I got up early this morning to go get my blood drawn. Even though I’ve had Covid, am fully vaccinated and boosted, and stamped with the USDA seal of approval, I still can’t help but absorb all the Covid news circulating on the television. Makes you ponder the thought, will this ever end? I got a text from my mother’s caregiver this morning alerting me positive Covid tests are required 48 hours prior to a visit until February. Problem is I can’t find any tests locally. Tried to order them on line and some of them were $84 for a kit. There’s always someone willing to make a profit on misery I’m afraid. It doesn’t help that there is so much conflicting information being given out by this agency or that. First, they said cloth masks were fine, now they are not. Then it was hospital masks were the best. Just when I got settled in with those, an MD came on some talk show and said they provide little or no protection. Now they are saying the N95 masks are the ones to wear. I have several, but when I wear them they keep steaming up my glasses. I guess that’s better than getting sick, but I am feeling a little sick, sick and tired. Maybe I should just wrap myself in visqueen and duct tape and be done with it.
I have friends in both camps on this question. Some of my friends have their food, prescriptions, well everything they can really, delivered. Others, wear masks hit and miss, or seem to always have one floating around somewhere under their nose or hanging off one ear, and don’t seem much concerned about it one way of the other. I also have friends who are unvaccinated. These friends create a problem for me. My world is populated with an elderly mother, vaccinated but not yet boosted, and a three year old not eligible to be vaccinated as yet. They are my concern. Most likely I would just suffer mild symptoms if I got the bug again, (already had it at the beginning of all this), but the result of the virus for them could have far more serious consequences. So I float about in the murky world in between trying to protect myself and those I love as best I can.
There was an older gentleman in line in front of me at the lab standing full on the 6′ foot apart marker as the large sign instructed. When I got in line behind him, he stepped off the marker for a moment and turned to acknowledge my presence by nodding and I think smiling. Hard to tell these days what a person is doing beneath their masks. For all I know, the man could have been sticking his tongue out at me. Preparing to nod and smile back, a big fly took that precise moment to dive bomb my glasses and I waved it off with my hand. The man, I’m assuming thinking I was gesturing he was too close to me, took the hint and hopped back on his marker and waited to be called with no further communication. Life, at times, is just too funny.
I don’t like having my blood drained. Sometimes it feels to me like they keep filling and filling the little vials. Makes you wonder if you have enough left to keep things working properly. Lately, blood banks have been advertising big time for blood donors. I have never done that. For some reason, I always thought they wouldn’t take mine. Writing that the statement it sounds ridiculous even to me, but that is the truth. It’s not like I’m suffering from anything vile, or am carrying something I am aware of I could pass on to an unsuspecting recipient. In spite of that logic, I have for some obtuse reason, always had the feeling I would go in and sign up and they would look at me and say, “No, but thank you for thinking of us”. Now that I’ve said it out loud and committed it to paper (so to speak), I believe I need to do it both to help people who need it, and to clear out the cobwebs in the logic making section of my brain. Definitely a malfunction somewhere.
I am also scheduled for surgery later today for a spot on my skin that got a bad report from the lab. Thankfully, it’s not on my face, but rather somewhere lurking on a shoulder blade. The curse, so I’m told, of being a fair skinned, light eyed, person of English descent and a former sun worshiper. Let’s face it you can’t live in California if you are running around lily white. People here find it offensive. Now that they’ve determined the actual sun is damaging for our skin, people have turned to salons to get their tans or are having them sprayed on. I am the only member of our family I am aware of that doesn’t actually ignite when exposed to the sun. I will tan, and tan beautifully, and for doing so most of my young life must deal with what I will be dealing with a few hours from now. These days, I only worship the sun from afar from beneath a hat with a brim, lathered with twenty layers of industrial strength tanning lotion. Yawn, I know!
