Radishes and Vaccines
I'm going to lunch at a boutique butcher shop near her apt. that serves sandwiches--including my favorite:
radish sandwiches.
$8 for thinly sliced radishes and a handful of cress on buttered baguette. All organic!
I don't care, it's worth it.
Whenever I've bought radishes, I've ended up in a month (or two) throwing away a bunch of pale shriveled balls I discover in the bottom of the fridge.
❧
^ The "floral heart bullet" aka "hedera" (ivy) looks like a radish!("The hedera was used in Latin texts as a punctuation mark between paragraphs in long documents, when line breaks weren't common...")
❧
I got my flu shot this morning and asked the nurse who administered it what I can say to the guys at work who tell me they aren't getting one because, quote,
"The flu shot gives you the flu".
"I hear that all the time," she said.
"I tell them the flu virus in the vaccine is dead and can't give you the flu. It's like showing a picture to your body to alert it what the flu will look like, so it can guard against it."
That sounds good.
Alas, my BOSS has already announced in the lunch room that the flu shot gave HIM the flu, so anything I say won't make much difference.
But at least I now have a script in hand.
(I want my coworkers to get flu shots out of pure self-interest:
the flu takes two weeks to incubate, so they could be infectious for a while––and the flu vaccine is not 100% effective. I don't want them to pass it on to me!)
Library Thing
It's so interesting, working with people who have different information, ideas, and reference points.
It makes me question mine––not doubt them so much as check them.
I didn't know enough about the flu shot to explain it--or the electoral college, either, when that came up.
I accept a lot of things because they come from sources I trust, not because I understand the things themselves all that well.
And my coworkers do the same.
Or, rather, they don't accept things because they come from sources they do NOT trust--namely, any government agency...
But really, these guys have about as coherent a world view as many of the more formally educated people I know.
Like, they would think it was insane to pay $8 for a radish or two, a sprinkle of greens, a tablespoon of butter, and a couple pieces of bread.
Still, I am not saying, "Oh, it's all the same if you're educated or not."
It's not all the same.
The big difference, I'd say, lies in whether or not you know how and where and--and most importantly, that YOU CAN look for information (as well as knowing how to judge if it's reliable or not).
A thing I am happy about is that I'm becoming sort of a librarian for my coworkers. They've started to ask me to look for books or other media for them.
I know who wants the latest Sports Illustrated, if it gets donated, and who wants The New Yorker (a new volunteer).
Some customers ask me too. One wants every- and anything to do with the cartoon Peanuts. I saved a copy of the Joy of Cooking for another regular customer, BJ, who, the other day, gave me a T-shirt* she'd got at a garage sale for me:
Here I am in the thrift store parking lot:
And now I'm off for my insanely expensive totally wonderful radish sandwich!
*I just looked it up--LibraryThing is a site
( www.librarything.com )
where you can "enter what you’re reading or your whole library. It’s an easy, library-quality catalog."
I'm going to lunch at a boutique butcher shop near her apt. that serves sandwiches--including my favorite:
radish sandwiches.
$8 for thinly sliced radishes and a handful of cress on buttered baguette. All organic!
I don't care, it's worth it.
Whenever I've bought radishes, I've ended up in a month (or two) throwing away a bunch of pale shriveled balls I discover in the bottom of the fridge.
❧
^ The "floral heart bullet" aka "hedera" (ivy) looks like a radish!("The hedera was used in Latin texts as a punctuation mark between paragraphs in long documents, when line breaks weren't common...")
❧
I got my flu shot this morning and asked the nurse who administered it what I can say to the guys at work who tell me they aren't getting one because, quote,
"The flu shot gives you the flu".
"I hear that all the time," she said.
"I tell them the flu virus in the vaccine is dead and can't give you the flu. It's like showing a picture to your body to alert it what the flu will look like, so it can guard against it."
That sounds good.
Alas, my BOSS has already announced in the lunch room that the flu shot gave HIM the flu, so anything I say won't make much difference.
But at least I now have a script in hand.
(I want my coworkers to get flu shots out of pure self-interest:
the flu takes two weeks to incubate, so they could be infectious for a while––and the flu vaccine is not 100% effective. I don't want them to pass it on to me!)
Library Thing
It's so interesting, working with people who have different information, ideas, and reference points.
It makes me question mine––not doubt them so much as check them.
I didn't know enough about the flu shot to explain it--or the electoral college, either, when that came up.
I accept a lot of things because they come from sources I trust, not because I understand the things themselves all that well.
And my coworkers do the same.
Or, rather, they don't accept things because they come from sources they do NOT trust--namely, any government agency...
But really, these guys have about as coherent a world view as many of the more formally educated people I know.
Like, they would think it was insane to pay $8 for a radish or two, a sprinkle of greens, a tablespoon of butter, and a couple pieces of bread.
Still, I am not saying, "Oh, it's all the same if you're educated or not."
It's not all the same.
The big difference, I'd say, lies in whether or not you know how and where and--and most importantly, that YOU CAN look for information (as well as knowing how to judge if it's reliable or not).
A thing I am happy about is that I'm becoming sort of a librarian for my coworkers. They've started to ask me to look for books or other media for them.
I know who wants the latest Sports Illustrated, if it gets donated, and who wants The New Yorker (a new volunteer).
Some customers ask me too. One wants every- and anything to do with the cartoon Peanuts. I saved a copy of the Joy of Cooking for another regular customer, BJ, who, the other day, gave me a T-shirt* she'd got at a garage sale for me:
LibraryThing
What's on your bookshelf?
Here I am in the thrift store parking lot:
And now I'm off for my insanely expensive totally wonderful radish sandwich!
*I just looked it up--LibraryThing is a site
( www.librarything.com )
where you can "enter what you’re reading or your whole library. It’s an easy, library-quality catalog."
I’d be more inclined to say misinformation and ill-founded ideas. I feel far from charitable toward those who are against vaccines.
ReplyDeleteAt least the cress in your sandwich adds an extra layer of protection against the flu.:)
Mmm, yes, it worries me when people are anti-vaccine, because it has possibly horrific public health ramifications.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm also interested in my coworkers' decision making/opinion forming--they are drawing on a different info-stream than I am.
Some of the older black guys are much more likely to reference the Tuskegee tests than to even know who Jonas Salk was.
Library Thing! Love that!
ReplyDelete