands. 

I think K and I may have left it far too late to successfully book a photographer now for a late September date - even if it's on a weekday and we'd only need the photographer for two hours max because it's going to be an extremely informal and quick wedding - but if it's possible, we'd like to arrange that. It was probably extremely foolish on my part to have waited until last week to start looking for a photographer. Everyone I've spoken to so far is already close to fully booked through the end of the year. (I may have been lulled into a false sense of security by my own line of work. Clients who are willing to pay can easily arrange to retain a team of biglaw or biglaw-ish lawyers for significant, urgent work with barely a week or two's notice... Obviously, the legal business is very, very different from most others, which I should have realized, duh.) 

Also, I now have my new braces on, for a round of treatment expected to take four to six months. It's been quite an adjustment! I had braces when I was a teen, but I'd completely forgotten they come with restrictions against eating certain types of food. I never experienced much pain, discomfort, or other problems with my braces as a teen, but I think my teeth are slightly more sensitive this time around. My speech is somewhat affected, I can't pronounce some words well because the braces are in the way. 

After barely a week of wearing my new braces, I swear I can already see some movement! So I'm currently feeling reasonably optimistic that my treatment timeline might be closer to four months than six. Either way, because I'll likely be wearing a mask in all indoor public settings for the next several months - except when actively eating or drinking - barely anyone outside of close friends and family will ever actually see my braces. 

Money Life Lately: Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Kate Spade "Buzz" Small Slim Bifold Wallet (affiliate link)

Today's post is a bit of a grab bag about some of the smaller things going on in my financial life recently, outside of the really big thing - fully paying off my law school student loans! - that just happened. 

Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Throughout the years since starting my current workplace in 2017, I've always described my job as "biglaw-ish." This made sense because our attorneys are similarly credentialed; typically have biglaw work experience; sometimes have similar work hours; and also because we were on the same salary scale, even if our year-end bonuses were typically ~25% of what our biglaw peers were earning and we also never got any part of the "special bonuses" that started appearing in recent years.  

After a bit of a market-wide slowdown in the first month or two of COVID-driven shutdowns in the US, business has apparently mostly been booming at many American biglaw firms. Early this year, a round of new special bonuses were announced. I understand that assurances were also given by certain firms that these special bonuses would not result in the reduction of year-end bonuses later on. Given typical practices at my workplace, I naturally expected the biglaw special bonuses would not have any effect on my total compensation. 

A few months later, I was rather shocked when biglaw firms also provided a new round of across-the-board raises for associates, on top of the special bonuses. So, uh, business is clearly still extremely good at some biglaw firms, to say the least. 

As for me, my workplace is officially no longer on the biglaw salary scale. This isn't too much of a surprise because we're a much smaller entity, and accordingly, our practice is far less diversified than that of any given biglaw firm. Instead, we got smaller raises across the board, and it's unclear what will happen the next time biglaw firms decide to increase associate salaries again. Anyway, I'm not worried about this change, though obviously, more total compensation is always nice. I had a lot of reasons for joining my current workplace rather than returning to my original biglaw firm, and I've never truly regretted that choice. 

Life Lately: Fully Back in the Office

Enjoying a meal at Hometown Hotpot & BBQ in Chinatown. It's K and I's favorite hotpot place.

My workplace finally announced a formal office return date, so I'm officially back in the office full-time now. It would have been lovely if the powers that be had decided we could keep some limited amount of work from home flexibility, but alas, that was not in the cards. 

While I'm a tiny bit disappointed, I'm not too surprised by this development because our workplace culture had always been really old-fashioned about strongly disfavoring remote work. So I didn't really expect to be able to keep any discretion to continue working from home sometimes. Oh well, it was good while it lasted! At least we're still allowed to dress casually at the office until further notice, our typical business casual office dress code has yet to be reinstated...

I've now had the opportunity to have at least one in-person hangout with each of my close friends living in NYC, and that's been wonderful. We've all been fully vaccinated for quite some time - and none of us have very young children or other household members who cannot receive the COVID vaccine - so we're all fairly comfortable now with going to restaurants, shopping in stores, and the like. 

K and I continue to make the personal choice to wear masks indoors while out in public, except when seated at restaurants or bars, or while actively eating and drinking in other settings. By now, most public settings in NYC don't really require masks for vaccinated people anymore. Though, in my experience, a good 30-40% or more of people in stores and other non-restaurant settings mostly still wear masks inside. (I admittedly don't go out to that many places. I still don't have all my pre-pandemic energy back for running errands all over the city!) 

