Penny Cooper gets her shot!

It was Covid-19 Vaccine Day for me and my coworkers yesterday. Nine of us carpooled out to some distant suburb.
The University of MN had set up a traveling clinic at the warehouse of a nonprofit and was vaccinating nonprofit staff & volunteers (I think that was the deal...).

Penny Cooper got the shot too! She is able to share her immunity with the herd of dolls and toys at home.

[Disclosure: Dolls & toys don't get Covid. But they still like to participate: "So we stay healthy."]

The nurse was so nice and told Penny Cooper she was very brave.
Penny was especially pleased with the band-aid on her arm:

I double-masked instead of wearing my respirator because I can't be understood through the respirator, and I wanted to be able to chat and make comments. That's an important part of my health plan.
(A volunteer at the store had given me this fabric mask with book pattern.)

I commented to the nurse that the shot didn't hurt at all--less, even, than the usual flu shot, which stings.
She said they'd done a great job on the needles--thin, and just the right length.

I said they did a great job on the whole thing: "A triumph of public health!" She, a public health provider, agreed.

BEST THING: We got stickers!

Here I am, below, with some of my coworkers (some had already left) in the waiting area after getting our shots. Because I'm allergic to penicillin, the nurse had me wait 30 min. after the shot, instead of the usual 15.
I asked a volunteer to take our picture.
(I seem to be the group historian.)

I'm wearing my new sweatshirt from my gym--the back reads WEATHERING LIFE. That's exactly it!

 

 

I'm glad I chose to go with my coworkers instead of going to my clinic in two days: I did feel closer to them all afterward.
Emotionally, and literally too:
We were laughing and sitting too close to one another in the waiting-afterward area. (And there's that one coworker who cannot seem to keep his mask over his nose...)

One of us commented, "We won't be asked back," and I noticed a woman in the waiting area giving us dirty looks.
I understand her annoyance---my coworkers and I are used to being around people all the time, so we've gotten slack, while some people have been alone for a year and are very cautious.

And yet, dirty looks do nothing to keep you safe.
They demonstrate the passive-aggressive behavior known as "Minnesota Nice". Radiating disapproval is effective social control (over the long haul), . . . but it doesn't work with viruses.

If I'd been her, I'd have told the staff I didn't feel safe in the crowded area and was going to wait outside. It was sunny and warm, and if she'd started to have a bad reaction she could have pounded on the big windows. 

Humans.
We are various.
On the one hand, we can coordinate a massive public health event. On the other hand, we can't come in out of the rain.

Murderbot says of a group of humans it is stuck with,

"These were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn't want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little."

Yeah. Maybe a little sometimes.
_________

I slept eleven hours last night, but I think it was mostly because I needed to process emotionally another load of THIS IS HISTORY.

Also, my watercolor pens arrived and I want to learn how to use them well, but it just felt like too much, on top of everything.
So I went to bed.

I feel slightly achy this morning, but only slightly. I don't know--maybe it's from lying in bed for eleven hours.

I'm going in to work. I'll wear my respirator two more weeks until the Moderna vaccine reaches 50 percent effectiveness, and then I'll go to masking again.

The second shot is in one month.
And then . . .
I'm never taking off my mask at work--it protects me from toxic book dust. I should have been wearing one all along.