Cactus Watcher Strikes Again

Today I got a flu shot and a COVID booster. I signed up for an appointment yesterday on-line. I expected to waltz in and out of my corner drugstore. But there were five people ahead of me in line at the pharmacy and four of them wanted shots, not medicine, and there were already three past the line waiting nearby for shots. Everyone was getting flu shots and at least one other was was getting a booster. The guy giving the shots said it had been like that for days. I rarely see anyone but the cashier in that store, but I don't usually go into the back corner with the pharmacy.

They gave me Pfizer instead of Moderna, this time. So far not much difference. My arm started hurt about 5-6 hours after the shot, just like Moderna. Being old they gave me the "high dose" flu shot. That hurt after a few minutes, but that arm is fine now. Also I got two bright red bandages, one for each arm. Woo hoo, or something. It was all free, of course, and hopefully it will keep me mostly well this winter.

ETA: I filled out my general election ballot today. I'll mail it in the morning. Please vote this fall. It's important.

I've felt better every day since the very first, but getting past COVID has been very slow. I've lost ten pounds, most of it since I started eating regular meals again. I never lost my sense of taste, but there were times of day early on when it was off. I'd eat something and it would taste/smell right, but my taste buds were over powering everything with sweet, sour, or bitter. After I felt better, sometimes my taste buds would revolt and something would be disgustingly bitter one bite and fine the next. Though my nose is still fighting me, smelling hasn't been a problem.

I still want to sleep all day, but I don't need to and keeping awake isn't as difficult. I can work again, can concentrate on things outside myself again. My strength was never much affected, but my stamina was very bad through the worst of it.

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It's primary election time and I filled out my Democratic ballot this morning. (Not many Democrats to choose from.) The Republicans have a horde of candidates for most offices, each claiming to be more reactionary than the rest in their TV ads. One group seems to be an old, rich, bleached-blonde, white women's club who's friends have been winning elections since I moved here. Another group seems to be mostly macho, ex-military men who want to get rid of the old hags' club, but don't seem to be any different in policy. A female news anchor from Phoenix is getting hammered on TV by the hags' club, but claims she been endorsed by Trump so it's hard to feel sorry for her.

I feel quite a bit better today. I wish I looked better. Wednesday evening I was feeling improved, but when I changed to go to bed I discovered I'd developed a horrible rash.

I went out Thursday morning to do my regular watering, a brisk-but-not-strenuous 15 minutes of exercise. When I got back in the house I was exhausted. It was a couple days since I'd eat eaten much. I decided I needed to eat a little more for lunch. After lunch, between having a little rash showing on my face and thinking I wasn't ready for any more exercise I skipped walking up the block to the mail boxes. Having slept a lot the previous days I thought I wouldn't sleep yesterday afternoon. But I drifted off, having my cat wake me when he wanted his dinner.

I couldn't really feel the rash Wednesday into Thursday. Last night it was annoying, but fortunately I could ignore it by thinking about other things, and I've never been particularly good at that. My sleep schedule is totally messed up.

My poor cat is totally confused. He can't understand why I won't let him stick his face next mine in bed but can still snuggle up to my legs. He can't understand why I'm not following my usual routine, why I'm not working in my library every day, where he can jump up and sit on my papers till I pick him up and drop him in my lap, why I keep fending him off when I'm resting in my recliner. I just don't want him catching this!

I went out to shop a little later in the morning than usual yesterday. Yesterday was also the first day this year it got up to 100 F here, this year. I noticed it was distinctly unpleasant wearing a mask in a big box store (Home Depot) with weak air-conditioning. Of course, late in the afternoon, I discovered that the CDC now says people who've been properly vaccinated can go anywhere except planes, trains and busses without masks.

All our mask regulations here in Arizona, come from the county and the city. I haven't heard a peep from the city yet. The county was supposed to have an "emergency" county council meeting last night, but that got postponed till this afternoon.

I haven't worn a mask in my own yard ever. I did stay well away from anyone who wandered by in my quiet neighborhood. Out and about I've worn a mask from the beginning, always putting my mask on before I got out of the car to go into stores and removing it again to drive.