Now that I'm feeling more comfortable with going out into the world, I'm starting to make all my long-overdue appointments for routine checkups and the like. For the most part, I was already overdue for these appointments long before March 2020, which was a little irresponsible of me... Hopefully my dentist and general practitioner will find that everything is in order! Once I drop by the optometrist, I'm already pretty sure they'll tell me I need a stronger prescription now, unfortunately. 

One thing that happened during the pandemic was that I started watching a lot more YouTube. Very recently, I've gotten into Eileen at Colourful Noir's channel, I think she has a really soothing voice and a lovely accent (I think she lives in the UK). She mostly talks about certain ultra high-end designer items, which are obviously not something I'm personally in the market for. But she approaches it from a refreshing angle focused on prioritizing responsible personal finance management first and foremost. Only after that's taken care of would she advocate shopping for a limited number of designer items that will get a lot of use in one's wardrobe. 

How are things going on the COVID-management front where you are? Are people mostly back in the office or the classroom in your part of the world? Do you have any favorite YouTube channels to recommend? I hope that everything is well for you and your friends and family. 

Reentry Thoughts

Maya Lin's Ghost Forest at Madison Square Park. Some days, the lawn is open so people can sit on the grass under the trees.

Completely unexpectedly, my workplace still doesn't have an official return date after which attorneys need to work full-time - or even part-time - in the office. But because of some projects on my plate through the end of the month, I'll probably still be going to the office four or five days a week through the end of June. After that, we'll see what my work schedule looks like for the rest of the summer. It's very strange to me that we don't have an official return date yet, though in practice most of my colleagues are back in most days of the week regardless. 

For those of you in parts of the US or other parts of the world that are almost fully reopen, how are you feeling about it all? K and I are comfortable with indoor dining, with my return to the office, and with whatever social gatherings or visits our close friends or family - nearly all living in fully vaccinated households - want to do. Our first plane trip will probably be in August, to a friends' wedding in Colorado, though we have no objections to traveling now if we had anywhere to go. (It goes without saying that I'm happy to continue wearing a mask whenever and wherever it's requested or required, especially indoors. In NYC, I've seen that most people continue to wear masks indoors everywhere, except when seated at a restaurant or bar.)  

But even though I'm pretty much back to the office full-time now, I still don't feel fully "normal." It takes me so much longer to get ready to go to the office than in pre-pandemic times, and I'm always completely exhausted in the evenings if I went in, even though I have a fairly easy 15 to 20 minute walking commute. I'm also not fully back to wearing my "real" work shoes yet, I've mostly just been in sandals and sneakers.

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I've been dragging my feet on some of my many reentry-related errands. I still need to schedule appointments for long-delayed routine checkups with my dentist and primary care doctor, just to make sure everything's in order. I may also need to make an appointment with the optometrist, as my vision is noticeably slightly worse off now than after my previous visit in early 2019. (I spent a lot more time staring at screens than usual when working almost fully from home. Normally, at the office, I do a lot of my reading on hard copies.) 

It may also be high time to refresh my makeup collection, as my Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner has dried out in the jar and it's been way too long since I first opened my current bottle of Nars eyeshadow primer. I almost never wore makeup in pre-pandemic times - it was only for special occasions, court, and important work meetings - and obviously I wore it even less while social distancing throughout 2020 and early 2021. 

One other side effect of our 14 months of pandemic social distancing is that I have a number of extremely expired Metrocards with money left on them. Normally, if the Metrocard's been expired for less than a year, one can just use the machines at each subway station to switch them out for new ones. But because my cards are more than a year expired, I apparently need to snail-mail them in for replacement, which is quite inconvenient! (And apparently, if the cards are more than two years expired, one is completely out of luck. Happily, mine are not quite there yet...) 

Life Lately

Our first trip to Shake Shack since getting fully vaccinated!

First up, a quick announcement: I'm not sure if any of you rely on the "Follow by Email" widget in the sidebar to get notifications about my new posts. That widget is powered by Feedburner, and they are disabling the email notifications feature starting next month. If you would still like to receive email notifications about my new posts, I'm thinking of using Tinyletter to send out emails when I've updated my blog, and you can subscribe at this link. (I first opened this Tinyletter account years ago when I thought I might have it in me to do an email newsletter, but I never managed to find any inspiration to actually write anything in that format.) If there's any interest, I'll commit to sending out a quick note every time I post here starting in July! 

Today's post is a grab bag of small, not shopping-related things that have been on my mind recently. 

Shockingly, my workplace has yet to announce a formal return date for attorneys to go back to working full-time - or even part-time - at the office. But due to a busy period in one of my cases, I've still been back in the office at least two or three days a week since May 24. Because my workplace hasn't announced new COVID-19 policies since last July when NYC-based offices were first allowed to reopen, everyone is continuing to wear masks in the communal spaces at the office. In other words, we have not yet implemented the new CDC guidance that vaccinated people don't need to wear masks in most indoor settings. 

