Crap. We nearly got two appointments in a town that’s about 45 minutes away from our house. But by the time Don got online as well, they were gone. Since then, we’ve been seeing one slot open here and there but we want to go together. But there is some activity, which is good, even if the results are frustrating.
I finished the stage and the the curtains yesterday. Now, we move on to the dreaded squiggles. Every time I’m faced with a section that seems impossible, I have to remind myself that I somehow conquer it in the end.
I stop writing this post every few minutes to refresh my browser for vaccination availability at local pharmacies.
We have a LOT of snow coming next week, so that impacts the days available to us. If the weather forecast is accurate, we could have another 10 inches or more coming.
Save me!
This reminds me of that winter several years ago when Don was in Boston working and I was here by myself and I had to rake snow off the roof and dig tunnels for Scout.
My girl.
Believe me, we’re just about ready to get to this depth of snow. By the way, I not only dug this little stretch of tunnel, I extended it around the entire corral. There was a time, not so long ago, when the first thing we did before digging ourselves out was to shovel a tunnel for the dogs.
Nothing else new, my friends. Puzzles, food, guitar music, constant refreshing of our browsers, shopping list finished and grocery pick up scheduled for tomorrow morning, vacuuming, dusting, etc., etc.
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
Do you work with the pieces laying in the middle of the puzzle? I have to have an empty space that I fill piece by piece. I would need a TV tray or something to spread those pieces out on. We each have our own style of completing puzzles, huh!?!
Happy Chinese New Year!
Stay safe!
I usually shift them. They were there while I worked on the stage.
Stay safe, Ellen!
such a sweetie, your girl. <3 :)
(i obviously either don't have or know a way to insert more modern emojis on my phone … sorry … but you know what i mean).
good luck on appointments opening up for you and don to get the vaccines together!
and good luck with the snow removal and more snow ahead. we have temperatures below zero again and more snow on the way, too, and i am over it.
you are whizzing through that puzzle! i have confidence in you getting the squiggles put together soon, too.
here in iowa right now, vaccines are available to health care workers, teachers, 65+, etc. they are not all helped at this point, but they absolutely should get vaccinated first. the next group to open (maybe in may) will cover my sister, brother and me, but we expect the same difficulty in getting shots because we are in the 16 – 64 age group. i don't understand why, with all the scheduling problems and lack of vaccines, they didn't make the age groups smaller … like 50 – 64, then 35 – 49, etc. following our governor's example, maybe? her name is kim reynolds and since she took away mask/social distancing/ building capacity limits last sunday, there's a new hashtag going around here … #covidkim … sad mess we're all in. :(
i am going to get something done around here. don't know what (there's only so much i can do because of my back, not having that follow-up scan to the last mri, etc.), but i need to do something!
happy friday and stay safe!
kathy in iowa
I don’t know why – at least for 65 and up – we haven’t been contacted through Medicare or Social Security and assigned a number or something, so we can sign up. That we have to constantly call or check sites to get a vaccine is ridiculous. Most of this is due to Trump, of course, but this could have been handled so much more efficiently.
Stay safe, Kathy!
Gosh, I’ve got a few relatives spread out among the states and I know what they and also my peeps are going thru here in SoCalif and it’s a frick’in nightmare, every man for himself, don’t wait on anybody for direction, gotta self-propel and find a way to make it happen (I feel so sorry for really-elderly people who don’t have anybody to help them with any of this; so many don’t have a computer or even a car), so I count my lucky stars that my family doctor got me scheduled for the first shot; I don’t know why, for once in my life, I was actually an exception to the rule and I DO NOT gloat over it; rather, I wish it could be so for EVERYbody. I have a cousin who’s traveling four hours away to try to get his injection (Texas). At the Forum in L.A. yesterday, people were lined up in cars for HOURS, with APPOINTMENTS for second dose only, proved with their i.d. vax card that they’d had the first shot (Pfizer; this isn’t Moderna). I guess other people drove up without appts and it messed things up; many people were turned away and had to get back in line today; one woman interviewed in her car was nearly in tears because she’d driven into the wrong line and had to start all over again. This is hard on people. What if you’re not a freeway driver? In L.A., you have to brave the tangled freeways to get anywhere. People shouldn’t have to go through this; it IS ridiculous. (The Forum is a huge arena; 17,000 seat capacity, very near LAX; gigantic parking lot for these lined-up cars.) Didn’t I read that CVS Drugstores will start offering the vaccine on Feb 12, today?
My county advised yesterday that they have no vaccine til March.
So frustrating!
