Opinion by Hal Brown
Some of us have already gone past the two week waiting time after their last vaccination, more of us will hit that freedom day in April.
Others anticipate it in May or later.
February 29, 2020 was the last time I went anywhere for any reason besides an urgent medical or vet appointment. In those early days of the pandemic we thought Covid was transmitted by touching surfaces and hadn't started wearing masks. I wore gloves when I got my mail and picked up packages delivered by Amazon or the local grocery store. It wasn't until early April that the CDC urged everyone to wear a mask and maintain a social distance.
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April Fool's Day 2020 was approximately when we fully realized that instead of a harmless prank like your kid putting a fake spider on your dinner plate, nature perpetrated a cruel joke on all of us by putting Covid everywhere. The fake spider was supposed to scare Mommy or Daddy to death. We learned the hard way what Covid could do.
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On February 17th I got my first Moderna vaccination at a large grocery chain in a rural town about 20 miles from where I live, and the second one on March 17. It was a pleasant drive along the often muddy slow moving Willamette River (click to enlarge image):
The shots were given in the store’s women's clothing section where everything was on sale for half price.
Finally, an interminable seeming year after April 1st 2020 we are approaching April Fool's Day 2021; but oh how different it will be. This year for many of us April Fool's Day will mark the start of the month when we are going to be fully vaccinated. As you see in the diary illustration, I renamed the month April Free Days.
Everyone now looks forward to socializing with other fully immunized family and friends but there will also be far less significant mundane changes in our lives we also will appreciate. I don’t have children or grandchildren but there are social activities I look forward to. While important to me they are most likely the same as what you look forward to, for example I don't anticipate regularly ordering anything for delivery except prescription dog food from Chewy and bulk boxes of rolls of doggie poop bags.
Before dawn this morning I decided to symbolically celebrate this new freedom by removing the chair from next to my front door where deliveries were placed and taking down the two signs (click to enlarge image).
I also put two more chairs and my outdoor table on my tiny patio so people can come visit, sit outside, finally not having to wear masks.
Of course I still will be wearing a mask when I go out, I don’t have to worry about being infected.
Since I’ve been having all my groceries delivered I look forward to shopping again and cruising the aisles to see what new items have hit the shelves.
I have a small narrow area next to my house where I have plants so I may pull up some of the perennials I’m tired of and go to the nursery to buy different ones.
I’ve also scheduled my dental check-up and annual physical.
I just need a magenta cartridge for my printer so I’ll go to Office Max for that.
I may try to find a round bright colored area rug to replace the faded and worn braided one now in front of my gas fireplace.
A friend suggested I might want to go to Best Buy and look at some of the nifty new electronic gewgaws.
I no longer own a house with a basement workshop, but if I did I’d probably go to Lowes or Home Depot just to see what tool I didn’t really need I might want to buy.
Mundane or deeply meaningful, what do you plan to do when you are fully immunized?