Just had a knock on the door. Were we expecting someone? Nope. Is there a global pandemic that has killed 600,000 Americans? Yup.
In this case though, it was less than disturbing. There were two people at the door. Both wearing t-shirts with the word Vax on them. They were there to distribute vaccine information. When I told them I was already vaccinated they asked if I needed any masks. Nope. We’ve got mountains of them.
Now, is it really the smartest thing to do to go door to door during a pandemic to spread the word about the pandemic? Well… when you think it through and do the math… nope, it’s not.
Still, the thought was nice. Also, if they manage to convince a citizen or two to take their shots? Then I suppose it’s all good, right?
On September 1, 2020 the state of Massachusetts had 355 new cases of Covid-19. The United States as a whole had 41,976 new cases.
On September 2, 2021 (after having multiple vaccines available for over seven months) the state of Massachusetts had 2,037 new cases of Covid-19. The United States as a whole had 187,489 new cases.
🚨 BREAKING: Americans who got a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine will be offered a booster shot 8 months after their second dose starting the week of Sept. 20, Biden health officials say. https://t.co/R1nVixSAD3
Happy August 1st, everyone! August doesn’t have a national holiday so this year I am going to try and make it feel better by acting like every day is an extra big deal. No I’m not. I’m just so happy that July and its constant rain is over. Granted, August might get constant rain too, likely will thanks to climate change, but for this one, sweet, shining morning, August is dry and I am happy about it.
I wore a mask at my mother’s house yesterday. Not all the time, just when I knew she was near me. We are both vaccinated, but she ain’t catching jack shit from me. The MA department of public health is recommending vaccinated people wear masks when they are indoors with other people around because we can’t tell who the morons who aren’t vaccinated are and if they aren’t going to do anything to protect their own health, then we the vaccinated have to do it for them. Because they are stupid. Because they are morons.
Thanks to the never ending pandemic of the unvaccinated we are still using instacart for groceries and they screwed up big time today. We had to go back for a second round. All in all I am happy for the service, they are right a crazy high percentage of the time, but every once in a while… We asked for hamburger patties and got pumpernickel bread. Riiiiight.
What else is going on on this fine Sunday morning in August that hasn’t seen any rain yet? I broke the music mold a smidgen today. We slept kinda late. Not super late, I was up at about 8:15, but for me that’s pretty late. I wanted to do some car music but the aforementioned instacart delivery was on its way, and I had some things I wanted to do before I left so I didn’t get into the car until almost 10:00. I do my car music in a movie theater parking lot, and due to the idiotic decision to re-open the state despite the never ending pandemic mentioned in the previous paragraph, the movie theater was going to be open at 10:00. I rolled the dice. I park in the back parking lot so hopefully anyone going in early to catch the delta variant and a movie would probably park in the front. My risk paid off.
I did park in a different area of the lot though. I recorded four songs. There were two technical problems but neither stopped me. First, I use Trello to track my progress. The songs I needed to work on are on a list called Complete Lyrics/Melody on a board called 2021 50/90. My normal workflow is to bring up the Trello app on my iPhone and use that to let me know which songs to work on. The last couple of times I’ve done this though, the iOS app wouldn’t refresh. It’s showing me the board from about two weeks ago. Nothing is up to date. I had to turn my iPhone hot spot on and bring it up on the Mac. That is annoying as all hell.
The second technical problem wasn’t a problem but I would have had I kept going. The temperature outside was in the mid-70’s but the sun was out and shining bright and damn if it didn’t get roasting hot in that car. I’d open the windows but then people would be able to hear me “singing” and ain’t no way that’s happening. About halfway through my little “session” the Mac’s fan kicked on and it never shut off. I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to go before it started to overheat but “fortunately” my voice ran out of gas after about an hour and I had to stop.
I did manage to finish four songs. That’s one more than I had planned. I had three songs with the guitars finished and I wanted to pick those off. I also had six songs with lyrics and melodies already written that don’t have guitars yet. A couple of those have MIDI guitar tracks acting as place holders. I did one of those.
So the plans for the rest of today include, but are not limited to, cutting some grass, recording some guitar parts, having a cookout for dinner (weather permitting, of course, though July is over so the weather will be glorious), and hanging out with my step son who only has a few weeks left before he moves to college.
Of course, as I type out that to do list I am sitting at my computer reading twitter, making fun of creationists, and thinking that it would be really nice to just sit and watch movies with Harry and Jen all day. That might be the better to do list.
Welcome to August, may it stay sunny and dry. Good luck, folks!
I stopped logging COVID-19 numbers on June 20th. Things were improving rapidly and I just didn’t want to be bothered keeping to the schedule anymore. One month later I started keeping track again. I’ve heard people refer to the current spike in the numbers as a new wave. I don’t think it’s a second, or third, or anything wave. I think we have done such a colossally terrible job as a nation of respecting our neighbors that we’re still very much in the first wave. It looked better for a minute there, but it was a ruse.
Massachusetts doesn’t post numbers on the weekends anymore so I can only track the national counts.
