I am SO HAPPY to see friends and family now finally getting their vaccines! Nate just had his 2nd Moderna last Thursday (he had really nasty side effects for a day, including shooting pains, nausea, and fever). His wife had her 2nd shot some time ago (she’s in health care, and has been working l-o-n-g days vaccinating all the personnel from several Navy ships, as well as reservists and naval retirees). My friend Helen and her husband get their first jabs this week! Woohoo! And Margaret (as a teacher/sub) got her first shot, too! This whole thing with prioritizing teachers and school employees has done my heart good. My god, if you are going to DEMAND that schools open, then effing vaccinate the employees! Why was that ever NOT considered a priority? Things are definitely looking up! Our 2nd shot happens on March 18th.
There are a few downs, too. Nate leaves this Friday for a 6-week “underway” on his ship. It’s the first time he’ll be gone for anything close to that amount of time since well before Quinn was born (he was on shore duty for a few years down in San Diego, and his year so far in Everett has been delayed as far as those underways and deployments due to Covid). It’ll be the first time that Quinn (and Sandra!) will have to deal with him being gone for a significant period of time. I anticipate that this will be tough on all of them. Wow. How could it not be? I’m hoping we’ll have a chance to see Sandra and Quinn during that time—maybe head up for a day and go out for a meal, since we’ll be vaccinated! (Or at least order in, make it fun). We have next year to dread when Nate will be deployed for at least nine months.
How will verbal little Quinn deal with this? It breaks my heart to think about it because he probably won’t understand. And he will sorely miss his daddy.
CDC guidelines now advise that vaccinated people can get together, and also vaccinated people with non-vaccinated people can get together in small groups (like grandparents with their adult children/grandchildren). Pretty much what we’ve been doing here and there with Nate and his family, plus my friend Helen. I’m also excited to think that us Book Club ladies will be able to meet IN PERSON next time because we are all vaccinated. Drips and drabs of normalcy. (And much more to come. Quickly, I think).
And then there are idiot states led by idiot republican governors who are ending mask mandates and opening up everything 100%, even though those particular states are having upticks in cases and also have numerous “variants” of COVID that are especially transmissible. Why are republicans so godamned STUPID?
Somebody on Twitter posted: Governors ending mask mandates is like designating a portion of the swimming pool to be the pee area.” Right? A pandemic knows no boundaries.
What else? Been a reading fiend, as usual. Read a book, finish it, start a new book. I’m having a hard time getting out of that routine, not that it’s a BAD thing. But I really do need to get back in the glass studio (it’s been nearly a year since I’ve done anything in there). And the idea of weeding outside has been on my mind, too. Soon. The weather hasn’t quite been conducive yet. (Plus access is a bitch).