It's not that I generally mind wearing a mask, but I'm sure the folks who were "too busy" to get their shots, folks who are just afraid of shots, and folks who generally hate the idea of anything they don't understand are going to start making a fuss again when people around them aren't wearing masks while they should go on wearing theirs. I wouldn't mind carrying my vaccination card around for a short period. But I'm sure there will be screaming about invading privacy if stores ask customers without masks to show their cards. It won't make much difference to me (as long as I'm in the 95% who are in fact protected by the vaccine). In fact from what I understand about how the vaccine works and how long it is effective, it might be better to get exposed a bit to the virus to keep your immunity up. But tearing down the barriers now when at least 50% of people haven't had even the first shot seems like a good way to get another surge. And a lot of people's ignorance and vanity is going to put them at risk. Maybe it's the only way forward for those of us who got our shots. I just wish the others understood their pride, their fears, and their stubbornness could easily come back to bite them.

A year and a month after I went into self-isolation, I got my second shot early this morning. There were a couple notable changes in the system. Far fewer volunteers were running the site and many folks in FEMA (Federal Emergency blah, blah) uniforms were there, including the guy who gave me my second shot. There were fewer stops along the trail to the shot. But since my appointment wasn't long after opening there was a line waiting when the site opened. Everything moved along very quickly last time, and including the wait for the place to open this time, the total time there was only a hair longer.

A big difference was the average age of the folks getting shots. Last time it was all old folks like me, today I'd say the average age was a good thirty years younger. Though I did notice there were some "gray beards" getting their first shot this morning.

This time I felt the shot being given, and had a slight twinge of pain in that arm very quickly. But it faded. I did start tasting the shot in my mouth within a half hour. I'll post tomorrow if I have any symptoms reappear/show up.

I'm going to stop posting weekly COVID updates after I get my second shot. Just not enough to talk about that hasn't been said.

Every level of government is pressing a little too hard to make themselves look good. Only about 1/3 of the adults in the state and here in the city have got even one shot. There was a mild spat between the state on one side and the Feds and my county on the other. The Feds said last week they wanted to open vaccination sites in Arizona. The state said, no thanks. Our county said, speak for yourself - we'd like one. The State came back this week and said, okay you can get one, but don't you dare interfere with our site in your county or you'll be sorry! (It's Republican appointees not wanting the Feds to have control over anything in the state directly.)

Instead of having sign-up in an orderly fashion, all levels of government keep adding new groups willy-nilly that can sign up and not providing enough new slots to make that practical. So when they do release new slots on the Internet, they all disappear in minutes. Those who don't have internet, can't get on at release time, or can't fill out the long on-line form in time are just out of luck, and the slots being released now probably aren't actually for appointments till May. On the other hand, some counties in the state have enough vaccine they can take walk-ins from their own residents!

I really had a crummy week. I had a number of yearly and monthly official chores I had to take care of. For some reason I was thinking too much about various things to stay asleep all night, and my alarm cat insists I get out of bed and move around at the same time instead of sleeping in. He doesn't like me napping in daytime either. So I've been short on sleep much of this week. I've kept making many annoying mistakes from inability to concentrate and forgetting things... I replaced my car battery last month and I did not know that before it could be emissions tested it needed to be run out on the highway for a few miles to reset the on-board computer. So on Tuesday, I sat in the line at the local state emissions for over an hour waiting my turn only to be told the car wasn't ready. Instead of doing the suggested nine or ten step procedure of varying speeds over time that would only be practical on a test track, I ran the car out on the highway that afternoon. I had it tested elsewhere the next day and it was good to go. I went back to the state test site Thursday. Had a shorter line and sailed through the test.

Didn't exactly feel well yesterday. I'm better today. I've been getting to bed earlier the last couple nights, but that just makes me feel like getting up earlier... I hope I remember to clean out the litter box and water the plants outside today.

Today is the anniversary of the day I went into self-isolation. Yesterday I got my first vaccination against the virus.

On Sunday I was talking with my niece on the phone. One of her daughters is a teacher who got her first shot a while back at a location much closer than the place I went. It was one of those lines of cars like you see on TV and she had to wait about an hour. My niece was trying to prepare me for the same kind of experience. I'd never gone to the place I was scheduled for, the town convention center. So I looked it up on Google maps, and got the street view to figure the best way in and out of that area. Yep, I could see a surface parking lot that looked like it could fit a long serpentine of cars. I had scheduled for late in the morning so it wouldn't be cold getting a shot outside and so the traffic wouldn't be horrible. Indeed the traffic was fine all the way downtown. When I approached the convention center, something looked quite different from the street view I'd seen. I came around the corner where I should have been able to see the building. Instead there was a parking structure that obviously had been built since the street view shot had been taken. I pulled into the drive and was directed to park in the structure. Yippee! I was going to do my waiting inside!

