I hope your FiL recovers quickly, Steph.

Mac, dude. Get it together.

It is a chilly, rainy day here. I’m trying to be as careful as possible before heading to MI on Friday (which is very much a COVID hotspot at the moment—yay).

Tom, I'm sorry. I hope the family takes the news better than you're expecting, and I hope you stay safe and healthy.

Also I saw something where a lady on FB has been advertising for people to help her with her fraud vaccine cards. Someone answered her to find out and she was looking for people who worked at Walgreens or Cvs. So they could input info of real people who paid her for authentic Vaccine Cards with real lot numbers.

So I guess we can't even tell who has been vaccinated based on if their info is in a system.

askye, I'm furious at all this stuff, but at some point, I do think God, the Universe, karma, natural selection, or plain old depletion of luck, will get these people better and more fully than we (as a society, or a country with a criminal justice system) ever could.

Also, except in select cities, vaccine passports don't exist. You might need proof to fly here or eat there, but mostly, our government(s) has/have done jack-all to end this thing, so the relatively few people who buy these cards and don't get caught are not our biggest problem.

Our biggest problem is, or soon will be again, our hospitals. Omicron is going to take a lot of healthcare providers off the board for a while.

We're fucked.

Also, except in select cities, vaccine passports don't exist.

Very glad I'm in one of those cities! You can't sit inside at a restaurant or bar, or attend a movie or play without proof of vax.

Timelies all!

Mr. S has been a pain all day. He ended up with a giant Lego kit because the couple who won it in a raffle didn't want it/couldn't take it home with them. He insisted on starting on it as soon as we got home, even though we're exhausted. Now he's been yelling at us to help him with it for the last 10 minutes. (It's actually for kids 10 and up, but that's not stopping him.)

Nilly is on the Zoom if you want to come say hi!

Elizabeth Warren has Covid. [link] *shaky fist*

Very glad I'm in one of those cities! You can't sit inside at a restaurant or bar, or attend a movie or play without proof of vax.

I envy you. We just don't eat out anymore. We only took advantage a few times from May through July.

Massachusetts should and could have been a world leader in Covid testing, contract tracing, sequencing, vaccination, mitigation, etc., but for Charlie Baker. We're up to our ears in medical infrastructure.

Sheryl, I'm sorry. I know it can't be easy. I can't even imagine taking any of my kids to a convention at his age. Even when we took them to places designed for them, to which they wanted to/chose to go, they had a limited shelf-life.

Hi Nilly!

Cindy -the one thing that was pointed out is that.. those vaccine lot numbers are recorded , I don't know if that effects the statistics of how many vaccines have been given out. Like I'm not sure how that data is collected but if they are falsely putting that info in the systems and then those people are being counted as vaccinated and there is talk of all these "breakthrough " cases.. are they all breakthrough . Can someone lie about being vaccinated?

But I'm not exactly at my best thinking right now to really handle all that.

Like there's stuff going on with my cousin who had a stroke and I have asked mom to keep me minimally informed just because it's too much information for me to try to process and deal with.Plus it's just another enraging thing about how our health care sucks.

I talked to my dad for a long time and then talked to my nephew and then dad called back and I'm just.. I had to cut my skype chat with E short becuase I was basically just .. losing my train of thought and having trouble concentrating.

Also E got in trouble and got his computer access restricted. According to him he didn't really do anything and it was a misunderstanding but he got restrictions anyway. From what Mom told me (this happened right before she went up there) E accessed stuff he shouldn't have on the computer .

And even though I was mushy brained I was trying to tell him that he could tell me stuff if he didn't want to tell his parents or talk to me. I told him except if I thought it would be something serious and then I would tell his parents. I meant to say that..like if he needed an out some how for something he could tell me and then I could "betray his confidence" and then he doesn't have to tell is dad directly. Just because sometimes that's an easier way ....

I don't know if I'm making sense.

Cindy, it doesn't help that there was very little kids' programming there.(One program item a day) Mr. S enjoyed the one kids' programming item he went to, which was Legos, but the rest of the time he was very restless.

Anyone recommend any easy vegetarian meals, or meals that can be for a veg and meat eaters? Trying to share cooking duties for my friends I’m with but one is a vegetarian….but also a terrible cook. And we really need to not be ordering out every night, but we are also lazy.