In the last 24 hours there have been 164,776 new COVID-19 cases in the United States. The vaccine has been available for free for months and months and we had over 100,000 cases today.
Again, I say this to all Americans who have not yet taken the free and effective vaccine: Fuck You.
When did Disney World become my personal Covid canary in the coalmine? I don’t know, but what I do know is that they have reinstituted their indoor mask requirement regardless of vaccination status.
Yippee. Why is this necessary? Because half the people in this country are fucking garbage who have no concern for their fellow citizens. That’s why. They make up 100 fake reasons for not getting vaccinated that all boil down to a simple I-don’t-wanna-be-inconvenienced. Fuck them. Fuck them in their eye and then fuck them in their other eye.*
Today is my parents’ 54th anniversary. My sister was able to take my mother in to the rehab hospital to see my father. I’m sure that helped both of their mental states. You know what else would help their mental states? Everyone getting vaccinated and stop being little spoiled fucking brats.
I wasn’t planning on writing a pissed off post about the slime living in my country. I’m just feeling angry about it all. Angry enough that I completely forgot what I was planning to write about.
Get the fucking vaccine, you fucking mental midgets.
*Thank you to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for that little nugget from their musical, The Book of Mormon. Sometimes a phrase just fits the occasion, you know?
I mentioned my mother’s ears are blocked. That means she has the volume on the television cranked. It is literally as far away from me as it can be while both of us are still in the house and it sounds like it’s scotch taped to my head.
She’s watching the morning news. They are interviewing people who are not taking the Covid-19 vaccine because reasons. All of the reasons are false and total bullshit, but reasons.
You cannot exist in the year 2021 and be so stupid that you choose to not take this vaccine. You simply cannot be that stupid.
I hate it when your musical heroes say the private part out loud, you know?
I think it was around the time that the pandemic was starting, I told Jen that my musical hero, Eric Clapton, had developed some neurological issues that affected his ability to play guitar and as a result I wanted to see him live one more time while I still could. Even if that meant traveling to see him, the way we used to travel to see Rush.
Click the image and read the article. I’ll wait…..
After six straight business days working at my parents’ house I am back at my desk at home. Well, for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back at Mom and Dad’s, but just for one day. I had this weird moment when I was hooking up my laptops (plural, I had my MacBook and my work machine with me at their house yesterday) and I was sure everything was going to fail and nothing was going to work and I was going to be screwed. Nope. Both machines are up and all the peripherals are running smooth.
I hope at some point the Covid freakouts are going to calm down. We have a team coming today to remove the last of the cellar cleanup junk*. They are outside right now. I was just outside with them. Everyone was masked, everyone was distant, everyone was outside. Still… I’m freaked a little. The HVAC folks I wrote about last week are coming back tomorrow to relieve us of the last of our life savings (exaggeration… or is it?) and I am pre-freaked out about that.
I really need to change my mindset. Everyone in the house is fully vaxxed (I just invented that spelling. You’re welcome). Bellana’s still at school but she’ll be fully vaxxed by the time she gets home. Covid-wise, our house is about as safe as you can get right now. Still… here I am freaking out about the masked up, outdoor, two man work team loading up the last of our ruined cellar into a truck.
I changed my mindset from normal to Covid really quickly. Now I’m finding that it’s taking a long time to change from Covid to post-Covid. I suppose that was to be expected though, right?
*Have I written about the cellar disaster cleanup yet? I might not have. If not, just know we had a bit of a nightmare in the cellar that was on top of the whole HVAC thing I wrote about last week.
We’re about half a work day away from the weekend. Not just any weekend, but the first weekend where everyone in the house is fully vaccinated. Tonight there’s some new Marvel to watch. Will Sam take up the mantle of Captain America? I think so. If he doesn’t, will Bucky? Will the faux Cap become USAgent or will he end up taking a dirt nap? Part of me expects the latter.
Tomorrow there is a visit on the books as well as time for errands and hopefully a little music. Errands might include an oil change for one of the cars and maybe a stop at Best Buy? More likely I’ll order something from Best Buy. I don’t think I can deal with actually walking into a big box store yet.
Then there is Sunday. What to do about Sunday?
Well… both cars will have been serviced… we’re vaccinated… road trip? The first road trip in over a year? Bellana is just a few hours away in Vermont… might we head up for a visit?
I would not have had a problem with a long drive like that even at the worst of the Covid. I would just fill up the gas tank while wearing a mask and latex gloves, bring along a great big pile of snacks (via instacart), and go. If nature called I would pull off the road, find a tree, and take care of business. Jen, however, would not have had that nature calling luxury and there is no way we would go into a store or a gas station to do what needed to be done. That’s why long drives were off the table.
Now? I think we’d be okay going into a gas station to use a rest room. I don’t think we’d be happy about the situation, but if we’re masked up I think we can handle the weirdness.
Road trip to Vermont?
See Bellana for the first time in months?
There are still details to be worked out but… it could happen.
Am I actually making plans? I forgot what that felt like.
Inside the Red Head's Head 