Nothing available at CVS either. I signed up for notifications, but really, it’s a giant crap shoot around here. When you do see an opening, it turns out it’s probably long gone as we’ve noticed the “appointments available” stays there for a while, even though they’ve already been booked.
Stay safe, Vicki!
I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, Claudia! I want you and Don SO MUCH to get the vax asap; you’ve both been so conscientious and you deserve the relief of this vaccine. Again, I pray it will happen for you very soon. I just know in 2022-23 that you’re going to go to Paris again; that you’ll be working once more (when you want to); that you can browse at leisure in a bookstore in Manhattan; all the things you love to do (including Don setting up his portrait studio on the street); all of the things your readers love to share with you, when you share with us! Prayers, prayers. Isn’t it what we all want for each other! To just feel and be ‘normal’ again; FREEDOM from this enemy virus!
So, get this. My husband and I tried to be sensitive about not ‘bragging’ of getting the first shot especially knowing how upset some people we knew were getting with trying to get a reservation (definitely is a sort of ‘desperate’ feeling, to want the injection, know how much you need it to save your life!). Of these people, some specific circumstances, like I knew they weren’t in my particular health clinics/network, which is how I got my shot (where the large insurer is I think helping certain medical groups/doctors for their patients; at least that’s what I read in the newspaper today); so, nothing left to these friends or ours who don’t have that connection, except to keep trying with the County, and then as soon as I found about the drugstores out here in SoCalif called CVS who were at least taking reservations starting today, I called anybody I could think of to make sure they’d read about it on the county website or online or in the newspaper, etc.
My one really, really good friend (although she can tend to finger wag; I’ve experienced this on other things over many, many years; she can be quite cutting [our mutual friends all have a pretty good idea/opinion of why she never married again after a divorce 40 years ago, because we knew the guy and he wasn’t a bad guy [we still like him; he remains in our lives], and she’s had many romantic entanglements since that time and they’ve all failed, because of her [which is always how it’s revealed in the end]; it’s just that she can be a really difficult person for as much as she can also be a lot of good things [you know how some people ‘are’!!]; I try to overlook it; but I always know something will pop where this attitude she gets will eventually rear its ugly head over something); anyway, I’ve known she isn’t associated with a family doctor and two specialists she DOES occasionally go to had already told her they wouldn’t be doing the shots at their medical offices (and I knew she was working with the county for her shot/reservation); so, you know, I didn’t tell her I got my shot five days ago because it wouldn’t have done her any good (because she didn’t have the same medical ‘connection’ I did with however all this happened with my own doctor/clinic/health network) and instead would’ve just stressed her out.
As it happens, she is now lined up for her first shot tomorrow, because I then HAD relented and talked to her about it midweek when she kept probing me about what my husband and I were doing in the vax search; turns out, and this was not anything she knew or that she had told me about (a doctor from her past she was able to research; I mean, she had to ‘dig’ to even remember his name; was a OTO visit for the flu or something, and she hadn’t been to a family doctor before, like since childhood, or ANYtime since; and this woman is 70 years old!), the appointment happened precisely for her because somehow she is still in this family physician’s computer archives and they were VERY generous to help her out and get her an appointment thru my same health network even though she is, by far, NOT a regular patient at all there- – but, you know she doesn’t really need me to fill in the blanks because she takes a bigger-town newspaper than mine, and it’s already published that you can inquire with your family doctor and she and I had even talked about that weeks ago but she’d decided it was a deadend since she hadn’t been to a family doctor for so many years.
So, I called her this afternoon after I got back from the lab to say, ‘have you tried calling CVS’ (the info I just learned this morning) only to have her tell me about her appointment tomorrow but then she proceeded to just let me ‘have it’ about how angry she was that I didn’t tell her about my shot from Sunday to Weds, how friends shouldn’t keep things from friends and withhold information (it wasn’t even applicable to her, from everything we’d spoken of in the past!), that I did the wrong thing by keeping my vax info to myself for five days (like, what, that I was was trying to hog info or something??); how she might have missed this opportunity if I’d continued to keep my vax info to myself; clearly getting out a lot of pent-up ‘whatever’ by laying into me, just pouring guilt over my head as if HER vax problem was MY fault instead of saying, “gee, Vicki, I’m glad to know how it happened for you because, now, because of your experience, I’m getting my vaccination tomorrow instead of having to wait til March” – -anyway, I am SO offended and she hurt my feelings really badly; and this isn’t the first time. She was so unnecessarily vehement and, well, she should have learned by now that friends don’t treat friends in such a way (see, I can use that line, too; it goes both ways!). I feel like an innocent bystander to her personal problem. But some people obviously just have to have somebody else to blame or unload on. So disappointing. And she’s also one of those people who can NEVER say (WILL never say), “I’m sorry” (jeez, sounds like Trump). The last time she pulled something like this on me, I didn’t speak to her for ten years. I was just finally fed up. She’s pushing me to that point again.
