Today I sleep in a bit, having nothing pressing to launch me out of bed. I turn on RTÉ Radio as I make coffee and prepare a breakfast of yogurt, granola and some berry preserves. Throughout the day, the various news segments and talk shows address a range of topics relating to COVID — whether schools should remain closed, whether construction workers should continue to be considered “essential workers,” and whether all available vaccine doses should be fully deployed or half of them held in reserve for the second shots for those receiving the first round of immunizations now. The Irish cabinet is meeting tonight to decide what further actions it will take to curtail the dramatic surge of new cases. It’s announced this evening that 5,325 new COVID cases have been reported in Ireland today, which is a dip down from yesterday’s 6,000+, but still a few orders of magnitude greater than the peaks during last spring and autumn.
My default spot during the day is at the dining room table where I usually have an iPad with an attached keyboard set up. This conveniently allows me to read the news, check email, watch YouTube videos, do online shopping, etc. After goofing off for a bit after breakfast, I set about planning meals for the next week and add items to the online SuperValu grocery order I’ve scheduled for delivery tomorrow morning. However, the dining room chairs in the apartment are very uncomfortable, and it’s next to impossible to maintain good posture when sitting in one of them due to their lack of back support. They’re designed as collapsable patio chairs that cause one to lean back, not sit upright. It’s getting to the point that I don’t like sitting at the table for long periods of time and find myself gravitating to one of the couches instead.
This dysfunction activates my problem-solving instincts, and I decide to invest in some new chairs. IKEA seems to be the easiest and most affordable answer, since they offer a “click and collect” service (in store shopping is of course closed) and I figure I could swing by on Thursday after my drive-thru COVID test to pick up a pre-paid order. I find some relatively cheap, decent looking, stackable dining chairs that I think will do nicely. I place the order, the charge goes through on my card and I receive an initial “thank you for your order” email. However, later this afternoon I receive another email saying the order has been canceled, with no reason or explanation provided either in the email or online when looking up the order status. I find a customer support number for IKEA Ireland and call it. Surprisingly I’m connected almost immediately. The representative sounds Swedish (or at least non-Irish), and after asking me for the order number she says her system doesn’t say why it was canceled. She puts me on a brief hold to check with the billing department to confirm a refund, and when she comes back on she says that the order had been flagged due to the IP address of the device used to place the order. It must be my VPN service that shows my IP address is in the U.S., even though I’m shopping on the IKEA Ireland website… I haven’t had any problems like this with other online merchants. Maybe some customers unintentionally place pickup orders at IKEA stores in the wrong country and so they put in a safeguard for such scenarios?! At any rate, I thank the representative then, after the call, turn off my VPN and place the order again. It goes through like before, but this time I receive a text later this evening saying that my items are ready for pickup (even though I had selected a pickup slot for Thursday). Perseverance prevails!
My first counseling session of the year is scheduled for late this afternoon. With the first three months in Ireland and the holidays behind me, my attention needs to be refocused on my job search. I’ve continued to monitor job postings via a few email alerts I’ve set up, but this has been largely a passive activity. I know there are no guaranteed outcomes, and job searching is an open-ended process without any bounds, but I don’t want another three months to pass by without some accountability to myself. In talking this through with my therapist, I recognise a need to set a more structured schedule for myself so that I devote a requisite amount of time in my efforts. It’s all too easy to procrastinate with online shopping, games on my phone, etc. In the meantime, there are at least a couple of job postings I need to act on this week.
Until next time…