I totally love Olivia Rodrigo's recently released album, Sour. "Good 4 U" is my favorite track, such an addictive song I can listen to on repeat even if I totally don't have the life experience to actually relate to the lyrics. (I don't think I have the right life experience to relate to any of the tracks except maybe "Jealousy, Jealousy" and "Brutal" for more general types of teenaged or social media-driven insecurity. I didn't really have any experiences of youthful romantic heartbreak or anything like that!) "Drivers License," "Hope Ur Okay," and "Brutal" are also pretty great tracks.  

Now that I'm back in the office at least part of each week for the foreseeable future, our grocery shopping routine will need to change to account for how I typically buy lunch when I go to the office. (I eat Sweetgreen for lunch on most of my office days.) K's still at home all week for the foreseeable future. But between the two of us, I'm by far the more experienced cook, so he relies more on sandwiches or frozen foods when I'm not home to help with lunch. 

First Outings

Things sure are opening back up quickly here in NYC! Last Wednesday, on May 19, the New York state government officially allowed many indoor settings - including restaurants and offices - to reopen at full capacity with no mask requirement for fully vaccinated people, in keeping with the new CDC guidance. (Restaurants, offices, stores, etc. may all continue to impose their own mask requirements, of course.) Surprisingly, I still haven't received instructions regarding the date by which I need to return to the office full time, or even part time, though I will have a mandatory in-office meeting for one of my cases today. 

I've been out and about a few times since May 19 to do things I wouldn't have done before I was fully vaccinated. K and I continue to make the personal choice to wear masks in public - both while indoors and outdoors, since we're always in transit to some indoor destination - except while we're actively eating or drinking. The photograph above is from this past weekend at one of our longtime favorite restaurants, BCD Tofu House in Koreatown. Which is another way of saying that, yes, we've now had our first indoor restaurant outing since the COVID shutdowns began last March. 

Now that K and I and all our close friends and family - in other words, everyone we could possibly expect to socialize with in the near term - are all fully vaccinated, it's feeling a little easier than I expected to quickly adjust to how we'll likely be able to resume many pre-COVID era activities soon. (The vast majority of our close friends in NYC do not have young children at home who are too young to get the COVID vaccination, which I think makes it much easier for us to just jump back in to things.) Much of our return to regular activities won't be entirely by our choice, including with my return date to the office and my possible late June international business trip that's still being discussed by my supervisors. At some point soon, K and I may also have job interviews that will take place in person. Certain court proceedings are also already back to happening in person. 

It's interesting to observe how quickly - or slowly - people's behaviors have been changing in NYC in response to the recent and extremely rapid changes in the CDC's mask guidelines (which our state government quickly decided to fully adopt). In general since May 19, I've seen that anywhere from 25% to 50% or so of the people I pass by on the sidewalk are still wearing masks outdoors while en route to wherever they're going, much like K and I have also been doing. 

Trader Joe's is among the many large national retail chains that have announced they'll follow the new CDC guidelines, so if the state government no longer requires vaccinated people to wear masks indoors, Trader Joe's store locations there will no longer require masks either. Thus, going strictly by the letter of the law, New Yorkers shopping at Trader Joe's no longer need to wear masks inside if they're fully vaccinated (but to my knowledge, the stores do not actually have the ability to verify anyone's vaccination status). At my neighborhood Trader Joe's, basically 100% of customers are continuing to wear masks inside. 

How's the COVID situation where you are? I hope that you and your friends and family are all doing alright! 

Social Distancing Life Lately: 14 Months (and Nearly Done?)

via Unsplash

K and I are now two weeks out from our second doses of the COVID vaccine. Our family members and our close friends across the US also all have their second shots by now. The New York state government is allowing most things to reopen - with indoor masking and certain other social distancing and public health precautions still in place, of course - on May 19. All in all, everything's turning around incredibly quickly here! 

I'm not sure when K and I will start resuming the activities we used to do. We're comfortable with small, maskless indoor gatherings with other fully-vaccinated - as in two weeks out from their last shot - adults, and we'll probably also spend a few days with K's parents in the NYC suburbs in the next week or so. My sister is currently planning to travel from the Washington D.C. area to visit NYC in early June. We're a little less sure about when we'll be ready to semi-regularly go back to restaurants and dining indoors around larger crowds. (We've been opposed to outdoor dining because NYC streets are kind of gross and I wouldn't like the feeling of cars passing by so close. We'd rather just bring the food home.)  

Return to the Office 

I expect my workplace to institute a full return to the office for attorneys quite soon, possibly as early as sometime in May. We'll continue to observe all required public health requirements, of course, including by still wearing face masks while in the same room as any of our colleagues.

