Hiding Out Inside

 

It’s hot out, so I’m hiding in. My body and brain can’t deal with 50-degree changes in temperature overnight. And ever since I’ve become a woman of a certain age….ok, that’s not correct. Ever since I became a New Englander, so basically ever since I was born, I don’t do well in heat and humidity – I get crabby, then I get crabbier, my mind doesn’t work well, I snap at people and drop things, and, have I mentioned this yet? I get wicked crabby.

My mother, and her mother, enjoyed this weather. I did not inherit that gene, which apparently comes from the French side of the family. I got the Irish genes instead – give me cool and maybe a little rainy and I’m fine. Mom called me today and her first words were, “So – are you crabby today?” then proceeded to describe how hot it is, sitting out in her porch on the sunny side of the house, and how happy she is to be overly warm and how much she’s enjoying today.

I don’t want to hear it.

I’m half-way through the planting the garden “vacation” and it’s going slowly. This weekend and last were too hot, and then really windy, and then very cold nights. In spite of that, I’ve gotten, finally, all the cool weather things planted – late, because it’s no longer cool, but, oh well: peas, fava beans, onions, leeks, shallots, potatoes (I plant them in potato bags because potatoes are difficult in raised beds), broccoli raab, lettuce, kohlrabi, beets, carrots, and a few flowers. Yesterday morning I got up wicked early for me and went out while it was still reasonably reasonable and planted scarlet runner beans, zucchini, and summer squash. During last weekend and the week I had to plant the now-3-foot-tall heritage tomatoes I ordered from a seed company, begging them not to ship them to me until the very end of April because I can’t plant them out here safely until June. They sent them in early April, of course, and I potted them up, they lived next to the woodstove, and I shuffled them from one sun patch to another for a month.

Have you ever planted tomatoes flat? I haven’t had to in years, but half of these went into the garden that way. You dig a deepish hole for the root ball, a trench for the stem (from which you’ve removed leaves), and then lay the thing in flat. All the hairs on the stem will develop into roots. I propped the very top of the plant upright with a stick then plopped a plastic cloche over the top. Fingers crossed! It will work, barring cats deciding to excavate the stem, me forgetting where the stem is located and planting over it, etc.

I’ve also put in a couple hills of pumpkins, under cloches, and a couple types of shell bean, and yellow beans, all assuming that by the time they germinate, it’ll be warm enough. I still have green beans, lima beans, more carrots, parsnips, basil, cucumbers, cosmos, Love Lies Bleeding, sunflowers, Bachelor’s Buttons, nasturtium, winter squashes, nigella, calendula, and morning glories to plant. And I need to find some replacements for the perennials the chipmunks destroyed last year, little buggers. The roots of several lovely plantings were in the way of their tunnels, so they just chewed them off. AND ate all the parsnips one night, and the carrots twice.

Winter Savory

 

I’m not seeing many chipmunks this summer, which is the way of the world; and Rasta is on the job. So far he’s caught mice and a bird that quickly got away from him, but that helps, too. 

 

Well, not the bird, but since he only has canine teeth, if Biscuit doesn’t get involved, not much

damage is done to things that can fly. Unlike to my text and photo placement, which has just gotten weird and won't fix.

The lilacs finally bloomed yesterday, and from a distance in my hidey-hole, it looks like the flax bloomed out by the compost bins today. A few things I planted a week or more ago have poked up above their earthy bed: one row of carrots, peas, potatoes, fava beans. The rhubarb is up and even blossoming, and the asparagus has been cut-able this year (year four; you have to give it time to feed the roots for three years before you cut much) and soon I’ll be letting it go to seed, too. Winter and summer savory are up, one remaining parsley plant, catnip, dill, Egyptian onions, chives, mint, irises, the one bunch of tulips the chipmunks didn’t eat, Lady’s Mantle, thyme; daisys are about to blossom, the apple is in blossom and he cherry is past blossoming and the pear is about to blossom, but not the peaches yet. Wild strawberries are everywhere in bloom, and white violets, and the Johnny Jump Ups are wildly prolific this year. One of the bird houses on the garden fence has a resident, but I haven’t gotten close enough to discover what type, yet. 

