Tag: #Vaccine

  • Getting Fired Over Nothing?

    So… Vaccine mandates are all over the news. And I get it. Not everybody thinks it’s a good idea to force people to get a vaccine, even though we force people to get vaccines all the time. But hey, whatever.  As the security guard at the corner CVS said to the unruly patron he was throwing out of the place, “You do you buddy, follow your heart.”

    I do find one group of people who are objecting to vaccine mandates rather odd, as their upper middle-class privilege is showing.

    See, there are some employers that are mandating that you have to get the shot by a certain date, or you will be terminated. Now some celebrities, athletes, and well, white collar workers are shocked and surprised that it’s come to this; termination for not following a company policy.

    And my first thought is, “Wow, you’ve never had a low paying job before.”

    I remember working at or around minimum wage, and you’d get fired for any reason. Two minutes late; fired. Shirt isn’t starched; fired. Forgot to shave; fired. Boss wants to hire his friend; you’re fired. Need to take a day off to stay with your sick kid; fired. First infraction; fired. No warning; fired. Poor people get fired all the time, and for no reason, or just cause.

    This is how the rest of this country works; in fear. That any day, for any reason, you could get laid off, or fired for nothing.

    And you are right middle-class white-collar workers, it’s not fair, but it is late-stage capitalism. So just go find another job…

  • People on the Streets

    Man, there are a lot of people on the streets. At least in Harlem, anyway. I know that I said this on Monday, but I did assume that it was due to schools opening up again, and every parent and guardian wanted to walk their kid to class. And walking to school this morning, there were kids and parents everywhere. Again, not real surprised. But, after I dropped the kid off, I had an errand to run which took me away from the school and our building.

    And good lord, there are people everywhere. It honestly felt like a pre-Pandemic amount of people on the streets. About half the people were in masks, and full disclosure, I only put my mask on if I go into a building or store, as I am fully vaccinated.

    Logically, I know that New York State, New York City, Manhattan, and Harlem have high vaccination rates, and low Covid infection rates. It could be better, sure, but compared to other parts of this country – we’re doing pretty well, and in that sense, relatively safe.

    Now, emotionally, I find myself uncomfortable being around this many people. Even when we were on vacation in Maine, only three times in that week were we around large amounts of people; Freeport, Portland, and Old Orchard Beach. The rest of the time, we were away from crowds and on our own. Now, I see buses full, subway cars filling up, and people right up against each other in stores. I can take about two hours of this, but any more time after that, I begin to creep myself out.

    At some point, we are going to be at herd immunity. At some point, life will kind’a be normal. At some point, I will have to go out and find a job, which will mean being near people for about eight hours a day. This is coming, and it is a good thing. What I am seeing now in myself is that there will need to be some work on my end to become comfortable with it.

    It will just take some time.

  • Planning for Fall?

    Summer’s over. It was a fast ten weeks for us, as that’s what the wife and I were saying to each other last night. We do have one final week until the kid starts school on Monday, but let’s be honest, it’s not much of a Summer week, being that we will be spending our time preparing for the start of classes.

    And it wasn’t that great of a Summer. I give it two and a half stars. And I will blame it all on the Delta Variant, and the half of the country that didn’t get vaccinated, for whatever reason that I don’t agree with, but here we are. The ability to return back to normal never materialized. Having normal fun with people? Not so much. A return to unobstructed travel wasn’t really possible either.. And now we are left with an Autumn that looks like it will be filled with anxiety and stress.

    But still, last night on the sofa, as we mourned our lost Summer, we still found ourselves falling into our old positive ways. We talked about our plans for the rest of the year; patching and painting the apartment, hanging new shelves in the kid’s room to free up floor space, getting tickets for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in October, making the kid’s Halloween costume, Thanksgiving, and the Granddaddy of all planning, Christmas! We even kidded about going back to Maine next Summer.

    With everything happening, and it is STILL HAPPENING, we find ourselves being optimistic, and trying to plan for a better tomorrow.

    I don’t think we are being delusional, just hopeful.

