That’s Hot, Baby!

A woman I knew years ago in Vermont told me about working in a cannery in Alaska. She said it was awful: her task was to assemble cardboard boxes all day, sometimes for 16 hours, taking flattened boxes and folding them into shape for use on the cannery line. She said that sometimes she just had to get away from the mind-numbing tedium so she would work as fast as she could for a while to assemble a wall of boxes around her work station tall enough that the supervisor couldn’t see her, then go hide in the restroom and brush her teeth for 10 minutes.

Maybe we could try some version of that strategy here. Given that the state of Our Pandemic is much the same from day to day lately, I’ll prepare several days’ worth of interchangeable remarks on numbers of new U.S. coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths, and on our sadly flagging vaccination rates, then I can go outside and play in my garden until Tuesday. Sound good?

This report from the Oregon Public Broadcasting website suggests that nearly all U.S. COVID-19 deaths are now occurring among unvaccinated Americans. Why, you ask, is anyone in this country still unvaccinated? Well, according to a recent study colleagues and I conducted here at WTF?? Research, some fraction of those folks want to receive the vaccine but due to reasons beyond their control—being shut-in at home, having work schedules that prevent them from getting to a clinic, suffering from other medical conditions that make vaccination inadvisable, whatever—they haven’t been able to get the jab. Our study suggests that a total of 3 Americans currently fit in that category. Of course, some of those who remain unvaccinated are under age 12 and so not eligible to get the jab. The rest, our research indicates, ARE JUST PLAIN STUPID and their deaths may actually benefit the human gene pool—so let’s not argue with them, OK?

It may look like Seattle, but here we are in hell again. Well, it’s actually not too bad at the moment (10:30-ish on Friday morning) but the sun is glaring down at us like a 4^th-grade teacher with a ruler in her hand, and we all know we’re gonna get it. Mid-80s today is the forecast last I heard, which means 90+ here at the Hermit Ranch, and then up in the middle-90s for tomorrow with triple digits coming Sunday and Monday. Which, to paraphrase the famous line from “Good Morning, Vietnam” is Ugly! Damn ugly! Real ugly! And there’s not a darn thing we can do about it.

Except to decamp to the basement with an air mattress, a couple of books and a headlamp, so you can bet your sweet bippy (as my 4^th-grade teacher might have said) that’s what I’m gonna do—whistling Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata all the while. What’s that? You don’t believe me capable of such gourmet warbling? Ah, but we’re just getting to know each other. In fact, I can and do whistle, well, OK: bits and fragments of Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata, and I manage to stay more or less on-key at least part of the time.

Some lovely blew off about $20 worth of extra-loud fireworks in the street right at the end of my driveway at 0100 hours this morning, kindly saving me from the heartbreak of getting more than 4 hours of sleep in a single stretch. Although I didn’t see the culprit I have a good idea which of my fine neighbors it probably was. It’s with great effort that I restrain myself from plotting heinous acts of retribution. Talkin’ Spanish Inquisition here. But let’s not go down that road, OK? It’s really not their fault. Those folks are from the shallow end of the gene pool and we hail from at least mid-span, and let’s leave it at that.

I had a skin check at (my attorney advises me to refer to this place simply as “The McDonald’s of Health Care”)  this morning and am now the proud beneficiary of a high-tech, whizbang procedure in which my PCP used a cell phone camera with a microscope attachment to create high-quality images of several questionable spots on my skin, then sent those pics to a dermatologist in their system for review and recommendations. Impressive, IMHO. Notice I didn’t say “HMO”. Anyway. He then used the liquid nitrogen or whatever that burning cold stuff is to torch a couple of old freckly spots on my back just for—well, maybe to help us both feel like he actually did something while I was there? Anyway. I like this guy and much appreciate the time he took to look me over and do his part to help me live to be 100 some day—a refreshing break from the more typical “Your 6 minutes is up—Next!” health care system we have in this country.

Stay safe, I’ll write again soon.