I found a parking spot on the first level. Very nice. If I'd looked around after I parked I could have seen a way to the convention center building that would have saved a few steps, but it wasn't exactly a long walk the way I went. There was a short line outside the building. But as soon as I was about to get in it, someone farther down waved me to himself. He asked one question then sent me to the end of the building a few steps away. The guy there asked when my appointment was and checked me off a list, and sent me to a table where a guy handed me a blank vaccination record card and some sheets of info on the vaccine and a disposable mask to put over the one I was wearing. As I walked up to the first station inside the building, the line there disappeared. The fellow here had me use hand sanitizer and sent me to one of many fellows behind plastic shields who checked my ID, filled out my vaccination card for the day and made my appointment for my second shot, all fairly quickly. Next I was sent to the line where the fellow was sending people to tables to get shots. Again the line disappeared as I approached and I probably had to wait ten seconds before I was sent on to get my shot.

I didn't feel the shot at all. All I felt was the medic putting the bandage on and after the shot covering the spot. *Then I had to wait!* As you probably know, they keep you around for 15 minutes, in case you have a horrible reaction immediately. They had a big digital clock in front of the waiting room so you knew when you could leave. The entertainment was a looping film on CPR that I'm not sure anyone was watching. The only thing I remember was 'don't bother with mouth-to-mouth.' The woman at the exit asked if I was okay and checked to see if I had an appointment for my second shot. I was done. The whole thing including walking to and from my car may have lasted 25 minutes, and except for the wait for observation, there wasn't really anything I'd call a slow down, let alone a significant wait.

As I said, I didn't feel the shot at all. A few hours later the only sign I'd had a shot was the tiniest spot of blood on the bandage when I took it off. About bedtime I did notice my arm started to hurt and the vaccination point was very tender. My arm still hurt about an hour ago, but it's fading now. I think I could taste the shot a little in my mouth yesterday evening.

Today at the grocery store, a fellow asked me if I had any idea why the U.S. flag above the store was flying at half staff. It took me a couple seconds to remember.

It's for all those who've died of COVID-19, more than half a million in this country since the beginning of January last year, far more than one out of every thousand Americans who were alive then.

I didn't post for week 47. My mind was kind of in a tizzy. My car battery died very quickly with our last cold snap; slow start one day, slightly slower the next, dead the next. So I had to go get a new one installed and got an oil change as well. Hadn't changed the oil in awhile because I haven't been going places (last week was a big exception). Monday I went to the bank to deposit a couple checks and made a quick stop the grocery near the bank. That afternoon I got my second stimulus payment. (You may not remember, but in the middle of January Trump's folk were saying if you didn't get one by January 15, you would not and you'd have to claim it on your income tax. Well apparently, the checks, at least many of them, were all made out. Mine was dated Jan 6. When Biden came in the folks in the Treasury Department decided to send them out.) So I went back to the bank on Tuesday and bought some business type software at Office Max. Wednesday I was going to make a circuit of places, but my battery was dead. I charged the battery up early Thursday morning and drove it to the shop to get a new battery. Had something I wanted to do at home so I skipped the circuit. Friday morning, I went grocery shopping early and did the first stop of my circuit to by a video game and got home in time for the same thing I wanted to do.

What was it that was stopping my mornings short, actually all week? ( Read more... )

President #45 is gone and #46 is busy undoing all #45's failures, mistakes and damage done on purpose. A lot of work for an old man.

It rained here last night; we're in a rainy period here for the first time since last spring. It's just in time to supply our winter weed season. But we still appreciate it.

On MLK day I was on a Zoom with a couple of my nieces. (One niece couldn't get logged on, which was a shame). The niece with the most kids spent the most time catching her sister and I up. The other with half as many kids was more expeditious in telling her kids' stories. In the past we've gathered at a restaurant to do this on MLK day. I hope we can be back to our tradition next year.