The Manly Men Post-work Snacking

 

The Boys – here I’m referring to the manly men, the Husband, the Tall Guy, and the Scholar – have been taking out old trees and brush around the edges of the front and back 40, for several weeks now. The Tall Guy has himself a bright orange tractor that chips stuff and does other interesting things, and the result has been a couple of wicked big piles of wood chips, good for my three wild garden paths and mulching the blueberries; a pretty unrestricted view out the north windows to the road; and an opening up of the woods that surround the field that have slowly crept closer to the house over the years. In the process they uncovered the spot near the old barn foundation where I planted currants and gooseberries decades ago; it’ll be interesting to see what further developments arise.

I may be crabby, but my immediate world ignores me. Probably just as well!

 

For the blog, 22 May 22: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

The Orange Tractor, the Tall Guy, the Scholar (in black-fly hood)

 

Plantin' The Garden - Or That's The Plan!

Johnny Jump Ups have taken over several beds

 

Middle of May.  I’m on “vacation” – basically, two weeks off to get the garden planted, catch up on stuff, and with any luck also get some much needed mental  and physical rest.

So far: Buzzy Boy the excellent hummingbird is back from his winter travels – I found out when he dive-bombed me late one afternoon. Dive-bombing, buzzing pass-bys, and hovering are his ways of interacting with his humans, about whom and their doings he has some strong opinions. Buzzing pass-bys are his hello, dive-bombing means I’m not refilling his feeder soon enough or going back to the house from the garden in the evening when he thinks I should, and hovering takes place either when he’s peering in a window to see what I’m doing (he’s very curious about human doings), or when he’s saying goodbye for the season – always the day before he migrates, he’ll hover for a few moments right in front of my face.

I’ve planted out four of the eight heritage variety tomato plants, at least two weeks too early, but they’re all 2 feet tall at this point. I ordered them from a nursery  when I was ordering seeds, and included a note to them begging them to send them only in their last shipping date at the very end of April because I can’t plant them out safely ‘til June. Aaaannnd, of course, they arrived early April. As my Chinese medicine teacher used to say: Bastards!

Tomatoes hardening off

 I potted them up into quart yogurt and cottage cheese containers, because they were already too big for their 6-packs.They lived near the wood stove, and I’ve been shuffling them from sun patch to sun patch indoors ever since. Now they’re two feet tall, pot-bound, too tall to plant deep enough in my raised beds to make any difference, and too tall even for a large plastic cloche for protection. So out they go, fingers crossed, after a couple of days of hardening off on the back wart.

When it was the right time to plant peas and fava beans and lettuce and other cold-weather seeds, and onion sets and leeks and shallots and seed potatoes,  it was too rainy, too windy (it’s amazing how far an onion plant can fly), and below freezing at night. So those things didn’t get put in the ground at the right time, though I managed to get some of it done early in May. Now it’s too hot and too dry, and I just wish I knew why the weather gods are messing with us.

Clematis setting buds

I missed the lunar eclipse last night, it was too overcast to see, so missed that entertainment. I did, however, find a tick sitting in wait near the cat food bowl, and when I took it outside to crush (I keep a small, sharp stone on the deck railing for the purpose), I found another crawling up the inside of the door, which led to an evening of being certain I was feeling ticks crawling up legs and arms and torso and repeated tick-checks: the New Englander’s obsessive activity this time of year. Often with results – usually middle of the night. BTW, they don’t flush well, it’s better to crush them.  A patient told me she uses a lint roller on herself and her dogs before they go indoors after a romp outside. Doesn’t kill the ticks, you have to pull them off the roller and kill them, but it does pick up any on the surface. Brilliant.

It did rain last night and today’s humid. I’m having a hard time getting my butt in gear, and I keep reminding myself that this is, actually, vacation and only day 3 of 16, so it’s ok to take a day and, maybe , just sit under the wart tent (no blackflies where it’s covered) where it’s shady and there’s a small, nice breeze, and Biscuit’s been lounging for the past 3 hours,  and itch my blackfly bites and do tick searches, ponder poison ivy, and read something, maybe doze. This is hard – the remaining four heritage tomatoes are growing taller by the moment and shouting at me - not to mention the last batch of seed potatoes that I didn’t get to yesterday, the last package of fava beans, and all the other vegetable seeds that need to be planted now now NOW NOW NOW.