I believe a late May return date is on the much earlier side of average for NYC-based offices in industries where achieving full productivity while working from home is relatively easy to do, including the legal industry. Certain biglaw firms have even announced that they're making a permanent move towards a partially work from home schedule. (My workplace has always been much more old-fashioned about in-office face time requirements than most others in the legal industry, so that is absolutely not in the cards for us.) While my personal preference would be to keep at least a bit of work from home flexibility - to be able to work from home once or twice a week most weeks, depending on workload and team needs; unfortunately for me, that's totally not happening - I'm also eager to be back in the office most of the time.  It's definitely been difficult for me to do all of my work from a fairly cramped one-bedroom apartment, even with noise-cancelling headphones on. 

There have been... limited discussions about an attempt to schedule yet another international business trip in late June, though I'm not certain how serious these discussions are. I think it's impossible to predict now whether the US and the destination country's international travel policies will actually allow for such a trip. (We'd likely scrap the idea if there were any quarantine requirements of any duration still in place, if we couldn't get out of quarantine due to being fully vaccinated.) I also privately doubt the other parties we'd be meeting with would even be willing to meet in-person, rather than over videoconference. But if the trip were somehow possible, I don't think I'd have grounds for refusing, now that I'm fully vaccinated. 

Unintended Effects of 14 Months at Home 

As we got to the one-year mark of social distancing, I started to notice various small physical symptoms from our new lockdown lifestyle. My body felt far more creaky than usual, with mild aches and pains that would come and go. (The most likely culprit is that my office chair at my desk at home is... not great.) And on the handful of occasions I've needed to head in to the office - which requires a roughly 15 to 20 minute walking commute each way, hardly a major physical exertion - I'm always completely physically exhausted by around 6:00 PM or so, when I'm ready to head home. 

On my first trip back to the office last November, I wore my trusty and extremely well broken-in Sam Edelman Petty booties - the older pair purchased before I started recording my purchases on this blog in January 2015, in the softer leather - and I was surprised to find my feet started to hurt by noon, my toes felt pinched and I ended up getting blisters on my ankles. It seems my feet have gotten too soft for most real shoes now, even the pairs that have always been comfortable and never gave me blisters or other issues in the past, even when brand new. (I don't think I'm the only person who has experienced this, as I was just commenting over at JENKR's!) Since then, I've worn sneakers on the rare occasions I've needed to go to the office, but I even needed to be careful about wearing longer socks to prevent ankle blisters with those. 

Checking In

Oops, pardon me for disappearing for a week! One thing I didn't take into account when I said I thought I would be able to return to a more regular posting schedule this month was that I get incredibly stressed out when preparing for and thinking about upcoming job interviews. Ever since the earliest days when I've needed to do them as an undergraduate student, I've always found job interviews particularly challenging. But I hadn't done any interviews since early 2017, so I'd forgotten how much of my mental energy they take up. 

But I'm very lucky to have already had a job interview to prepare for. I've only been applying in earnest to government jobs for around a month, and frankly, I wasn't expecting my first interview to come around so soon. 

My interview was done remotely via videoconference, and in the near future, I'd expect all or most of my interviews to be done that way. I was initially quite nervous about the format - I've only ever done in-person job interviews and also haven't had the opportunity to participate in a videoconference court hearing or deposition yet - but I was surprised to find I actually quite liked it. I was less nervous than I usually am during in-person interviews, and being able to see myself on the computer screen helped me stay calm and think through my answers. 

I did alright in my first interview, though I could definitely have done better on one or two of my answers during the half-hour session. (There will be three rounds of interviews for this particular job - to hire just one candidate - so my best guess is that I have a decent chance of advancing to the second round, but am almost certainly not standing out as the single best candidate so far.) I had worked hard to prepare, but my focus was a bit off: I over-prepared for certain types of more technical legal questions - that were, in hindsight, highly unlikely to be part of this first round  - and so I underprepared for some other types of questions. The important thing is that I know how to prepare better next time, whether for the second round for this job or a first round interview at another job. 

Here are a few small things that have made me happy recently while I've been preparing for and worrying about my job interviews:

Succession on HBO: A good friend suggested a few months ago that if I had enjoyed Billions so much, also on her recommendation, I should also try Succession. It took me forever to follow her recommendation. Succession sounded like it would be darker and overall have a more serious tone than Billions, and I wasn't sure I would actually like that. 

Recently - when K and I decided to subscribe to HBOMax for a month or two to watch a few other things - we finally decided to also try Succession. After the first few episodes - the pilot episode is clunky and there are so many important characters that it takes a few episodes to get a handle on all of them - we were completely hooked! It's an incredible television show, extremely well-written and well-acted. The overall subject matter is quite dark and most of the characters are somewhat terrible and selfish - there's a particularly awful moment in the pilot that almost turned me off the entire show - but there are also so many absolutely hilarious moments. 

