Yay, I overcame lethargy and I’m writing for the first time in days. That was tough. Yesterday I went on a shopping adventure to Aldi. This directly led to an idiot story. I prefer going to Aldi on Sundays because that is the only day that the BX1 runs local; to bus stops a block from my house instead of 0.4 miles away. I timed leaving almost perfectly, the bus arrived just before I got to the stop, but he saw me running and screaming “WAAAAAAAAAAIT!” and he did! I always appreciate when bus drivers do that. Some will pull away even though you made eye contact. On the way home I had a long wait but got a good seat on the bus. I got involved doing other things and when I checked where I was I saw it said the next stop was mine. I pulled the cord saying I wanted to get off and did. One problem. It was only my stop if I’m taking the BX 10 bus. It is two blocks further than the BX1 limited stop, and a half a mile further than the local stop. To make it worse the sidewalks had not been cleared for much of the walk home and I’m pulling a wheeled shopping thermal shopping cart. If it weren’t for the snow I’d have shrugged it off as saying I got extra exercise. As it was, I’m just an idiot.
I bought a ton of things I needed which is always good but this morning I realized that I’m almost out of maple syrup. It’s much cheaper at Aldi than other places and I eat a lot of French toast. Guess what I had for breakfast today. The big victory of the day was that the discount store across the street finally got in a shipment of reading glasses. They have been out for two months. I had broken two pairs and lost a third and have not been able to replace them. Now I’m back to having glasses distributed around the house, bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, in my backpack, and a pair with my keys. I don’t have to have glasses in my pocket as I walk around, and I don’t have to worry about going out without glasses. As an extra bonus all the new ones came with cases. I am legitimately excited about the new glasses.
Over the weekend I recorded a new edition of Gord’s Gold; the subject will be the band Dagmar. They are based in San Francisco. Are any of My Gentle Listeners familiar with them? You will be come Wednesday when the show is aired on Folk Music Notebook. If you miss it you can listen starting the next day on Mixcloud. I took another step in branding Gord’s Gold; I created a Facebook Page, Gord’s Gold. Go there right now and like the page. I’ll wait. It’s OK if you don’t want to. I’ll just sit here and cry. I was built to be a Jewish Mother.
I’m now eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine. I qualify on two counts, I had cancer and I’m immunocompromised because of my Entyvio infusions. Aren’t you jealous that you don’t have Crohn’s disease, neither would have happened without that? I have spent much of the last two days trying to get an appointment. I have not yet succeeded. I might have to do nothing more as I’m on the waiting list for Montefiore hospital. I’m in their system. I don’t know where I stand on the list, so I’ll keep trying. I missed an appointment at one place by 30 minutes. I have several sites to sign up on and I keep refreshing the pages to see if a new appointment crops up. That is a huge source of inequality in the system. Those of us comfortable with computers and with the time to search have a big advantage over those that don’t. This is one of the eight million ways that minorities and poor are disadvantaged. I have all the websites bookmarked together and can open them all in separate tabs at once. Everyone doesn’t have the skills to do that. Part of the problem is that many people aren’t away that everyone doesn’t have those skills. I’m guessing most of My Gentle Readers do. Even though that gives me an advantage I’m happy with the inequality. A fairer system would be a lottery. Everyone in a certain class should have an equal chance and you get called when your name is chosen. That’s also how they should sell tickets to post-season sports events.
I’m happy to see how many of my friends have been able to get appointments. One of them became eligible same time I did, which is today, and he got an appointment right away. There is a lot of luck involved. I’m not jealous. I’m not blaming the system for being unfair to me. It is biased in my favor. There’s a limit to how fast the vaccine can be produced and though it took a while, the distribution system is now keeping up with the supply. We are learning everything on the fly so things will keep improving. It doesn’t help that the Trump administration took no responsibility for creating a distribution system.
I’m not going to start writing about something sad now, so I’ll declare victory and post this.
Wise Madness 