Vaccine Conundrum

So many things have happened this past week that I've already forgotten most of them. But I haven't forgotten what happened last night.

It started last year in March, when I got my first Covid shot. It was a Moderna vaccine. I got the shot and that's all that happened. In April I got the second Covid shot. It, too, was a Moderna. I got the second shot and that's all that happened.

In November I got a Moderna booster. My partner Nuria was with me and she got the Pfizer. What happened next: nothing. No after-effects of any kind for either of us.  

So the day before yesterday (Friday) Nuria and I got our second boosters. This time I had to get a Pfizer shot. The pharmacy didn't have the Moderna vaccine. I didn't like the idea of switching vaccines, but what the hey? A vaccine is a vaccine is a vaccine. Or so I thought. So I got the Pfizer shot.

I went home and slept peacefully. The next day was, of course, Saturday, and nothing unusual happened until I went to bed. That's not quite right. Something different did happen. Normally I eat dinner, but Saturday night I had no appetite. I ate a small salad and skipped dinner. I felt tired, so I went to bed. I woke up in the night sweating profusely. The bed sheet beneath me was wet. My pillow was wet. I tossed and turned but every time I touched something it was cold and wet. I couldn't sleep. At one point I flipped the pillow over so I could put my head on the dry side. I felt very tired. Nuria got up and put large towels on the bed and gave me her pillow. I lay down and promptly fell asleep. I think I slept until noon or possibly one o'clock. I got up, still tired, and ate a sausage-and-egg biscuit. I stayed up for an hour then went back to bed. Nuria said she felt a little not-so-good. But, Nuria didn't get as tired as I, nor did she sweat. But, her first booster shot was Pfizer, so maybe her immune system was adapted to it. 

I don't know if it was the vaccine, or the long time between shots, or the fact that I switched vaccines, or if my wretched night had some other cause. All I can say is, if I have to get another Covid shot, it's going to be Moderna. Sorry, Pfizer. Your vaccine may work just fine, but I'm not taking any chances.

What If

I've been thinking, what if we have lives in order to experience just one moment. Or two, or three. I'm saying, what if most of our life is mostly filler, and only a few moments are really meaningful. 

I know one moment that I would like to change. It happened when I was about 12 years old. Maybe I can be partially forgiven, for being so young and unworldly, and for taking bad advice from someone I trusted. Now it's in the distant past, my distant past, and the person who gave me the bad advice is long dead. I still, and probably always will, blame myself for acting on bad advice.

Most of our life is mush. Hundreds of small choices, decisions, words, and random thoughts every day. What should I order for lunch?—do I drive this road or that road?—do I perform that chore Thursday or Friday? Those moments pass by and we don't remember most of them. But now and then, we do something that is life-changing. We change our life, we change someone else's life, we change both of our lives. And it can be something small and simple that does it. A sentence—just a few words.

There are a few small things I'd like to take back, to undo. Now I'm wiser. It's too late to undo the damage, but at least I try to be more careful and I try not to repeat the missteps. But sometimes we don't know we are making a mistake until after we've made it, and then the damage is done, the pain is inflicted, the wound becomes a scar. Though it's too late to undo, I'm wiser for it. 

Maybe out there somewhere, someone is thinking of me, thinking of some interaction from long ago, and wishing they could undo it. Probably not, but—maybe. If I could talk to that person, I would say, "Learn from it and let it go." Though letting go is the hardest part.

Dr. SaxLove

When I began writing this blog, I had lots of time. Now it seems like there is always something that needs to be done. Every morning, I get up with the intention to write a blog post, but then...

For example, today I was going to write a blog when I heard Nuria call to me, "Look at this—there's water all over the floor."

She was at the kitchen and I went to look. Sure enough, the floor was covered with water. It was coming from the refrigerator. I checked and determined that the plastic hose going from the water valve to the icemaker had a loose connection and water was no longer going to the icemaker. Now it was going to the hardwood floor.

I went to Home Depot to buy a compression nut with a new insert fitting and compression sleeve and I came back and installed them onto the icemaker switch. But due to the long passage of time since I had done this kind of home repair, I made a mistake. So I had to go back to Home Depot and buy another kit: compression nut, fitting, and sleeve. 

I installed the kit, connected the water line, and turned on the water. There was no leakage of water, which is a very good sign, but I won't know if the icemaker is working for a few more hours. The fridge was unplugged briefly, so the icemaker is starting at the beginning of its cycle, which might be 90 minutes, or might be 180 minutes. It might also be 12 hours if the icemaker engineers assumed the fridge was at room temperature when it was powered on. 

This took half the day. In the middle, we stopped at Wendy's for lunch, which seems to get worse every time I eat there. This time the drink machine was broken; there were no napkins; there was no ketchup. The kitchen staff took care of the problems, but the problems shouldn't be there. I've written about Wendy's at least six times previously. Hello, Wendy's management, where are you? To be fair, I've written about other fast food restaurants. Wendy's is not alone in its lack of good quality control.