I can't think of any other show quite like Succession. There are many shows I enjoy just as much, but I can't think of many other shows that are so consistently well-written and so smart about it all. (Admittedly, I haven't watched a lot of the frequently-recommended, all-time great shows out there, such as Breaking Bad or Mad Men.) 

Successful Rent Negotiation: As I mentioned a few months ago, rents had fallen significantly in many parts of NYC after the pandemic started, including in our neighborhood. By late November last year, rents for new leases on units comparable to ours were ~$700 to $800/month less than our current lease, after factoring in rent concessions of one or two free months (when we'd signed back in May 2020, the market hadn't fallen so much yet and our rate was probably ~$100/month less than new tenants were getting). 

When I posted, we were still approximately six months off from when we'd need to sign our next lease renewal, but we were already pretty certain we wanted to continue living in our current apartment through our next lease term. Cat made the helpful suggestion that we should try to renegotiate immediately, that we could lock in a better deal that at least partially reflected the new, lower market rate in exchange for offering to commit to whatever new, additional time period was agreeable to us. 

We ended up not initiating the negotiation as quickly as we should have. December through February ended up more difficult than expected, we started feeling the pandemic blues badly and I had some additional stressful things going on at work. By the time we opened up negotiations in late February, the market looked like it might be starting to recover slightly, but we were at least able to successfully negotiate for a savings of ~$500/month, and we committed early to a new lease covering the period through summer 2022. 

Time to Get Vaccinated

Recycling another old, pre-COVID era photograph. K and I will be getting our vaccines at Javits Center, not far from Hudson Yards, where I took this photo.

I'm happy to report that K and I are officially getting vaccinated with our first doses of the Pfizer vaccine on April 7! 

For the first two days after New York state opened COVID vaccine eligibility to our 30+ age group starting at 8:00 AM on March 30, it was extremely difficult to get an appointment in NYC. Both K and I basically needed to keep refreshing several sign-up websites repeatedly throughout the day and could only get the opportunity to sign up for an appointment if we got very lucky and clicked very fast when something popped up. That was how we were eventually able to book the April 15 slot I mentioned on my Instagram stories. (Between the two of us, we were only able to sign up for that one single appointment in the first two days. We agreed I should have it instead of K because I would likely be expected back in the office much sooner than he would be.) 

By midday on April 1, however, both the state and city government-run vaccine sites and also some of the hospitals and pharmacies began releasing large blocks of up to thousands of appointment slots. Afterwards, it became significantly easier to find a COVID vaccine appointment here in NYC without needing to continuously refresh several different websites at a time. So K and I were both able to sign up for appointments on April 7 without too much trouble, and I then cancelled my April 15 appointment so someone else could take it.

My mom in California was able to get her first dose of the vaccine on April 2, and K's parents just got their second doses in Connecticut this past weekend. My sister should hopefully be able to sign up for an appointment in the Washington D.C. area in the next week or two. I'm just so happy and relieved that we and our loved ones here in the US are finally going to be protected! 

I don't believe too many readers here live in the NYC area, but if you do and you still need a COVID vaccine appointment, I've gotten most of my information about how and when to sign up through @turbovax and @nycshotslots. Both accounts post updates in a fairly timely manner when various providers in the NYC area drop a large block of new vaccine appointments. 

Based off K and I's experience, I expect that when New York state first opens up the next eligibility group, to all ages on April 6, it'll initially be difficult to get an appointment in the first few days. But it seems like the government-run vaccine sites, hospitals, and pharmacies are constantly getting in new supply and posting new appointments, so it hopefully won't take too long before it becomes fairly easy to find an appointment. 

Money Life Lately: Year-End Holiday Tips and Office Gifts

Marc Jacobs "Snapshot" Leather ID Wallet (affiliate link)

Here are a few small things happening with my money and spending recently, in areas outside of shopping and fashion. I can't believe it's already December! It's difficult to get fully into the holiday spirit this year because it's logistically impossible for my mom, sister, and I to safely travel and see each other. But the show must go on with regards to certain holiday-related expenditures of mine, namely: (1) year-end holiday tips for the staff at my apartment building and (2) year-end holiday gifts for the receptionists and assistants!

I don't often discuss these year-end gifting expenses. I think the only time I've ever mentioned them was a few months ago when talking about how I calculated my total savings from staying home and socially distancing. Even if I don't discuss them, however, these particular costs have been a regular part of my life - and reasonably so, in recognition of the recipients' hard work all year long!- since I graduated law school. (Except that there weren't any year-end holiday gifts at work when I was clerking.) 