My mother’s last husband, Will, was a commercial pilot. Preceding his time in that job, he was a highly decorated fighter pilot during good old WWII, flying many missions in defense of our country. It is my understanding many pilots from that era went on to fly commercially. I also have an uncle on my father’s side of the family that flew many years for a large Canadian airline after his war effort. Will had much trouble with his skin in later years, having spot after spot removed from his face, arms and legs. This was attributed to the fact the glass in the cockpit does not protect their skin from the damaging rays. Apparently, the likelihood of getting melanoma and other skin cancers is much higher in flight crews then us ordinary landlocked humans.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to be responsible for flying one of those jumbo jets. I have flown in smaller versions, and even taken a lesson myself. That was unnerving enough, but to man (or woman as the case may be) the controls of something that size must get the blood pumping at an amazing rate. Will described it as exhilarating, but the word that came to mind for me was terrifying.
My children’s father had a big yen for soaring through the air. After both children had entered school he came to me and said he was interested in getting his private pilot’s license. Oh boy. I had a feeling I would somehow be dragged into this desire, and it really wasn’t something I was enthusiastic about. Oddly enough when I was in college I wanted to be a flight attendant, but I got married and had kids instead and had lost the taste for it. After much cajoling I said fine, but said please don’t make it my quest at well though I would support his wanting to do it. Right. Well, it looked good on paper, again figuratively.
A flight school was located and money exchanged. Pretty soon, my other half’s weekends were filled with hours flying the friendly skies with his instructor learning how to maneuver the Cessna they trained in. On occasion, to offer support, the children and I would stand on the tarmac and wave enthusiastically as the small plane took off and landed and was put through it’s paces. To his credit, he saw the course through to the end and was finally ready for his solo flight to get his license. We were young, I shall preface, before continuing. The route was to take him from the small local airport near our house to Bakersfield Airport, another small local field. Yay. Amazingly, my husband suggested I accompany him. What? Really? Let’s hit refresh. The definition of solo, “done by one person alone; unaccompanied”. Hmmmmm, what part of that could you be missing?
As I said, we were in our early twenties. My only defense is my brain wasn’t fully formed yet. Truly I have nothing else to offer here. Again with much cajoling, I somehow agreed to this ridiculous idea and said I would go. A plan was formed. He would taxi down the field alone and then pick me up at an assigned place and we would take off together. K. Looking back, I can’t clearly remember how we finagled my getting in the plane, but into the plane I got. We flew up through the mountains and the wind was up. The wings dipped right, and then the wings dipped left. I realized at one point the sound I heard over the engines whirring was me praying out loud. Next, we hit a bank of fog moving in from the coast. By the time we hit Bakersfield, the soup was fairly thick. My husband contacted the tower for permission to land and instructions were given. I felt like I was leaning on one side when a voice came through the radio yelling “abort the landing, followed by our flight number”! Then he added now yelling, “Adjust your wings, you are coming in sideways. Oh man. When we miraculously finally touched down on good old terra firma, rather than just punching my hero straight in the nose, I made my way to the airport bar and ordered something double and alcoholic. When he suggested we were going to have to fly back, I said he was perhaps, but I definitely was signing off as co-pilot of that operation. In the end, I took an extremely expensive cab ride back home, the cost of which was never mentioned by my husband.
Small planes, propeller versions, feel to me like you’re hanging in the air suspended from a spinning top likely to be dropped to freefall spinning to the ground at any moment. This is, most probably, because that is precisely what you are doing. For those of us with an itch to soar with the birds, I would suppose it is one needing to be scratched. For me, I like my feet planted squarely on the ground and my face looking upward at the beautiful blue sky. What a lovely bit of capriciousness of nature, we are all so alike and yet so uniquely different as beings.
Happy flying, or singing, or drawing, or surfing to you today. Follow your dreams wherever they take you even if you encounter a little fog along the way.
I can understand the frustration with changing advice. The difficulty is that each new lineage that emerges has enough different characteristics to require changes in general advice.
I know it’s crazy. Apparently they are working on a vaccine for this variant. Just wearing around the edges a bit with it all. At least I survived it, others not so lucky. 🙂