A low, lead-colored sky, snow falling (again) as I drive to Norwalk Hospital for my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. It all goes smoothly, in and out in less than half an hour. A security guard checks my temperature, a nurse hands me a form to fill out, attesting that I’ve had no allergic reactions to injected medications and that I understand what the side effects might be; then I’m escorted to a desk near the main entrance, bare my arm, get the shot, am handed a card testifying that I’ve been vaccinated, following which I wait for 15 minutes in a “recovery” room to make sure I don’t go into anaphylactic shock. The nurses and other medical personnel are wearing masks that say, “I’ve been vaccinated.” I ask for one, figuring it will be a badge of honor; but the masks are for staff only.
So now I’m trying to NOT feel (Choose one): overconfident, bullet-proof, invulnerable.
Leslie is due for her second shot on March 14, after which we will make our long-delayed hegira to Arizona. A few days ago, her friend Karen’s mother phoned, chocked with grief over her daughter’s death from Covid last spring (See the first of these posts). The call caused Leslie’s sorrow to rise up, and she cried in my arms. Meanwhile, I learned that an old friend of mine, Peter Iseman, died recently of virus-related complications. He and Karen are but two of the half-million Americans who have succumbed to this awful plague; they put a face and a personality on the numbers, they give meaning to the numbing statistics.
Some unrelated, random observations: Yesterday, I tuned into NASA TV to watch the Mars rover, Perseverance, land on the red planet. It made a voyage of 290 million miles in seven months, and touched down in a complicated, fully automated series of maneuvers right on time at 3:55pm EST. A wondrous, astonishing, heartening event in this otherwise disheartening year, an illustration of what we can do in this country when we pull together.
A few hours later, on the nightly news, I watched a Texas family burning their furniture to keep from freezing to death in the winter storm that’s struck more than half the U.S. A stunning juxtaposition, wouldn’t you say? A spacecraft landing on Mars to search for signs of life, American citizens setting fire to tables and chairs to stay warm. The misinformation and disinformation that’s been spewed for the past four years hasn’t stopped with the retirement of Donald Trump to Mar-A-Lago. The Texas governor and his cronies, voices amplified by right-wing media, blame the state’s plight on the “failure” of renewable energy sources. Nevermind that only seven percent of Texas’s energy comes from renewables — The windmills froze! Of course, so did the natural gas pipelines. We must, must do all we can to promote burning the fossil fuels that cause climate change that, in turn, causes events like unprecedented winter storms that force families to repurpose their furniture into firewood.
Glad you got your shot
Trump is a nazi and a commie , read yale historian Tim snyder, whom I love
By the way, thank God your in Red state,
My sister, your grade school classmate, is 79, has co- morbidity factors , but we are in Illinois, no one gets shots, unless your connected. State has 290 billion public sector pension deficit., a truly morbidly obese 3 rd generation billionaire.
Meanwhile my kids on Conservative Texas have their shots.
DeSantis is the model, Pritzger, Cuomo, and two some Newsom are the problem.
Actually, we have gotten our shots in deep blue Connecticut, which has managed the pandemic about as well as can be expected.
30 to 39% of powers comes from renewables in Texas. Hansen the father of global warming and the omnipresent new expert on everything, Bill Gates both want nuclear power. The amount of e Rey necessary to mine the elements necessary for renewables is staggering and batteries need to be recycled.
Hating Trump had become your windmill.
Yes, he’s unlivable.
But,
Peace with 3 countries and Israel, vets able to go to outside doctors, standing up to crazed Iran, holding a China responsible for theft of patents and intellectual properties, while holding Muslims in camps, doing forced work. Destroyed the Caliphate, record jobs for all “ races”. Reduction of poverty, getting Virus done that you want and nobody said could get done,. Started no wars but ended Afghan fiasco where 70% of all deaths in 20 years came under the 8 years of general Obama, who illegally targeted American overseas against the constitution.
I could go on but reason has failed.
Do you really think the riots by Antifa and BLM were not orchestrated and funded. Almost every black man killed in last 12 years by police was in a city run by Democrats.
790 people killed in Chicago, the most segregated city in America after 90 years of Dem rule.
City burned 3 times with an all minority government.
He’s deeply flawed but your no longer logical.
I think if I went thru the 3 years of conspired gov intrusion in “Russia “ farce, I’d be a lil crazy to.
I did not vote for Trump in 2016 and I pray this doddering old senile Biden man stays alive, because Harris is apocalyptically radically incompetent.
I find when people lose faith in Gid, they pretend government is the answer, and it never is.
The funniest appellation lately is “Cancun Cruz”. Hope he wears it to the convention.
Hearing about Limbaugh reminds me of the day Ayatollah Kommeini slipped away. Nasty little cuss.
It was very nice to hear from you, and very nice to hear that you are back to bronc-bustin’.
I grieve for Leslie’s continued sorrow.
Our first shot today. The second on 3/12.
Hold it between the ditches going back to the Rio Grande.
I like ” flyin ted cruz” myself
We get our 2d doses in Tucson on 3/13. Looking forward to your return here!