Pandemic Daze: Finally Vaccinated!

 Well, in spite of the complete lack of confidence I expressed in my last post, I received my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday!  I purposely scheduled it for a Friday so I would have the weekend to recover if I had any side effects.  So far, the side effects haven't been bad, and I tend to think I'm beyond the point at which they would be likely to get worse.  I'm feeling achy and tired today--if I hadn't had this shot yesterday, I would probably think I was coming down with something--but I'm still functioning.

I also feel relieved and grateful.  I think most of us have spent the past year worrying about the consequences of ordinarily inconsequential decisions (was the weekly trip to the grocery store going to land me or someone else in the ICU?).  Now (or at least a couple weeks from now, after I've had a chance to build up immunity) these small things will probably feel less consequential.

Many thing will stay the same.  I will still be careful to wear masks, especially since we don't know if the vaccine will prevent us from being carriers.  Most people I know have not been fully vaccinated yet (or even received their first shot), so it will still be a while before I can socialize in person.  But I think in a couple of weeks, I can feel safe getting my first haircut since last February, and maybe even eat in restaurants again.  It feels like good progress.

Pandemic Daze: The Vaccine Emotional Rollercoaster

 Vaccines have always seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel for this pandemic.  We spent months knowing that scientists were working hard to develop them, and that thousands of brave volunteers were participating in clinical trials.  It seems now like nothing short of a miracle that we have two highly effective vaccines approved in the US with several other promising candidate yet to be approved.

The giant caveat to this, of course, is that vaccine doses cannot be produced quickly enough to keep up with demand.  The fact that the vaccines currently approved in the US require two doses further complicates issues (not looking a gift horse in the mouth, mind you--I'm very grateful for any vaccines we can have!).

The solution has been identifying higher priority groups who should be vaccinate first.  Unfortunately, we do not yet have enough doses even for these groups.  With limited doses and sky-high demand, it feels that the vaccine roll-out has degenerated into a complicated free-for-all.

I think Scott and I can serve as a very small case study of some of the things that can happen with determining vaccine eligibility and actually receiving the shots.  We both live in one district and work in schools in another.  As people working in K-12 schools, we have been placed in a higher priority group to receive vaccines.  Scott works for this district as an employee; I work for them as a contractor.

The whole business of working for them as a contractor has been the root of a lot of aggravation.  When this district first partnered with a local hospital to provide vaccines, I only found out through Scott because I am not included on all of the email distros.  In theory, we would be able to sign up and use our employee badges as proof of employment.  As a contractor, for reasons I cannot even begin to understand, I have been issued a badge designating me as a volunteer.

On a side note, is there anything that will give parents more confidence than thinking that an unpaid volunteer is diagnosing and treating their children's communication disorders?  But I digress.

At that point, I contacted HR to ask for a letter confirming that I work in the schools.  They initially refused to help me, but ultimately relented when I escalated the matter up the chain.  So, I had my letter, and Scott and I both initially had vaccine appointments for tomorrow.

Then the hospital that was supposed to vaccinate us ran out of doses last week and cancelled appointments.  I don't know how that happened, but I'm guessing the mythical national vaccine stockpile may have played a role in their miscalculation.

A couple days later, they got more doses and issued invitations for people to sign up for appointments.  Except...Scott received one and I didn't.  I escalated this up the chain again, and this time they were a lot less helpful ("dismissive" is really the word that comes to my mind).  I'm happy to say he has an appointment tomorrow, but concerned that I don't.

In another email that I didn't get as a contractor (and Scott showed me), the district where we work said they would send an email to employees who were not invited to reschedule vaccinations to confirm that they still wanted the vaccine and then take next steps.  My question at this point is whether I (as a lowly contractor, rather than a high-fallutin' employee) will actually receive this email, or whether I will be completely shut out of the process.  As of now, as someone working in a school, my only option is for the district where I work to arrange for me to be vaccinated--I can't just take my letter confirming I work in the schools to a local pharmacy and arrange for an appointment that way.

So, the past few days have been an emotional rollercoaster for me, one that I suspect will continue for some time.  I know I'm not even in the worst position.  There are people who, in my opinion, are in risker occupations than mine who have not even been invited to start the process yet.  But I dream about the day when vaccine supply is no longer an issue and all of our hopes aren't centered around being able to receive shots.

Pandemic Daze: The Joys Of Working While Wearing PPE

 My job is currently mostly virtual, although that may change soon.  Plenty has been said about the challenges of working and learning remotely, but under the circumstances, working in-person is likewise not a picnic.

I had to go into a school today to conduct a speech and language evaluation for a kid.  First of all, as an issue entirely separate from the pandemic, evaluations are not my favorite part of the job, particularly ones that involve standardized assessments.  I have yet to find a way to make a standardized assessment fun for anybody, and they sometimes drag on for an unreasonably long time.