I guess why I’m saying any of this (I’m ranting, aren’t I, and this is not my blog and it’s a personal problem!) is that just like people making their own choices about how safe they’ve wanted to be with Covid; like, in the old days, who was masking and who wasn’t; who still today is choosing to disinfect-sanitize vs who chooses not to; who today is choosing to stay out of stores yet others who are choosing to do indoor dining or indoor church again; it’s still ‘political’ and it’s still sensitive, person to person; easy to get defensive — well, NOW I also know that getting a vaccination is similar in terms of that emotional hot button, not just who’s going to go for the vaccine and who isn’t (some people of course are anti-vaxers in general), but now it seems very ‘personal’ about who has gotten a vax and who hasn’t due to all this ‘lottery’ sort of situation, i.e. all mixed in with fear and disappointment and frustration and confusion because it’s been such a messed-up vaccine rollout in nearly every state; I mean, this was me, a week ago, feeling like I’d never get the darn shot, feeling bypassed (like when you were saying, Claudia, feeling like a kid not chosen for the team); we all have enough to think about and worry about; we didn’t need this, too. We’re not in our comfort zones, that’s for sure.
I just don’t think I was deserving of this venom from my ‘friend’ today when I’ve been a really GOOD friend to her all during Covid (won’t go into how; I mean, I’ve really tried to ‘be there’ for her, much more than the other way around, as just one example). Frankly, I think what’s bothering her the past few days is that she was probably jealous in some weird way of me getting the vax before her (when she should have instead been happy for me!), because she’s always gotta be the first, the boss, the leader! It’s some protective mechanism with her because (well, her friends think so) her husband left her all those years ago and it made her feel inferior/rejected. But I now feel like she punched me in the stomach with her words today (and I already have a bad stomach ache, since before New Year’s, which is why I keep going to the lab et al!)!!!
Sheesh. If I hadn’t known her since I was a teen, I’d drop her like a hot potato after how HARSH she was about this vaccination stuff; clearly the topic of the vaccinations IS a hot potato! But I think the Biden admin is doing so much so fast to get out vaccine to the states; it will happen; everybody just has to hang on; their turn will come; millions are being vaccinated every day. I will pray hard again tonight for it be plentiful and help people feel more protected and relaxed. And I’ll pray to look at my likely over-sensitiveness/sensitivity (thin skin) with my judgmental friend, so that I can forgive HER. I let these things bother me; I take it in; I don’t let it roll off right away. I guess I’m not very resilient. Nobody likes it when somebody else makes them feel bad, especially when the reasoning isn’t fair.
Thanks for letting me spill. Again, it will be so happy when we don’t hear about one more person needing the Covid vaccination; instead, everybody will have it and the virus will lose its grip on our nation and the world.
xoxo
Your morning is much like mine—we spent 1-1/2 hrs online (today and Wed!) trying for vaccination appts. for Fred. No luck. Good news is we get to do it on Monday, again. Two days off!! Yay!
Just finished cleaning off my Instacart delivery, so groceries are good for a week or more.
Now just hanging out, contemplating laundry and cleaning. Oh, Joy!
Good news is Mr. Wizard is feeling pretty good and my arm (where my second shot was poked last night) is only minimally ache-y. These are the things we celebrate in the time of cancer and covid.
I’m glad to hear that Fred is feeling good, Shanna.
Stay safe!
I just love that puzzle. I work mine on small dining table…outside first and then sections. Indiana seems to be doing well on the vaccine…by age…however we did have to get online and sign up and that took awhile. The place I went is fifteen miles, but I didn’t mind-downtown Indy…my couple friends in other states have had to go separately…none of them were blessed enough to get appointments together…some to the VA/the men…some of the women to health departments…few have gotten appointments anywhere but those to places. I signed up through Indiana Health Department…they were quite efficient…as soon as Congress gets busy and does the Stimulus I would imagine the drug companies will make more of the vaccine…everyone waiting on money it seems…some states-like my home state- has vaccinated younger people not only in the medical arena…that has left the elderly waiting…oh well…we knew this would happen and heaven help us if we do need the booster in six months…my kids probably won’t have the first ones…I have my taxes finished and paid…my car is ready…and now just packing and waiting to move the 1000 miles…and to stay safe…take care today…stay warm…enjoy that puzzle-you are amazing…prayers
It’s good news that some vaccine availability is starting to open up for you. Keep trying. It’s like trying to get tickets to a major rock concert. Back in the day, when we could go to concerts .