Today, the lilac blossoms are starting to show purple. The birds are singing, the hummers are busy, and I need to refill Buzzy’s feeder. There’s a load of dandelions in bloom in the back forty, and the grass has finally turned green, and the leaves finally came out. I’m told there’s a blue heron nest with a sitting Mom on it up the road in the moose pond. The bleeding heart plant’s in bloom, as is the Blue-eyed Sue. Asparagus are up and edible – I made an asparagus, fiddlehead, ramp, sorrel, mushroom, leek, and spring herbs (tarragon, winter savory, chives) soup this weekend. The peas and favas I managed to get in the ground earlier are arisen.

Lynx hiding in his ripped-paper pile

 The world’s going to hell in a hand-basket, but my garden remains about the same, minus (I hope) the roving gangs of chipmunks that decimated it last year.  I’m still finding and filling in their tunnels. And if I can find the coyote pee scent bottle, I may use some of that for good measure, though I don’t want to freak out the cats.

And now, a Covid update, because you need to hear this:

It’s on the rise again in NH and parts of VT – dozens of folks hospitalized, a big handful or two on ventilators, some dying. There are many dozens more people sick with Covid who haven’t been counted, even locally – no one reports the results of their rapid tests, so these folks aren’t included in the official state or CDC counts. There are currently dozens of those people locally with active cases of Covid – I know, because I hear about them, because of what I do for a living.

If you don’t want to catch it – and trust me, you don’t, for many reasons, including the risk of developing long Covid, the risk of passing it on to unsuspecting bystanders, the loss of income and community service, the risk of getting a really nasty and painful case of it, and the risk of the symptoms dragging on for weeks and weeks– no matter whether it’s required or not, don’t go into public buildings unmasked, and bring your hand sanitizer along and use it. Outdoors – depends. Wear a mask, try to stay away from the unmasked, and if it’s crowded, don’t go.  And let’s not make the mistake of assuming those allergy-like and mild-cold-like symptoms are either allergies or colds. If you have the symptoms, take a test.

No whining. Put on your Hero face, fight the good fight, and don’t doubt yourself if you’re the only one in the crowd wearing a mask – that just means you’re the only one in the crowd not causing medical issues that can be life-shattering or life-ending, and brave enough and smart enough  to do the right thing..

You always knew you were Special, right?

 

For the blog, May 16, 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

Cinquefoil in bloom, yarrow leaves in background.

 

 

 

Covid Update April 2022

Covid update

April 2022

As best I understand it

It appears that recently the CDC, followed up by many towns that had mask mandates, has said we no longer need to wear masks in public buildings. Or, at least, that’s what we think they said.

Sigh. Ignore that advice – unless, of course, you want to catch Covid.

The new variant – Omicron B2, I believe it’s called – is here. It’s even more contagious than the last very contagious variant. You can catch it even if you’re fully vaccinated and boostered. You can catch it even if you’ve already had Covid.

So why did the CDC suggest we don’t need to wear masks in public? Partly because they have no idea how many people out here are catching Covid. They only know how many get sick enough to land in the hospital; and of those, how many are on respirators; and of those two categories, how many die. Because most people are now using the rapid antigen tests at home to determine whether they have Covid, the CDC hasn’t a clue.

For that matter, a number of people walking around with mild or asymptomatic cases of Covid don’t know they have it, either. Sometimes because they don’t test, and just assume the sniffles and sneezes and sore throat is just a cold, or seasonal allergies, or whatever; or they’ve taken the test incorrectly and gotten a false negative; or, if they’re asymptomatic but have been exposed, either don’t know they’ve been exposed or assume they don’t have it because they don’t develop symptoms. And there are still people out there who falsely believe that because they’ve already had Covid, they can’t get it again. You can get it again: how long your acquired immunity lasts depends on your general health and the vigor of your immune system. You might get 2 weeks’ worth of acquired immunity, you might get up to 3 months’ worth of acquired immunity. Rule of thumb: the younger you are and the healthier you are, the longer the acquired immunity MIGHT last.

