Day 704: In which I have... a cold?

Last night it was kind of hard to breathe, and I woke today with a definite respiratory illness. I could smell peanut butter and tangerines just fine, but it turns out that's not definitive: Losing their sense of taste/smell happened to only 48% of original COVID people, 34% of those with Delta, and 13% of those with Omicron.

Fortunately, our government-sponsored COVID tests arrived yesterday, so after my shower I learned how to do that. Negative! I had the little line by the "C" that said I'd done it correctly, but no line by the "T" to say I had COVID. I should probably do another test in a day or two, if I'm still sick.

Anyway, the incubation period for Omicron is about 3 days, whereas I was feeling unwell about 28 hours after the incident with Coughing Lady at the symphony. And the incubation period for the common cold is 24-72 hours. If this were COVID, I'd have had to have caught it on Tuesday when we went grocery shopping, I guess, although I was inside Market of Choice only briefly, and our longer Safeway trip was late in the evening with hardly anyone there.

Book completed

Prime Meridian, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. As far as I know, I'm now totally caught up on her books. I loved this one! It's a novella. Amelia lives in Mexico City, in the future. She's always dreamed of living on Mars, which is something she could do, if only she could afford it. Instead, she shares her bedroom with her niece and earns bits of money as a rent-a-friend.

Book completed

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. Reread. Our newest neighborhood book club member chose this for our next meeting. I only really remembered the beginning chapters - barely anything at all after almost everything in the book changes - so it was worthwhile to read it again. And this time it was really fun, and sometimes quite touching. It's basically a Jewish fantasy novel, set in a version of Eastern Europe, several hundred years ago, and inspired by Rumpelstiltskin.

The story begins with Miryem, who lives in a little village where her father is the moneylender. But he's a really bad moneylender who can't bear to ask for repayments of the loans (too conflict-avoidant), and Miryem gets exasperated when her mother falls ill and they can't afford to keep the house warm enough. So she goes out to all the people who have borrowed money and insists on getting at least some minimal payment from each of them. Her parents are dismayed that her heart has grown so cold that she can do this, but her mother's father, a rich and respected moneylender in a nearby city, is delighted.

One of the people who needs to make a payment is a dreadful old drunk, gambler, abusive father guy. He has no money to pay, so Miryem says she'll take his daughter to work in her house every day and care for her mother; this should pay off the debt in four years. So Wanda goes home with Miryem and comes every day to do the housework. It's a six-mile walk. But... the next chapter is Wanda's perspective. Although Miryem has no clue, Wanda is utterly thrilled. Four years of not worrying that her father will marry her to some equally dreadful man; four years of far fewer beatings; four years of getting to sit down to a proper, filling meal with Miryem's family before going home to her father and brothers.

Meanwhile, there's a third girl, and a tsar possessed by a demon. And of course there are the Staryk, elven-types who bring winter. I recommend it!