vaccines and golden idols

We got our second vaccine shot Thursday and this time it was much more organized. A sign on the front door of the civic center directed us to a door on the side which opened directly into the room where you walked up to a table and gave them your name and appointment time and they marked you off the list and then directed you to a row of chairs to wait your turn to get jabbed. Our appointment time was 10:45 and we got there about 10:40, waited less than 2 minutes to be called over, another few minutes while the jabber filled out the vax card and get stuck, wait the required 15 minutes and we walked out 20 minutes after we got there.

I'm a little achy this morning (Friday) and the injection site is sore but not the whole arm like last time and I didn't sleep well last night, couldn't get comfortable, so I'm unsure how much of my lack of energy is due to the vaccine and how much is due to poor sleep. I plan to be lazy all day today as it's overcast and a little chilly (but maybe that was just me). I might even get back to my drawing which I haven't worked on since the first day weeks ago due to my right hand buzzing like a subliminal electrical current when I grasp things but by afternoon even that subsides. I can make a fist now with no pain and the nerve jolts have stopped and while I wore the wrist brace for about a week, I now think the problem is either in my upper arm or my elbow and just manifests in my hand. Now that I've had both my vaccine shots I see a trip to the masseuse in my future and maybe the chiropractor too.

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The next day: well, turns out I didn't work on my drawing after all. After breakfast I sat on the couch for an hour and read and then went back to bed til 2 PM. I felt better, less achy, more rested until the dog wanted her walk and she didn't just want a quick outing, she wanted a long walk and that used up all my energy and motivation for the day. Back to the couch and book til bed. But I slept well last night, feel normal today. Still overcast out but I may start moving all the plants back outside from the house and garage today.

In other news, I'm trying to stay off the political stream. I read Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter every morning but I'm mostly staying off Twitter and FB. The adults are in charge now and I have to trust Biden's team to take care of things. The Republicans have completely devolved into the cult of Trump with very few exceptions, even Mitch McConnell has caved and said he will support Trump if he's the nominee in 2024, and at CPAC they rolled out a golden idol of Trump. I kid you not. 

And a bigger group of liars in one place you will not find while they jeer and 'own' the libs. And of course, so true to form, The House passed Biden's covid relief bill with not one single Republican voting for it. As usual, Republicans only want to help the rich get richer and fuck ordinary Americans, they should have prepared better.

So as not to end on such a sour note, here are the fresh prayer flags.

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. 

getting the vaccine, confused flowers, and 2020 review

I have an appointment on January 26 at 6 PM, eleven days after the first date it had shown me two or three hours earlier, to get my first covid vaccination shot. Out of the 9 available locations I focused on the two nearest me, both nearly an hour away. It took me a good 15 minutes flipping back and forth between the two locations, constantly refreshing the sites. Four times it gave me a date and time and then before I could get name, email, and phone entered and clicked register it told me that, oops, someone else already got that one. Many times it told me no dates or times available and to try again but I persevered and finally succeeded in getting an appointment. Not my first choice in location but no farther away. I don't know which vaccine I'll get.

My sister sent me a link to a site that lists all the places in Texas that have and are distributing the vaccine and surprisingly enough, the HEB (grocery) pharmacy in this little podunk town has it but is only vaccinating front line healthcare workers right now. I imagine they have the Moderna vaccine since it doesn't need extraordinarily frigid temps to store it as I'm pretty sure the HEB doesn't have sub-zero celsius storage capacity.

It seems the word has gone out that the bird feeder is open for business. I'm seeing chickadees and sparrows and the little warblers that winter over here and white wing doves and inca doves and cardinals and goldfinches that are migrating through. And of course the curious little wrens though they don't eat seed.

Yesterday morning I looked out the back door and there was, no surprise, a squirrel on the bird feeder with it's back to me. I opened the door, it ignored me, I walked right up to it, it ignored me, I poked it on the butt, it sat up and looked at me. What are you doing I said and then it finally jumped down and went up the tree. Later in the day I saw the same squirrel, I'm sure it was the same squirrel by the way it was behaving, on the rim of the turtle pond acting sort of woozy with its tail in the water trying to get a drink which it did and then jumped down and went over to the overturned bucket on the ground upon which I had put a hand full of pecans and there it stayed. I took its picture and came inside. Haven't seen it since but that squirrel is not well.

I had thought I would get out there and clear out the last 12' in the barn yesterday as the days are nice and warm but it was so windy and gusty that raking and sweeping would have been an exercise in futility and I finally got tired of being pushed around by the wind and came in so maybe today as we're supposed to get to the mid 70s.

I saw the first bloom of the 10 petal anemone in the yard yesterday

and there is a bluebonnet plant in the front that is putting out buds. In December.

Some of the plants look like this

when they should look like this at best this time of year.

And the spring weeds in the yard have just exploded the last few days. It looks so fresh and green. In December. The woodland violets and the little yellow oxalis are starting to bloom.

This is all way early y'all.

Well, tomorrow is New Year's Eve and I suppose this is when I usually post about the past year but I think it can be summed up in a few words...as bad as we thought 2019 was, 2020 was exponentially worse, the only bright spot being that we kicked Trump to the curb. I'll leave it at that.