I've got some good sax jazz music playing now. It played through dinner and it played while I wrote this blog. It's still playing. It's on a three hour loop. I cast the video and sound to my big-screen TV. I love watching the fire as the music plays and I hope others enjoy it.

The song of the day is Mellow Smooth Jazz Saxophone by saxophonist, composer, and recording artist Dr. SaxLove (Mark Maxwell). Enjoy!

Car Status

My lady friend, Nuria, bought insurance for her newly-purchased Toyota yesterday. Her car insurance cost much more than mine, though I purchased my Jeep in that far-off time called Long Ago. I've had the same insurance company and insurance policy for many years. Nuria hasn't owned a car for the past ten years, so the insurance company made her pay higher premiums. For example, for Nuria's car, a 2009 Toyota, collision insurance would cost over $700 per month. So she declined to buy it. 

We went to Richmond today and picked up the car. That sounds much easier than it really was. First we found some scratches on it and requested they be touched up. Then the paint had to dry for a while. There was much paperwork to be read and signed. All of this took a while. We went out to lunch while the paint dried. Then I drove the car (and Nuria) home in heavy I-95 traffic (again). The car looks like this (although this isn't the actual car; hers has a darker color, but you get the idea.
 

We rolled into my backyard just ahead of a thunderstorm that brought a lot of rain, so the car got a cleansing off of the interstate dirt and grit. I tinkered with the dashboard controls a little, locating where important switches might be (such as headlights and wipers) but I went into the house as the rain began. It's Nuria's car, anyway, so she needs to find where everything is located, and she will. She can be quite tenacious when she wants to be.

For the curious, my 1995 Jeep looks exactly like this one:

I bought it in 1998. I used to park it on the street in front of my house, but after somebody smashed the driver's side window one night, I began keeping it in my garage, and I'm sure that has prevented a lot of sun damage. For all its years, it still looks good. It has a 220hp V8 with AWD, I drive it fairly gently, but if the situation calls for it, the Jeep can boogie. It's nice to have that horsepower and AWD in my back pocket. You never know when you might have to move fast! 

"What's the difference between 4WD and AWD?" I hear you asking. 4WD (four wheel drive) can be turned on and off and it uses a center differential to split power to the front and rear differentials, 50/50). AWD (all wheel drive) is always on and it uses a transfer case to split power to the front and rear differentials, and it is able to send more power to the differential that needs it. So, for example, if a rear wheel loses traction, the front wheels get more power. 

I've written far more about cars than I intended. It's 10PM and I'm going to hit the Publish button and think seriously about going to bed. Or something. Have a good Friday, y'all.

July 4

Today is Monday. Last week, Nuria decided that she needs a car. I think the thought has been percolating in her brain for a while, and now it must be acted upon. So we drove to a used car dealership in Richmond. She knew what she wanted and how much she wanted to pay, so the deal didn't take long to accomplish. But the Richmond traffic was enough to drive a sane person irrational. Of course, it was "Friday before July 4th," which didn't occur to me at the time and certainly contributed to the high volume of traffic on the highways. Anyway, at the dealership a car was selected and a down payment was paid, and now we have to wait while they do the paperwork and detail the car. She has to get insurance on the car, and the dealer has paperwork to do with the DMV, so we have to go back to get the car. Thursday is the target date.

Nuria intends to pay for the car, but transferring money from her bank in Costa Rica to her bank in the US is complicated and involves high fees. So when we pick up the car, the plan is for me to pay for the car now and Nuria will repay me with funds that she transfers here from Costa Rica by steamship. I've got my fingers crossed that there won't be too many hiccups along the way.

Nuria made July 4th decorations for the front porch.The porch's cast-iron railings are wound with strings of red, white, and blue tinsel stars, and there are decorations hanging from the flag holder. I have a flag that fits in the holder, but I think it would simply rip the flag holder off the brick. It's an old thing, made of very weathered wood, and I could probably rip it off the brick with my fingers.

I think Nuria, though she comes from Costa Rica, is probably more USA-patriotic than 95% of our own citizens. I don't know why that is, but maybe it's because she comes from a foreign land, and has lived there, and therefore she can see the difference between the two countries, whereas most Americans have no other country to compare to America. Although I never hang July 4th decorations on my porch, I always think about doing it. Does thinking about it make me semi-patriotic?  No, it probably doesn't do anything at all except waste time.

We've been watching reruns of Lost, a TV series that I saw back in 2004-2010, and even then I didn't like it enough to watch more than maybe a third of the series. Nuria seems to like it, and I put it into the "OK" category, so we kill time watching TV and eating popcorn and pizza until we find something better to kill time doing. Like, maybe I can convince Nuria that driving the lawn tractor all over the yard is really a lot of fun and she should try it.

Sure, that sounds do-able. In my dreams.