Re-Upping from April 18, celebrating my April 11 vaccination...

Sunday, April 18

Good Mornin'! SUN-day morning!

 

haha. Nancy's line makes me smile. I had to check and see if her Sunday morning appearance with George Stephanopoulus was before or after the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol. (Before: pre-election too, way back in Sept. 2020). Time flies... But her line lives on. And this spring morning, it still makes me smile. So, "Good mornin', Sunday mornin'!, to you!" (and you and you and you! ;-) Breaking the third wall here. 

Little darlin', the smiles returning to their faces. Little darlin', it seems like years since it's been clear... Here comes the Sun, and I say: it's all right!

 

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* Last Sunday, I joined thousands of others in getting Co-Vid vaccinated with the Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) vaccine at U.S. Bank Stadium, right off the expressway at the outskirts of downtown Minneapolis. It was easy on early Sunday afternoon getting in and out. The area around the old Metrodome has really cleaned up and re-gentrified (parking lots to condos and fresh office space) since the investment in the new stadium.

It was put to good use for public-health reasons: a Minnesota National Guard soldier told me they had been there with the program all week, vaccinating with J&J.  She was one of the hundreds on site directing us where to go from parking lot entrance, through the skyway and stadium ramps to one of the lower levels of good seats ringing the stadium, where the civilian nurses and medical professionals were giving the shots.

Then we sat for 15 minutes -- or stood in the back, if we chose -- on the outer concourse level where hundreds of folding chairs were set up in long horizontal rows around the lit-up playing field with the sun steaming in through the 360-degrees windows wrapping around.  You could go up and snap a selfie at the official "selfie station"  if you liked, read the information paperwork, or admire the round vaccination sticker compliments of the Vikings with the mascot flexing his tanned bicep.

Get up and go when the 15 minutes was up...

I was impressed by the program administration, from driving in from the East Metro, parking, walking and walking the ramps into the stadium with so many others generously spaced out entering and exiting at their own pace (soldiers pushing those needing wheelchairs/separate entrance if you signed up for that), to the brief conversation and identity checks before getting the shot, and 15-minute watched wait period... I was back home in under 2 hours.  No symptoms, arm never got sore. Looked away but felt the shot; no pain, probable gain.

You see, I had CoVid.  Back in late Feb. 2020, I believe, where until the fever broke, and even for a few weeks afterwards with the odd breathlessness, you are indeed sick enough to feel humbled as a mortal.  That was more than a flu bug, and then a short time later... the news of CoVid broke and you could not find an antibody or CoVid test anymore than you could hand sanitizer or toilet paper.

(I add these details because... how quickly we forget!)

In my temporary, early-morning work with Amazon starting in August, it did not take long for me to test positive for CoVid in a warehouse where at its peak, we we getting notices of about 2 or 3 cases reported daily, in clusters of a few days here and a few days there.  Legally, in a factory workplace setting that size, they were mandated to inform that another co-worker tested positive, and their last date of work before the mandated, paid part-time leave. (You got paid your regular hours, but told to stay home for two weeks...)

Long story short,
I signed up on the Minnesota site to be notified when the vaccine became available because I want peace of mind to visit family, even if my body has already produced antibodies and survived.  I don't believe in mandatory vaccination by the government, but in families, for self protection and self isolation, elders and parents of the young unvaccinated can set and enforce their own standards, I think. Herd immunity is achievable by respecting the choices of other people, calculating one's own personal risks, and accepting responsibility.

They call that "adulting" nowadays, those word folkz looking to slap new labels on very old concepts as if each generation is the first to discover its own uniqueness.  But I digress...

Soon after my shot, broke news of clotting in the six child-bearing-ish age women, the highest in the range just a few years younger than me. (Oct.'68, Columbus Day -- don't say Goodbye, say Hello! Again, a Sunday morning digression.)  I'm not worried. Never been on artificial birth control, and maybe... that has something to do with the clotting issues?

I am glad they made this news public though, instead of hushing it up to protect the fearful and promote "it's all good!" messages via keeping facts quiet.  Let women in that age range decide if they want to go the two-dose mRNA mechanism instead.  More, not less, information to all the people. Don't condescend and keep it from us to better the advocacy and/or spin.  That's how you lose trust.

One more week of waiting for me then. Minnesota, like Illinois and Wisconsin, appears to be working towards slowly vaccinating a majority of the population this Spring, before the weather and opened-up travel, domestically and internationally, brings more variants into our region.

Easter Sunday.
Vaccination Sunday.
Today.  This year is going to pass quickly, I predict.  Here's to better, not worse!