getting the shot, more soup, and birds

I had an unexpected chance to get the first shot of the vaccine yesterday and much closer to home. Wednesday, there was a post on the local chat FB page about vaccines being available for the over 65 crowd in El Campo (15 minutes away), administered by the hospital at the Civic Center. Since I had my appointment coming up on Saturday about a 40 minute drive away weather and road construction permitting, I told Marc to call them and see if he can get an appointment. I think it's El Campo only, he says. Call anyway, I told him. And I left for yoga. When I got back he had called and had an appointment at 2:10 the next day!

So, this morning, they called early and moved his time up to 12:10 as they were shutting down at 1 PM. Ask him if I can come, I hollered from the other room. So he did and after asking a couple of questions, yes I could come. We left here at 11:30 wanting plenty of time to get there and find the Civic Center but as it turned out we needn't have worried. The place was a madhouse. A quiet 65+ old madhouse but a madhouse. We walked in the lobby full of people, maybe about 40 all standing around, some seated in the few chairs, a few trying to practice social distancing but there really wasn't room, a handwritten sign taped to the end of a table...vaccine with an arrow pointing to another room. Someone came out with forms that needed to be filled out (I had downloaded them from the hospital website so we already had them filled out). Every 10 minutes or so someone would call out a time and the appropriate people would go in the room where you were directed where to sit, then sent to a table where you got your shot and the info. Once in the actual room it was still a sort of madhouse but a controlled efficient madhouse. When we got to the table the woman administering the shots stopped to fill up a vial full of syringes. I looked at those 2" long needles...holy cow, I exclaimed. She knew exactly what I was talking about. I won't stick the whole thing in she tells me. Good, I told her, because I was starting to backpedal here. Why were the needles so long I asked. We use what they send us she said. Later Marc surmised that it might be because of all the fat people, it needs to be that long to get to the muscle. Seems legit.

Anyway, after the shot we were asked to stay for 15 minutes to see if there would be any immediate reaction (not immediate but so far only a sore arm) and then we were on our way. I did ask if the second shot was guaranteed in three weeks and she said yes. I assume it will be the same set-up.

I canceled my other two appointments when we got home and made more soup after lunch, potato leek soup this time which I usually make every winter. I probably would have waited a couple of weeks since I had just made cauliflower soup but I had a leek left over and it was buy three more and make the potato soup or throw it away since soup is the only thing I use leeks for.

So believe it or not, I'm getting closer to doing some actual artwork. My printer was out of black ink and it's impossible to get it here in this podunk town so I have to order it online or drive through the construction gauntlet to the shopping mecca so I ordered it online, only this time I tried one of the recycled refilled cartridge inks. The four colors were so cheap like less than $10 and they had a lot of great reviews. So the ink arrived and I switched out the Epson cartridge with the new one, hit 'proceed', it whirred and then told me this cartridge was unrecognizable. I hit proceed again, it whirred and then told me this wasn't an authorized cartridge. I hit proceed again, it whirred and asked me did I really want to use this ink. Holy fucking cow, yes! I hit proceed again and it finally printed out the picture. I wonder how many people are fooled by that first message and go out and plonk down nearly $50 for the Epson ink. Well, so far so good.

The only other thing of note in this Trump free post is that we've continued to see the robin and goldfinches and yesterday the cedar waxwings were migrating through. The only reason I noticed is because they were making a commotion mobbing a hollow in one of the limbs of the big tallow and it attracted my attention. I don't know what was in there but it looked like they were eating something, maybe tree seeds had fallen in.

There are only 8 in this picture though about 2 dozen were spread further out and in constant motion.

And then there's this...

in January.