Health Insurance and Prescription Co-Pays

Longtime readers may know I like to complain - at excruciating length - about my experiences with the cost of healthcare here in the US. That's despite being fortunate to not actually have much to fuss about, relatively speaking. Generally, with the exception of when I had that accident requiring a bunch of urgent dental work, what I'm complaining about is just a few dozen extra dollars here and there. Even the very small unexpected medical expenses aren't fun, of course. But compared to all the possible problems with medical bills here in the US, my issues are small potatoes. 

My biggest perennial problem with my medical expenses is that I've often been charged co-pays on my birth control under most of my workplace health insurance plans, even though that really shouldn't happen under the Affordable Care Act. (The insurers' general rationale seems to be that they fully cover plenty of other types of birth control - including other pills and IUDs - just not yours.) It's an on-again, off-again problem that comes and goes depending on the workplace, but I've had this issue more often than not.

For my first few months at my current job, things were good, my co-pay for my birth control pill was $0/month. Sometimes I got the generic, sometimes the brand name, but I didn't really care about that. Then all of a sudden, things got weird. Suddenly, I was paying $35 to $45/month in co-pays for the same pill. To add insult to injury, my insurer covered the brand name at that level, but didn't cover the generic at all. The co-pay also seemed to change every time I got a refill. It wasn't my first rodeo with having a co-pay for birth control, but previously, I only ever had a $10/month co-pay. 

After a certain point, I started using GoodRx coupons to keep costs down, because the ~$25/month or so GoodRx cash price was always cheaper than getting my birth control through my insurance. And even then, the price I paid was rarely exactly what was listed on GoodRx, it was often a bit less, sometimes more like ~$15/month.

All of a sudden this month, however, my co-pay for my birth control pill on my insurance was back to $0/month. And for the brand name, no less! I swear, I don't understand the logic of how this works. But I suppose we can consider this a happy ending, for now. (The co-pays for this particular prescription have constantly changed on me practically every time I picked up a refill in the past two years or so, so I'm not sure I believe my recent good fortune will last...) 

The COVID-era NYC Rental Market

via Unsplash*

As I mentioned briefly back in May, we signed our most recent lease renewal then, in the earliest months of the pandemic. K and I live in a rental-only apartment building in Manhattan - somewhere south of 59th Street, in a distinctly un-hip neighborhood, and a bit far from the subway - run by a large, corporate landlord. They initially sent us a lease renewal offer in early March, before the US started shutting down due to COVID-19. That initial offer was for a ~6% rent increase over our previous lease renewal in 2019. 

At the time our landlord extended their initial offer, the proposed rent of ~6% more than the previous year was perfectly in line with market rates for new leases on comparable units in our neighborhood. (One can search online and get a fairly accurate and up-to-date sense of the NYC rental market using StreetEasy.) But because we live in a building marketed as a "luxury apartment" building, there were tons of cheaper, similarly-sized apartments in less fancy buildings nearby. We also have that somewhat rare for NYC luxury of in-unit laundry, which, in normal times, adds maybe ~$100 to $150/month in rent over comparable apartments without that feature. In other words, we were starting to feel like our apartment was too overpriced, particularly because we were also thinking one or both of us might lave biglaw - or, in my case, biglaw-ish - private practice sometime in the next year, likely resulting in a significant pay cut. 

Then came March 12 and my abrupt return from my business trip, which also felt like the first day a critical mass of people in NYC realized COVID-19 was already a serious problem here. Barely a week later, the state government would order a full shutdown of all non-essential businesses. 

K and I didn't really have the mental energy to think about our lease renewal until early May. By then, the number of COVID-19 cases here was still high, and the first phase of NYC's reopening would not begin for another month. We were in agreement that we felt safer paying slightly inflated rent - we each held robust cash "emergency funds" of well over six months' living expenses at the time and could reluctantly weather overpriced rent costs, even if COVID ended up bringing salary cuts or layoffs down the line - than trying to move in the middle of the pandemic. Furthermore, the pandemic had scuppered our plans to leave private sector legal practice in the next year, we were no longer looking to switch jobs for a possible pay cut.  

After two months of shutdowns, the NYC rental market was already starting to turn, at least in our neighborhood. Whereas that ~6% increase over our 2019 rent was in line with market rates for new leases for comparable apartments in early March, rents had fallen slightly by early May, to maybe ~$100 to $150/month less for new tenants compared to our 2019 rent, after factoring in the standard one or two months' free rent concessions. 