With schools in the district where I work being virtual for now, conducting one of these evaluations involves coordinating with parents to bring their child to school.  This always leaves open the possibility that they will be late or forget.  Also, they may have scheduling constraints for pick-up that do not match the realities of the testing.

Also, of course, we have to use PPE while we do the testing.  I'm pretty used to wearing masks, and I believe they are necessary, but they also prevent me from drinking water during a period of time when I have to do a lot of talking with a clear voice.  I'm always parched by the time I'm done.  I've been provided with what I think of as a crummy face shield (though I wonder how good they ever are), which is basically the equivalent of having to look through dirty glasses for the duration of the evaluation.  Today, at the request of a parent, I had to also wear a plastic disposable gown and some sort of slippery plastic gloves.

So, imagine the scene...I'm sitting with a kid I've never met before, possibly boring him to the point of tears with standardized assessments.  I'm getting a headache from dehydration and looking through a plastic sheet that is most definitely not transparent.  The plastic gloves I'm wearing are so slippery I have trouble turning pages in the test books that I'm using to show the kid pictures for the assessment.  And I'm straining to hear the kid's already quiet voice, which is muffled by his mask and the plexiglass barrier between us.

If we ever return to any approximation of "normal," so many things will feel so much easier than they are now.

Pandemic Daze: Already Missing The Capitol Steps

 One thing that has been clear since the beginning of the pandemic is that we won't be able to just resume life as it was.  Too much has changed.  In the worst cases, this has meant people dying prematurely of COVID-19 or suffering long term health problems.  But many valued businesses have also closed, leaving employees without jobs and customers without the services they provided.  We already know of a few favorite restaurants in our area that have closed, for example.  But that didn't prepare me for how sad I would feel this morning when I heard that the Capitol Steps would be shutting down.

For the uninitiated, Capitol Steps is a wonderful political satire group that has been around since the 1980's.  I became interested in them around middle school, when I became interested in politics and news events.  My family used to play their radio shows on NPR, and I used to record them using blank cassette tapes, and then go back and transcribe the songs I particularly liked.  There are some political events from years ago that I remember specifically because the Capitol Steps wrote songs about them.

I've been fortunate to have gone to several of their live performances.  I don't recall exactly when I went to the last one, but I had already started grad school 2.0 by then, so it was within the past couple of years.  Scott and I were talking about seeing another one in that elusive future time when such things may become possible again.

I've tried not to turn my blog into an extended political rant, but I have expressed some of my views about Trump on here before.  I've been very disturbed by his presidency for reasons that go far beyond the fact that he and I belong to different political parties.  But the fact that satire continued during the past four years gave me hope that things would ultimately be okay, and gave me much-needed laughs.  I could use some laughs now, as a matter of fact, having been swinging between sadness and anger since last week's insurrection at the Capitol.  (Though to be fair, I think it would be hard to find a humorous angle there).

Capitol Steps, you will be sorely missed.  

Pandemic Daze: What To Spend Money On When You're Not Traveling

 Like many people who are fortunate enough to still have discretionary income, our spending habits have changed during the pandemic.  We've been sticking close to home since March (with the biggest adventure being moving to our new home in August), so travel spending in particular has decreased sharply.

In our pre-pandemic days, we went to New York City pretty frequently, at least once a year.  Every time we went, we discussed the idea of getting a cronut at the Dominique Ansel Bakery.  For the uninitiated, a cronut is a cross between a croissant and a doughnut, which debuted in NYC to great acclaim in 2013.  By "great acclaim," I mean long lines to get one.  While I imagine the line situation must have eventually subsided, we always concluded that we were too tired and stressed out to make a special trip out of our way (and probably stand in some sort of a line) to try a pastry.

I'm not sure at this point when we'll next travel to NYC (or anywhere else, for that matter).  But a few weeks ago, when I was perusing the food section of the NY Times, I noticed a story about how the Dominique Ansel Bakery was going to start shipping cronuts, at least for a limited time.  Scott and I decided this was our chance to try them.  I signed up for emails to alert me when they were ready to start taking online orders.

I saw the first alert email about 20 minutes after it landed in my inbox; I clicked on the link and found the cronuts had already sold out!  About two weeks later, I got a second alert.  I was faster that time, and managed to land a box of four cronuts.  I got a bit of sticker shock when it came to shipping, however.  Overnight shipment for the cronuts ended up costing nearly as much as the cronuts themselves!  I considered dropping the whole idea at that point, but felt like we were already too intrigued by the idea of ordering cronuts.  Plus, we hadn't been spending money on travel.

