March 11, 2021: Road Trip with Rainbow -

I keep getting ads for a boxed set of “sweet cowboy billionaire romance” books. This has, frankly, shaken my faith a little.

I believed the ads for, say, slippers that would descend whenever I expressed a wish were just The Way Things Are Now. But if that’s the case, the Mighty Algorithm really ought to know me better. I don’t read romances. 

(If I did, they would involve sweet, smart, middle-class types who had a profession like maybe Quality Assurance Testing, and loved their dogs. If there had to be some invented friction between the main couple before they got together, it could revolve around her dislike of his ponytail. He’d cut it off, cheerfully, but not for her. He’d just realize it was scraggly.The End.)

I did alert my friend who lives out on the ranch with her husband and three littles. She said I should “totally jump on that cowboy billionaire” book. I suppose I could get it for her. Not that she gets to read much, what with the livestock and the three littles.  

I am rambling because I CAN, because I have a laptop once again, and I don’t have to type on my phone with one thumb. I have a keyboard. I am happy. We also have hot water, after a week without. I did adapt, figured out how to warm (not boil!) a huge pot of water on the stove, and carry it into the tub where I could pour it over myself, alternating cold water wash and warm water rinse, in a little ritual that I bet Americans pay for, when they go to Scandinavia.

Hot running water! Keyboard! The birds are singing! Life is good! Also, I got my first vaccination!

Buried lede again, I know. It’s my penchant.

I found the appointment in Albany, 64 miles away, at a Walgreen’s. I found it by searching zip codes, working my way south along I-5, at 5:41 in the morning, and I thought it was a mirage. But no. I scheduled. I got a confirmation.

Whoa.

Drove down by myself, sat distanced from silent strangers, texted some loved ones the good news, and then drove home, taking a detour past where I worked twelve years ago, so I could get some Vietnamese takeout from the guy we called Grumpy Man. He is still in biz. (Support your local economy.) I was the only person there. He called me “dear,” which was the most emotional moment of the day, for me. He said “dear” grumpily, but he said it – I heard him.

My daughter in law, a  Brit who works in Kazakhstan, made me feel okay about stealing a shot from some deserving soul in Albany (or, as I like to think of her, “some deserving Albanian”). She said when you are a Brit queueing in Kazakhstan, you do what you have to do.

I’d been trying to stick to my own zip code, because somewhere deep inside, I thought it was unfair to roam. I’d heard that Washington, for instance, was sending fewer doses to Clark Country than Clark County needed, just because Oregonians were going across the bridge and hogging them. I’d heard that people from the Willamette Valley were driving over the mountain and taking all the shots deployed to Madras. I didn’t want to be a Willamette Valley bully about vaccine doses. We’re bad enough.

But then I woke up at 4:30 am, to start another fruitless day of searching, and discovered that I was Beyond Geographic Scruples. I opened the zip code map, and headed down the Valley.

Ma Nature did throw me a rainbow on my way home, and I called it “cheesy,” but now I’m realizing it was pretty great.

I offered my 4 a.m. zip-code searching assistance to four older friends, all far more deserving than I am, said I would even do it for them if they wanted, and they could sleep in. They turned me down. (There is a group called Portland Vaccine Hunters, and a spinoff called Portland Vaccine Helpers, that put out a multi-page tip sheet with instructions like “Refresh! Refresh! Refresh! SPEED!!!!” I found it daunting, and I missed their first Zoom training because it was at exactly the moment I was waiting for my shot.)

And I got a call from a volunteer working with our ophthalmologist, who is contacting all her older patients to see if they need help scheduling a vaccination. Above and beyond, Dr. Lyons! I thanked the volunteer and I need to send the ophthalmologist a thank you, as well.

I am reliably informed that before I got my appointment, I too was grumpy. That is a gallant understatement. Now, like others before me, I’m calming down, maybe even chipper. And I know how maddening it can be, to those searching fruitlessly or to those way down the line, or to those suffering  losses and daily struggles, to be told by the chipper that it’s going to get better soon -  even if that is true. So if you are not philosophical about the wait, I won’t happy-talk you. (Lots of other people will do that, if that’s what you crave!) I’m just going to send So Much Sympathy. And if you want, I’ll try to help.