I can't remember *why* my doctor said getting the shingles vaccine wasn't a pressing concern, but I came away understanding it was something he thought I should do around 60 rather than 50.

Got my first shingles vaccine and it was miserable. Sore for a week. Literally.

Second one is coming up and I’ll be happy to get it over with.

It beats the hell out of shingles.

I have a list of post-50 medical things I’ve been putting off that I’ll be scheduling after I get the COVID vaccine. I should probably make sure the shingles vaccine is part of it.

I do wonder what the world is going to look like after COVID. Will entire swathes of industries keep working from home? What will that mean for industries that support commuters, like business-adjacent restaurants? Will conferences and other business travel remain virtual, with the knock on effects on the travel industry? Will retail workers get more respect and maybe some decent benefits? Will the US end up (finally!) reworking its approach to health care? Will we ever get those hundreds of thousand of jobs back? Will long COVID change the way we cope, as a society, with chronic illness? Will I remember how to sit in a business skirt? How badly will Zoom’s stock price dip? What happened to the bag of almonds I left in my office drawer? Has it achieved sentience and taken over the whole floor of the building?

I have questions.

I had a new version of the college anxiety dream. This time, it was the morning of graduation, and we have all been gathered into pods of ten to do various tasks all around campus. In one station, I spilled a whole bunch of water, and while ai was trying to find towels to clean it up, I lost my pod! So I was running around, trying to find my pod, I ran into another pod, and tried to get the leader to help. He just kept saying that there were no leaders, he was just an ambassador?? We did run into my pod, and they took us to the library. There was much whispering and conferring among the ambassadors, and they finally announced that we would need to re-take the SAT right then, before we graduated, because we had all taken the wrong one! But they were super disorganized and there were no test booklets and we were also not very distanced, both for cheating and COVID purposes. And no one could explain to me why or if it would affect my GPA.

You guys are making me want to make some "skyline" for dinner soon. I need to figure out which recipe apes it best...

When I was very young, we lived in Louisville. We moved to northern New Jersey and, on the first visit to the pediatrician, my mother checked up on our vaccinations (which, at that time, included polio and smallpox, but not measles, chicken pox or such). She mentioned to the doctor that my sister and I were probably due for our typhoid inoculations and seemingly he gave her a funny look and said he wouldn't know where to get the vaccine/serum. So ... one set of shots we didn't need to have.

I finally officially pulled the plug on my family Christmas travels. Four households from three states, (two states that are trending significantly upward in COVID rates) should not be getting together for in-person holidays. My sister and niece were quite understanding. The latter was expected, but the former had me a bit worried. Nice to know that wasn't warranted. After all these years she's still the cool big sister, and I dislike disappointing her. Now to plan Christmas dinner for one. It will involved beef in some form, but beyond that?

Calli, maybe a fancy sauce, some nice side dishes ... good wine?

I'm actually going to suggest that my mother and I and my aunt/uncle/cousin could actually quarantine and then get together for Christmas. We'll see what they think.

I’ve decided no meal on Christmas, but making a bunch of snacks for a full day of LAZY.