Social Distancing Life Lately: Eight Months, The Holidays, and Beyond

via Unsplash

EDITED 11/22/2020: Nine days into our pre-Thanksgiving quarantine, K started coming down with super-mild cold symptoms. Because there is no way for us to get COVID testing without risking at least some indoor exposure to people outside our household, we decided on November 20 that we needed to cancel our Thanksgiving plans in order to protect K's parents. We're all very disappointed, but I think what we know about the science makes very clear that this is the right and necessary thing to do. The original text of this post, from before we made this decision, is below.

- - - - -

When I wrote my previous "Social Distancing Life Lately" post in mid-September, I was really hoping it would be the last. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't over, and it probably wouldn't be over in the US until an effective vaccine was widely distributed. K and I knew we were going to need to continue taking precautions and practicing social distancing until then, at least through the end of 2020 and probably for at least a few months beyond. 

But the COVID data had been relatively good and stable in NYC for several months by mid-September with gradual reopening. I hoped this meant we had settled into a "new normal" here, in which life could continue moving forward, with further reopening of schools and other indoor settings in a limited way with heavy precautions without causing serious spikes in new COVID cases. In other words, I was optimistic that while social distancing would certainly need to continue here in NYC, there wouldn't be any new, significant negative developments worth writing about. 

Unfortunately, that hasn't quite been the case. When last I wrote about our COVID progress, NYC had maintained a citywide percent positive rate of ~1.5% or less since mid-June, trending closer to ~1.2% or less since mid-August, all with robust COVID test availability. By mid or late September, public schools reopened for in-person classes two to three days/week for students opting in, and indoor dining rooms at restaurants were also permitted to reopen at 25% capacity at the end of the month. To my knowledge, those were the only significant new indoor activities allowed by our state and city government since September. 

Our citywide COVID percent positive creeped up towards ~1.7% or so in early October, but remained stable there. That number didn't seem to be considered a "danger zone" in terms of closing schools or anything else back down. There were local hot spots or clusters with significantly higher percent positive rates, which the state government responded to with targeted shut-downs in those neighborhoods. This month, our citywide percent positive climbed solidly past 2%, then 2.5%. At 3% positive, NYC public schools may be shut down. Like in other parts of the US, things aren't moving in a good direction. 

The Holidays

K and I are currently halfway through a stricter-than-usual 14 day home quarantine in preparation for spending Thanksgiving with his parents at their home. To tell the truth, this two-week period of stricter-than-usual social distancing doesn't actually look all that different from our typical lifestyle these past eight months. We generally went at least three or four weeks between trips outside our apartment building regardless, so the only newly stepped-up precaution is that we're also avoiding picking up packages from our doorman. When we've completed our quarantine, K's parents will drive from their home in the Connecticut suburbs to pick us up. 

Our quarantine is not completely airtight. When K and I leave, we'll need to pass through our apartment building's lobby - mask on, of course - and while it's never crowded there, the doorman and maybe one of our neighbors will probably be in that medium sized space. We take out our trash to a chute down the hall - mask on, again - once every few days, though generally there's no one else around when we do so. K's parents may ask us to make a grocery delivery order or two for our visit - generally brought by contactless drop-off - if they're not comfortable with shopping in-person due to increased COVID cases in Connecticut. Those are the only weak points from our end. 

K's parents take the same day-to-day precautions we do - generally encountering no one outside their household but for occasional fully masked trips to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor's office, and so on - except that because they live in a single-family home and own a car, they're able to go outdoors more easily while staying socially distanced. If they decide that Thanksgiving groceries should be done by delivery to us instead of their taking an in-person trip to shop, they won't come into contact with anyone outside their household in the two weeks before they pick us up. (They'll stay in the car when they're picking us up.) 

Obviously, if any of the four of us comes down with what looks like COVID symptoms in the meantime, our Thanksgiving plans will be scrapped. COVID testing is not part of our visit "protocol" because - having recently gotten a test at our closest NYC public hospital-run testing site - I know from experience that one encounters at least as many masked people in an indoor setting while waiting to register for the test as one does at the grocery store. 

Social Distancing Life Lately: Six Months and Counting

via Unsplash

When my colleagues and I abruptly rushed home from Luxembourg in mid-March, none of us could truly have imagined that, six months on, life would still not be anywhere close to normal. As we transited through Heathrow that day - after having booked new tickets last-minute in the wee hours of the morning, upon being woken up by concerned friends and family back home following the President's sudden announcement of a proposed Western Europe travel ban - the pandemic didn't feel real yet. Barely anyone at the airport was wearing a face mask. Things still looked almost normal, even if we knew they were not. 

