On the 13th day of my two week waiting period ...

Today I had planned to celebrate my liberation with several vaccinated friends at a restaurant with outdoor seating. Had plans to spend 3 nights in early May at a hotel on the Oregon coast with 3 vaccinated friends.

A little over a month ago my hematologist told me it was okay for me to get vaccinated and that he believed it would give me good protection even if somewhat less than the remarkably high 94%-95% efficacy achieved by the 2-dose vaccines. When I pressed him, he said he thought it would be okay for me to do the things that the CDC guidelines indicated were safe for the fully vaccinated.

Great! Or so I thought until a friend forwarded an article to me with the title: Vaccines Won’t Protect Millions of Patients With Weakened Immune Systems. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/health/coronavirus-vaccine-immune-system.html

Merde! I thought, naturellement, and later in the day drove to my regular clinic to get an antibodies test. After that I found CDC information indicating that an antibodies test does not measure vaccine efficacy. Oh well...

Yesterday, at my annual physical exam, my internist, when pressed on the question, basically told me that I should keep isolating until COVID-19 cases subside and more is known about how well the vaccine protects people with compromised immune systems in general, and blood disorders in particular.

I’m still waiting to hear back from my hematologist, but am pretty sure I will need hang back for a bit longer. Meanwhile, at least I have a reason to get up in the morning - cats gotta have their breakfast! 😻😻

This made me glad I got out of bed this morning.

The Unsettling Power of Easter

I can’t remember the last time I was able to cry and wondered what it would take to crush my heart, in a good way. It was this article:

The holiday is about much more than a celebration of spring.

Esau McCaulley
By Esau McCaulley
Contributing Opinion Writer
April 2, 2021

I grew up in the Southern Black church tradition, where Easter was the opportunity to don your best outfit. The yellow and red dresses and dark suits set against the Black and brown bodies of my church were a thing to behold. The hats of grandmothers and deacon’s wives jostled with one another for attention. The choir had its best music rehearsed and ready to go. Getting to sing the solo on Easter was like getting a prime spot at the Apollo.

I watched rather than participated in these festivities during most of my youth. I didn’t have the money or social standing to attract much attention. Then one year my mother cobbled together enough money to purchase a navy blue three-piece suit and a clip-on tie. Without my father around, neither she nor I could tie the real thing. I thought I had joined the elect when I showed up fresh and clean for Sunday service.

The feeling didn’t last long. During a song, a woman sitting next to me with one of the aforementioned hats got excited. Our tradition called it “catching the Holy Ghost.” In her ecstatic state, she kicked out, hit me in the leg, and ripped a hole in my brand-new pants.

That Sunday introduced me to the two Easters that struggle alongside each other. One is linked closely to the celebration of spring and the possibility of new beginnings. It is the show that can be church on Easter. The other deals with the disturbing prospect that God is present with us. His power breaks out and unsettles the world.
We like to imagine the story of the first Easter as the first of the two, a celebration of possibility. We would be wrong.

Music for Passion Week

Inspiring music for Holy Week

Portland's Grape-Nuts shortage nightmare is over

The year 2020 took so much from us -- birthday parties, our faith in humanity and, apparently, Grape-Nuts.

That’s right, according to many things including an all-caps post on Portland’s Reddit page back in December, the cereal that you either love or hate, was nowhere to be found. The culprit? Supply chain issues and high demand.

Portlanders were probably especially hard hit by the loss of the not-grape and not-nuts breakfast food. An Oregonian article from 1989 notes that at the time Portland ranked number one among all U.S. cities for Grape-Nut consumption.

The source for this information? Harper’s Magazine’s monthly numbers.

And while the author of that article couldn’t verify Harper’s numbers, they were able to get Frank J. Smith, director of SAMI corporate development services, to say that Portland was number one in purchasing dry cat food and last in spray deodorants.

Sure this was 32 years ago, but it still feels relevant.

Death of the Party

Sometimes I just need what I like to think of as a “comfort read” and this is my latest one. It’s an early 21st Century whodunnit, with a minor political angle, but the title jumps out at me today in a way that it did not back when I bought the book.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/614404.Death_of_the_Party

And just like that,

I got out of bed following President Biden’s first full day in office and was not morbidly depressed.
😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸😍🇺🇸

Al Roker got a fist bump from the President!

Who jogged over to him!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Best response to whataboutism!