  • Summer Day Camp Anxiety

    This is the first Summer that we are dealing with sending the kid to day camp. All the pre-schools that our daughter has been in were all year, so there really wasn’t a “Summer” time, as the school never really came to an end. Now that we have finished Kindergarten and are going into First Grade, that means real Summer Camps.

    I will admit that I started this whole process way too late. But, I do have the kid in a day camp that starts next week, which is a relief. But we live in the time of COVID, which means a crap ton of hoops to jump through.

    There was quite a stack of forms that needed to be filled out. They were a stack of online forms, but it still did take me an afternoon to fill everything out. And I am still fill out stuff. And I just found out that she has two vaccines that she hasn’t received yet and needs for camp. Her yearly physical is in August, but now we have to go to the doctor’s office and get them. And then resubmit all the forms!

    And then there’s daily lunches that I need to send with her. I don’t know why this is giving me so much anxiety, but it is. The place is a nut free camp, not surprised or upset about that, but as I look back on what I have been feeding the kid over the past year, nuts shows up in about half of the stuff. And I also feel that I need to be really creative when it comes to her food.

    This is our daughter’s first chance to be around kids her age for about six hours a day, and I just want it to go right. I want her to have fun, and make friends, and learn stuff, and… be a kid with kids. She hasn’t had that in over a year and I desperately want her to have that again. Just to have Summer fun.

  • Riding the Subway Again

    I am fully vaccinated against Covid-19. I received my second Pfizer shot over two weeks ago, so I am cleared to not wear my mask when outside, and I can ride on mass transit, provided I still mask up.

    The subway is my big test. I have not used mass transit since March 2020, so it has been 14 months that I have stayed in my neighborhood to run errands by myself. When the wife is available, we use our car, but that means it has to be after work or on weekends. Though it works, it’s not always practical. For us to get back to “normal” I need to use the subway to run errands in the City.

    Yesterday, I rode the B train from 125th street to 96th so I could shop at the 93rd Street Trader Joe’s, and then back. This was my test day, and I know that it was a test that I would easily accomplish, so I guess it was more like re-experiencing normalcy.

    Standing on the platform at 125th, I put my headphones on, and listened to music, which I really hadn’t done outside of the home in a while. It was reassuring to hear the overhead announcements about the incoming train stopping on the local track. The smell from the tunnel as the wind rushes up when a train approaches; that twisting smell of tar, and exhaust, and a hint of garbage.

    When I boarded the train and sat, there were very few people around. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself for the short ride. I was listening to music, but I felt that I needed to do something. So, I pulled out my phone and played a game. I wanted to look around, but I felt that I should stay in my little bubble.

    I got out at 96th, and walked down Central Park West. It was reaffirming to listen to music, meandering down the street, and see people coming and going; kids and dog walkers, delivery and doormen, people strolling and self-involved.

    The shopping at Trader Joe’s was normal, or Covid normal. A short line out front, people keeping their distance in the store, and a very long checkout line. My groceries filled two double bagged paper bags, so a modest haul for my family of three, but it was also two heavy bags that I had to carry three blocks and an avenue.

    I was out of shape for that; carrying stuff any distance, and it really wasn’t that long of a distance. We had been doing big grocery shops with the car, so I had forgotten the rule of “You only buy what you can carry.” By the time I made it back to the 96th station, I began to feel the strain in my shoulders.

    I took another B train, uptown this time, and when I stepped on, I took a seat where someone had been sitting who had just gotten off. This was something that everybody does all the time on the subway, and as I sat down, I had the thought that maybe it’s not safe to sit where someone had just been sitting? Then I had to remind myself that I’m vaccinated, and you can’t get it from a surface.

    I departed the B at 125th Street, and when I stepped off the train a smell of fish hit me. I had forgotten that there is a spot on the uptown side of the platform that is right under a fresh seafood shop. It was a little reminder of the quirks at the station. It was a detail that was a fun reminder, but come the sticky heat of summer, it will no longer be so pleasant.

    I made it home, and the total time that the errand took, from leaving the apartment to returning to it, took one hour and thirty minutes. If memory serves, I used to be able to accomplish the task in one hour flat. So, I have something to work towards. Because, I will be doing this again; The riding and walking and carrying, but at some point, I won’t have a mask on, right? That’s the real return.