Local Policies in NYC 

Now, six months later, NYC has - since June or so - controlled the spread of COVID-19 better than many other places in the US. Yet the prospect of resuming any substantial new indoor activities here - things bringing bigger groups of people together in closer quarters than the retail stores or museums that are currently open with drastically limited capacity - still feels potentially perilous. For the attorneys amongst us, participating safely in in-person court proceedings - particularly jury trials - and in-person depositions still feels like an impossibility. (Especially when we keep in mind that at least some participants or attorneys typically need to travel from out-of-state for such events.) 

Our state and city government are generally moving slowly and cautiously to gradually allow more significant indoor activities. In-person schooling at NYC public schools may restart in phases starting next week, on a partial schedule for the families that opt-in. Restaurant dining rooms may be allowed to open at the end of the month, at 25% capacity. 

Personal Comfort Levels

Completely separate from the issue of what's legally allowed, there's also the question of my personal comfort level with additional activities. I would not be happy about being forced to attend in-person court proceedings anytime soon. Nor am I willing to put others and myself at risk by partaking in indoor restaurant dining before a vaccine becomes widely available. Nothing short of a court order - and the fear of being in contempt of court - or a serious family emergency would get me on a plane before I'm vaccinated. 

I am somewhat apprehensive about when my workplace might start requiring attorneys to come into the office more often. New York officially allowed white-collar workplaces like law firms to reopen with certain safety precautions back in early July. But up to now, state law has also required that categories of employees who can perform the vast majority of their duties from home - attorneys included - be offered the choice to continue working from home, something I've availed myself of to the fullest extent. I'm not sure when that state policy might change.

K and I have loosened up somewhat since I last wrote about our ongoing social distancing experience in late July. We've both had our long-overdue haircuts now, and we each felt quite safe with all the new safety precautions at New York salons. In the next month or so, we'll probably both go to our first routine doctor's appointments since the COVID-19 shutdowns began. As mentioned in my recent money diary, we also ended up needing our building's superintendent and then a contractor to come in to our apartment for some repairs, across a few different days. And that also felt just fine, with everyone wearing masks and given NYC's continuing trend of favorable COVID numbers. 

While we've applied for absentee ballots, we may yet decline to use them and choose to vote in-person instead - most likely by early voting - knowing there were... some issues... with absentee ballots actually getting counted during the recent New York primary. To be fair, our election procedures have changed to directly address these problems, including to allow voters to track their own absentee ballots and have an opportunity to cure alleged defects instead of the ballot just being thrown out.

But I think it's fair to say our household is technically still practicing fairly strict social distancing. Outside of the errands described above, we are still staying home except for essential grocery and pharmacy trips, which we continue to limit to approximately once every three weeks. And our friends in NYC are still not quite ready to socialize yet, even outdoors.

Money Diary: COVID-era Staycation, Part 1

Approximately once a year, I get inspired to write a money diary post in the Man Repeller format (focused on that week's spending only, without additional details about overall finances like at Refinery 29). I've done a 2018 "atypical week" money diary (part one, part two) and a 2019 "slightly more typical week" money diary (part one, part two). And now, with COVID-19 and everything else that's been going on, here's part one of a 2020 money diary! (I was definitely also inspired by Luxe's recent COVID-era weekend money diary.)

This year's money diary covers a six-day period. There's no point extending the diary to a full week, because the days immediately before and after this six-day period were both extremely boring, with no spending or outings further away than our apartment building's lobby. Heck, there are already two no-spending days in this diary, which was unthinkable for me in pre-COVID times! 

During the six days covered by this diary, both K and I were technically not working, and were instead enjoying a staycation. Though you'll see I still needed to do some work, some of it billable and some of it not. Until late August, I hadn't taken any vacation time in 2020. My supervisors at work encouraged me to take some time off, even if one can't go many places without potentially needing to do a two-week quarantine afterwards, pursuant to New York state law. 

For my part, I've always enjoyed staycations. I'm even known to take an extra vacation day after a trip is over, so I can relax at home a bit before returning to the office. (K prefers not to do this, as he doesn't think it's a great use of a vacation day. He'd rather head straight back to work!) 

But, well, I obviously also miss normal, pre-COVID times, when we'd have been able to freely use our vacation time to, say, go to Taiwan and Japan, as we were about to do in April. Maybe in late 2021? I can only hope...

Wow, a no-spending day! I didn't have a single one of those across my 2018 and 2019 money diaries... 

We sleep in a bit, as is typical for us on the weekends. I wake up around 10:00 AM, a bit ahead of K. Once K is up around 10:30, I start making brunch. I use the oven to cook Trader Joe's frozen hash browns and make an egg scramble on the stovetop with cheddar and chopped-up Trader Joe's "garlic herb" chicken sausage. (That's not my favorite flavor, the "spicy jalapeno" - which isn't actually spicy - is better, but they didn't have any in stock on our last Trader Joe's trip two weeks ago.) I cook and K cleans after the meal.