We are getting more snow this weekend. I am counting the days til spring. …only 36 days!
Stay safe
I am so sick of this winter. More snow next week – up to ten inches over a couple of days. I will probably scream.
Stay safe, Marilyn.
Thanks so much, Brenda.
Stay safe! Do you already have your apartment lined up in Florida?
You are rocking that puzzle. Looking at the photo of the squiggly orchestra members I shook my head. Only you — yes, ONLY you – would be up to that task.
Sorry about the appointments and anticipated snow. I hope it’s not so bad as that.
The squigglies are making me CRAZY! I did make some headway, but just a little.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
Oh by do I remember your posts about Scoutie and the tunnel. Was a bad, bad time for you; and, yes, I saw a map for Valentine’s Day ‘low temps’ across the nation and that whole big Upper Midwest-Dakotas-Plains is below zero; but you (in the N/E) and even the Gulf Coast of Texas (and the state of Washington) will possibly/probably dip below freezing. The article was talking about ‘pancake ice’ which are apparently “disks of water which float along on the surface of lakes and rivers … ice balls also pop up when the weather gets wretched … they form along beaches at the edges of lakes, as waves roll pieces of ice and snow back and forth … depending on the conditions and the waves, they can get as big as bowling balls”. Can’t imagine!
Wishing you all good BEST of luck in scoring a vax appt soonest. This is reminiscent of, but worse, trying to get a reservation for curbside grocery pickup (or home delivery) back in April.
Yes, but thank heavens, pickup is now much easier. We can usually book the same day or the next. So much better than it was!
Stay safe, Vicki!
Oh…I feel for you trying to secure appointments together. Here in the Madison area, we were told that the health system we belong to would be contacting us. And they did. Course they did have to cancel our appointments, but it wasn’t their fault. They just didn’t get enough supply. And, now they are rescheduled.
It does seem like we are on a ‘wash, rinse and repeat’ routine every day, doesn’t it? Oh well…hopefully the vaccines will allow us to change it up a little, if it’s safe. In the meantime…be well! ;)
Yes, I must admit, I’m going stir crazy at the moment. Both of us are a bit testy. I think all the snow and the frigid temps are getting us down.
Stay safe, Donna!
Fingers crossed that you and Don can get an appointment soon. Like you said it does seem crazy that there doesn’t seem to be a coordinated contact system if your healthcare system has your details.
Scout looked right at home in the snow tunnel😀
I’ve finished my vintage world atlas British Empire jigsaw and I think it could have been the most difficult one so far. It’s the only one where I started in the middle and did the border which consisted of endless white pieces last, plus there were only four colours.
I’ve also got a New Yorker one to do next. It’s farmland life throughout the months of the year and dates back to the 1940s.
Happy Friday
I like The New Yorker puzzles a lot. I’ve been working on the squiggles and made some headway, but it’s very slow going
.
Stay safe, Dee Dee.
I feel your pain at looking at squiggles when only pieces yet to go. I strongly dislike when a puzzle gets to that extremely challenging (frustrating) point!
Obtaining a vaccine appointment has been so very frustrating. In our area of Ohio, multiple registration systems – the two big hospital systems,, CVS and Walgreens, Kroger, DrugMart, county health departments… and yet, long tries to obtain appointment, then message ‘no appointments available’ or the websites would break down. Finally, and I’ve no real idea how, the county health department notified us of their vaccine clinic. No specific appointment time, just a time range. My husband and I both went & got our first vaccine. Once there, the whole process was very smooth and speedy. In South Carolina, my sister had extended delay with her mother-in-law’s vaccine. My brother in Upstate South Carolina had an appointment, arrived to find a huge line… questioning revealed they had been waiting since 8 am… but several hours the vaccine had not yet arrived at the location! This bizarre disjointed method of obtaining the vaccine shots has tested many people’s patience! I am very grateful that the vaccine is available, and pray that this process improves & all can get their injections. Grandson’s school district is closing for one day next week for ALL staff to get their vaccines. Who needs a Snow Day when you have a rare “Vaccine Day”!
Enjoyed seeing the picture of Scout – I remember seeing that picture a few years ago, and marveling at the tunnel!
There is no consistent plan. In our county, seniors are encouraged to make appointments at pharmacies, while essential workers can go to the county site.
Oy.
Anyway, at some point we’ll get vaccinated!
Stay safe, Jan!
Hello friend, Frank and I decided to get the vaccines at different times in case we have a reaction, this way one of us would be healthy and able to take care of the other. No guarantee with anything though, just trying to get through it.
xoxo
This was too far away to go twice. But you make a good point!