The second surprise was that even after ordering, we had about a two week wait to receive them.  They finally arrived late yesterday afternoon.  Here's what we got:

According to the literature they sent with the cronuts, flavors change every month, and are never repeated.  Our particular cronuts are filled with chestnut ganache.  And they are delicious!  But, I probably won't order them again.  There's the expense factor, of course.  Also, as delicious as they are, they are almost certainly better fresh from the bakery, as all fried foods tend to be.  It also turns out that four cronuts is a lot for two people--they aren't huge, but they pack a powerful punch and sit like lead weights in the stomach.  Of course, one day when we aren't social distancing, it may be easier to go in on a box with two other people, thereby limiting both the expense and the calories.  But I think in the future, I might be more receptive to visiting the bakery in NYC, whenever I may go again.

The Cliche Of The Lost Sock

 So many jokes have been made about missing socks, especially the notoriously hungry dryers that eat them.  However, the lost sock joke is on us right now.

Hardly a week goes by in our new place without Scott or I having to search for a lost sock.  Sometimes the missing sock is found clinging to other clothing, which, or course, could happen anywhere.  But part of the problem has to do with our current laundry configuration.  

We have a small stackable washer and dryer that sits in a small space sandwiched between the wall of a closet and our hot water heater.  The small size means that we do smaller and more frequent loads of laundry, which means that sometimes we'll find the "missing" sock in our next load.  Socks also sometimes fall by the side of the washer/dryer unit.  It's hard to see when this happens, and retrieving these lost socks involves the use of a flashlight and one of those grabber tools (which, tellingly enough, the previous owners were kind enough to leave for us!).  

I lost a sock yesterday.  Unfortunately, it's a sock I like.  In recent years, I've upgraded my socks, and no longer buy the sorts of multipacks that you can find at places like Target and Walmart.  My feet are more comfortable with the nicer socks, but naturally, losing a more expensive sock seems like a bigger problem than losing a cheap sock which probably didn't have long for the world anyway. I looked through my hamper and carefully checked all the clothing that went into the dryer with it.  Nothing.  I looked along the sides of the washer/dryer with a flashlight and still didn't see anything.

In desperation, I started running the grabber tool along the sides of the washer/dryer to see if I felt anything soft.  I did!  I grabbed it and pulled it up...only to find that it was a sock that didn't belong to either me or Scott!  It was a colorful sock with owls printed on it, the sort I would remember if either of us had a pair.

I'm hoping my sock will turn up soon, so that I can use it, but I'm cheered to think that it's probably not lost forever, at least.

Getting Rid Of The Boxes

 Finally buying a home after years of renting has felt very liberating.  We've had so many addresses over the years, some of which we stayed in for a long time, and some of which we stayed in for just a few weeks.  The common denominator was always that I knew we would be moving on.  I know there are people who rent for their entire lives for a variety of reasons, but I always knew that we were ultimately looking to buy someplace, once we knew where we were going to be for the long run.

"Moving on" is of course a euphemism for sorting all of your worldly possessions, filling trash bags, making multiple runs to donation centers, and, of course, packing boxes.  In my experience, way more boxes are needed than you think, and if you have to buy them, they can be expensive.  When we moved in to our last place, we kept some of the moving boxes that didn't get too beaten up.  We flattened them and hid them in closets and under the bed.  We did this primarily because we didn't know how long we would be staying there, but in the end, we stayed for four and a half years.

There are also the boxes that come with large pieces of styrofoam that are perfectly contoured to cushion whatever item was stored in it.  We kept quite a few of those, too.  After all, we wanted to protect our sewing machine and food processor in transit, didn't we?  Naturally, these boxes take up much more space than regular moving boxes, since the styrofoam can't be flattened.

Then there are the reusable sorts of boxes--the plastic storage boxes and the suitcases.  We had quite a collection of the latter, owing to our time working in Kazakhstan.  

Anyway, one liberating aspect of putting down roots is that we got rid of nearly all the boxes we had been holding onto!  The moving boxes were the first to go, and we got rid of them as we unpacked them.  Then we got rid of the boxes with styrofoam.  I felt almost arrogant throwing them out--how did I expect to pack these items for the next move?  But there may or may not be a next move; what we have very definitely right now is limited closet space.  The last ones to go were the plastic storage boxes and the suitcases.  We did a purge of possessions so that we would need fewer plastic storage boxes.  As for the suitcases. we almost always do carry-on when we travel.  We kept our carry-on suitcases, one large suitcase to share as needed, and a duffle bag that folded up into the suitcase.  All told, it's probably still more suitcases than we truly need (especially at the moment, when we're barely going anywhere at all!).

I must be in for the long haul with this home.  At this point, I couldn't pack up even if I wanted to.