I went into a local store the other day that, until a week ago, was stringently insisting on mask wearing. Now they’re not. And while I was there – a very rapid 15-minute run-through – I counted at least 10 unmasked people, and heard coughs, hacks, sneezes, and more coughs. I got out fast.

So, once more, what I understand about the various tests:

PCR tests are the ones someone else does to you by swabbing one nostril deeply; the sample goes to a lab and in most cases it takes 24 hours or so to get results. This test is the most accurate for people who have no symptoms, because it tests for a protein that’s associated with the Covid virus. If the virus is there, the protein is there; and yes, there can be errors, if the swabbing wasn’t done well or the packaging was messed up or some other human error. Also, this test may give a positive result for some time in someone who has recently had Covid but has recovered from the active part of the infection; and often in people with long-term Covid, it can produce a positive result for many months.

Rapid antigen tests are the ones we’re using at home, and give results in 15 minutes. If used properly, they’re very accurate. However,  many people don’t use them properly. So here’s a few things to be aware of:

          They have expiration dates. The tests the Federal gov’t sent out have an early expiration date, Aug ‘22 on the ones I’ve seen; the ones the state of NH sent out don’t expire ‘til Nov ’23 – they are two different brands – and I’ve heard of people who’ve bought rapid tests that had already expired. The expiration date can be tricky to find, but make sure you have a good one.

These tests check for antigens, which are produced when your immune system begins to fight the Covid virus. It takes some time to produce enough antigens to be detectable. So:

-If you don’t have symptoms, you’re likely to get a false negative. Symptoms are the sign your immune system is fighting the virus. People who are asymptomatic, or who test prior to developing symptoms, are most likely to get false negative results. You can’t use these tests to accurately determine whether you have Covid unless you do it at the proper time and in the proper way. Taking one this morning so you can go see Grandma without a mask on this afternoon doesn’t tell you anything except that there aren’t enough antigens in your snot to be detectable by the test. You could still infect Grandma.

-Wait for about 24 hours after you start showing symptoms to take the test. If you get a positive result, you have Covid.

-If you know or suspect you’ve been infected but don’t yet have symptoms, protect the people around you by careful mask wearing and hygiene for 2-3 days; if you still have no symptoms and get a negative test, you might not have Covid, but to be certain, continue mask wearing and hygiene for another 2-3 days, then re-test. If you still get a negative test, you probably don’t have Covid. Probably don’t, not definitely don’t.

-If you’re living with someone who has symptomatic Covid but you test negative, protect everyone you come into contact with anyway: use good masks and hygiene. Asymptomatic people can infect other people with Covid, it’s just harder to do it. It’s a respiratory disease, so coughing, shouting, kissing, talking too close to other, unmasked people, sneezing, etc can contaminate someone else.

-When you’re doing the rapid tests, you need to think and act like a scientist. Clean your hands first. Put a clean paper towel down to protect against contamination from the surface you’re working on. DON’T put the clean swab on your work surface; leave it in the package until you use it. Be careful not to contaminate the solution. Swab slowly and deeply and long enough – it’s not comfortable, but don’t speed it up or go easy on yourself. Once you’ve swabbed, immediately put it into the solution – don’t set it down first or wave it around; and when you’re doing the solution thing, be sure to do it thoroughly and squeeze the swab out well into the solution. DON’T put the used swab down anywhere but in the trash,that would just be gross. Don’t leave the solution with its test strip for either too little time or too long a time or your result will be incorrect.

If you have Covid: it’s still true that you’re potentially contagious for up to 3 days prior to developing symptoms, and you’re contagious for 3 days after your symptoms are gone. For most people with mildish cases of Covid, the symptoms last for around 5-6 days. The CDC has said that people who tested positive should isolate for 5 days, then can go back to work after 5 days BUT for the following 5 days must wear a good mask in public (good = KN95 with no gaps, or preferably N95 that’s fitted) AND must also mask around the people you live with,. THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL CONTAGIOUS!