Stay safe!
Just a thought – you and Don should get your vaccinations on separate days. My sister had hers and got strong (negative) reactions both times. She appreciated her husband feeling good to take care of her!
I actually and by a fluke obtained an appointment BUT it was the only one available and it was on the second day of a new mental health program and I felt it was important to not skip the program. I don’t know if I’ll get an invite again. :-(. Wishing you and Don good luck, especially as we have more snow coming which will make it harder to get out. Nice to see Sweet Scout enjoying the road you made for her. XO
This coming week will be impossible. The weather will be so bad that we don’t dare to make an appointment.
Stay safe, Nora.
I remember that picture of Scout! Sweet. We only have about 4″ on the ground and the next system is a sleet event for us. I will be staying in. I love snow but I am fearful of falling on the ice.
The puzzle is coming along nicely. I finished one and got another out, but haven’t started it. It is one with all the funky shaped pieces. I will get to it.
Have a great weekend!
Take care,
Kelly
Thanks, Kelly!
Stay safe.
Oh, I do remember that winter when you were home with Scout and you had all the snow. This has not been a fun winter by any means. We have about 5 more days of below zero temps ahead. On Sunday it is supposed to be, perhaps, the coldest day we have had. It just doesn’t want to give up!
We had about 2 inches of snow last night which made me crazy worrying about the roads this morning. We had our vaccine appts at 10:45 at the county courthouse which is about 25 mins away and up over some bluffs. That doesn’t sound like much snow, of course, but when the temps are below zero, salting the roads doesn’t happen because it doesn’t work in melting anything. It was a white knuckle (passenger ride) for me, but the way home was much better. We waited for the appointed 15 minutes following the vaccine, and have had no effects at all thus far. They also gave us our appt cards for 4 weeks from today. (All of the people we encountered at the vaccine site were National Guard members except for the nurses.) So glad we are half way there. And you are right, there is no rhyme or reason to how we got our appt. We registered at our clinic, the hospital in town, our county, and 3 drug stores. Last week we received emails from the county to pick an appt time on this day. (I truly thought our clinic would have been who we heard from. )This aft we notified all of those other places to tell them we received the shot so they could take us off of their list. They were all so very thankful we called so they didn’t waste time calling us if and when vaccine became available. Having each state make their own rules and regulations about who/ what/ where & when vaccines occur, based upon what vaccines are available, and when they were ordered, obviously isn’t working well. It is kind of like the wild west. Hopefully this will all somehow find some semblance of order along the way. When I was working, I was a member of many many Project Teams. Oh, so many meetings. I feel like no one has a project plan for this endeavor. No one is in charge, there are no lists of tasks with predecessors, no one seems to be communicating for the good of this project. Accountability seems to be shrugged off. Just saying “get vaccine, and give people shots”, though certainly the goal, is missing a whole lot of steps in there.
I do so hope you don’t get the snow they are predicting, Claudia!! Enough is enough! And I hope your quest is productive and you will soon tell us you & Don are scheduled. Take care.
It’s very much like the wild west. It’s every man for himself and that isn’t the way to do this.
Stay safe, Chris.
Claudia — great progress on puzzle — we did get frz rain (btween 1/4-1/2 in) no melting b/c very cold temps (mid20s) & new storm Sun-Tue w/frz rain, sleet, 4-6 in snow-please make it stop. I’m going nuts!!!! had to go to grocery tday w/Mr in tow to drive — bad combo. I had stressed before going ‘Only Essentials’ which turned out pretty good–only 1 or 2 nonessentials. hoping our storm/s and yours are not too awful. we really need some sun warmth to melt this ice, not happening anytime soon, tho. pls stay healthy and safe.
We’re supposed to get snow and then snow and ice on Tuesday.
Stay safe, Linda!
I haven’t read all of the comments so forgive me if you’ve already gotten this advice. I would suggest that you don’t get your shots at the same time. The first is not a problem, but many, many people have side effects from the second. I had my second shot this week and was down for more than 24 hours. I would have liked nothing better than to have my late husband here to hold my hand. Believe me, you don’t want to both be down at the same time.
Thanks, Gail.
We’ll take that under advisement.
Stay safe!
I feel your pain about not getting your appointments together. We have no choice since CT has designated vaccines for 65+ starting this week. So my husband is eligible and has an appointment at the end of the month. I am not eligible due to age but I have a severe allergy so I will have to bring my epipen. Kind of scary to do alone. Honestly, to be missing this by a couple years is really annoying.
Good luck!
Your husband is so lucky to get an appointment right away. We’ve been eligible for well over a month and nothing.
Stay safe, Betsy!