The First Shot

I got the first of my two Covid shots yesterday. I have to get another one in twenty-eight days (I had the Moderna vaccine) but there are no appointments open, so I have to wait for the Dept. of Health to contact me. I'll wait three weeks and then start agitating for the second appointment, of course.

I was up toward the front of the line by sheer dint of having my degree and despite my being unemployed, healthcare workers go first. I hope everyone can be vaccinated soon. Biden has pledged 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days, which I think would be marvelous. That would mean fixing a lot of trump's stupidity, like finding out where the extra millions of doses of vaccine went (maybe to foreign countries to enrich his family's coffers, like our PPE and ventilators did, being sold or sent to Russia and other countries--no, really). 

I had to stand in line outside in the cold for about half an hour before my shot. It was 37F out at 0730 and I, foolishly believing that we would be indoors, had only worn a thin hoodie and my hair was still wet from my morning shower. But I pulled my hood up and David brought me a scarf he found in the back of the car. There were older and more frail people in line who were worse off. After about half an hour, some workers dragged three propane heaters out and put them about every 20 feet along the line, so that they were able to warm about six people (considering that we were all trying to maintain a six-foot distance from one another). I had worn an KF94 mask under my cloth mask, but they came along the line and asked everyone wearing a cloth mask to put on a procedure mask over. I didn't even bother to explain, I just piled their procedure mask over my cloth mask so that I was wearing three fucking masks. (I don't know why this makes me angry, it just does.)

After getting my shot, I came home and slept. And slept. And slept. My arm was immediately sore (still is today, too) and I had a mild headache in the afternoon. Mostly though, I just wanted to sleep. And sleep. I was up a few hours in the night (I sewed), but then I slept more.

I got up in the afternoon to go with Dave to pick up a pizza curbside using a gift certificate that our friends Grace and Chris gave us for Christmas. We ordered usual green chile, onion, and feta pizza and I had a six-inch vegetable sub, no cheese. (I've been trying to eat less dairy recently, and trying to eat a few more vegan meals.) As we ate, we watched the end of an episode of TaskMaster on youtube.

After dinner, I went back to sleep for awhile while Dave made bread. Like I said, I was up in the night and after doing the dishes, I sewed. Despite my pledge to work on finishing the five quilts already in the queue, I've been sewing crumb blocks from the scraps of fabric that I have stored in plastic bins. Crumb blocks are made from tiny scraps of fabric, some of them an inch square or smaller, sewn together. I've actually emptied two plastic bins worth of scraps, one bin of patterned fabric scraps, one of solid colors. 

I got back to bed around 0430 and slept until 1140 or so. Got up, checked my blood sugar and had some decaf and soy yogurt with protein powder and flax meal added.  

My arm is still sore and warm at the site of the injection. (I suspect the needle wasn't long enough and some (all?) of the vaccine may have gone into adipose tissue, which, who knows what that will do, but it is something else for The Brain to worry about.)

Welcome to The New Normal, I guess.