          There has been a shortage of essential workers because of Covid – by essential, what’s meant is health-care workers, people in the food industries, other businesses that are truly essential to us all living and not starving, etc. In order to help close that gap, the CDC changed the isolation rule of thumb to the 5 days plus the well-masked 5 days. However, if you aren’t an essential worker – most of whom who, when at work, will wear full personal protective gear to keep from passing on their still-contagious virus – don’t stop your isolation after 5 days. If you’re still having to wear well-fitting masks for the next 5 days even around your family or other household members – why wouldn’t you continue to isolate? It’s easier on you and safer for everyone else.

If you sally out into the world without a mask, you’re taking a pretty big risk. Cases are on the rise again; the “hidden” cases are in the dozens. And into your risk calculations, don’t forget that in the US, we are still far from a safe percentage of vaxed and boostered population – we aren’t even at 75%. And the numbers of sick enough to be hospitalized, on respirators, or dying are still way too big. Protect yourself; and others.

 

Viral Loads O' Fun

 

Yup, well, predictably, I caught Covid from the Husband. I mean, really – unless you know someone’s likely infected you, everyone who’s vaxed and boostered thinks – oh, I’ve caught a cold. So you don’t mention it, until a couple of days later, when it becomes obvious. Which usually means: worse.

There’s no way to effectively disinfect a small house, especially in the winter, when it’s too cold to open windows for ventilation, you use a woodstove for heat which not only dries out the air but adds a fair amount of ash and dust to it, and the only full bathroom’s in the downstairs living area, one room amongst four very small rooms with no doors between them except on the bathroom. So even though I chased the husband upstairs to his bedroom and told him to stay there, by then he’d spread the virus through the downstairs pretty completely, and while I disinfected what I could – how do you disinfect a household, really? You can wipe horizontal surfaces and door handles and phones and tv controls and sinks and toilets and faucets and anything else the one with the plague may have touched, but what do you do about the afghans and throw pillows and piles of paper, and lampshades and sofa and cloth-covered chairs and CATS and stuff you don’t even think about that the pestilence coughed out by the culprit has landed on? Short of a bonfire of your entire house contents, that is. I considered it and rejected the idea.

So predictably, I caught it exactly three days later.

You don’t want to catch this virus. There were 36 hours of what felt like swallowing shards of glass, and nothing, NOTHING, touched that pain, western or Chinese. Not everyone has that symptom as badly – Husband says his sore throat lasted longer but wasn’t as bad, and an NSAID worked for him. Nothing worked for me, including Chinese meds, cursing, and cursing some more. I heard from a patient whose relative – vaxed if I remember correctly, but not boostered – had the glass shards sore throat for 10 days, during which time he couldn’t eat or drink and lost 10 pounds. I would have killed myself if it lasted that long. The other part of that misery is that the sore throat causes coughing which makes the sore throat worse which causes more coughing…and one couldn’t sleep, because too sore and coughing. Wracking coughs. Continuous, wracking coughs. For hours. Mostly at night, for some reason. Probably because that’s when the evil imps that lurk in the shadows in the corners of bedrooms and hallways are busiest and most creative.

So friends of mine, you who claim to have had this and insist it was no worse than a cold and it was over in 3 or 4 days? I DON’T BELIEVE YOU. You now reside on my mental list of people who forget how awful something is, once it’s over – along with women who have gone through childbirth.

So it’s true that depending on what variant of this sneaky virus you catch – and you won’t know – and how excellent your immune system is at the moment; and what version of the vaccine you got (J&J people, you’re doomed); and whether you’ve been boostered; and how long ago you got vaxed and boostered; and whether you have a living situation that lets you easily and completely isolate the sick person, and whether they went into isolation as soon as they realized they were coming down with something – all those and a hundred other variables – you might experience something that’s only as bad as a bad cold and you might get over it in ---let’s say 6 or so days. But – you won’t know ‘til you catch it and the fun begins.

 And then, you have to remember you were able to transmit the virus for three days prior to having symptoms, and you’ll be  able to transmit it for at least three days after your symptoms have completely disappeared – so to do the right thing, you’ll call everyone you came in contact with maskless for those three days prior to showing symptoms to give them a head’s up. Do this  before the coughing and glass shards throat kick in on day two or three. You’ll most likely hear horrifying stories, as the Husband did, of dozens of local people who also caught it from the one place he regularly went and didn’t wear a mask. In his case: Old Farts Tennis. Yup, I know, but you can’t tell Old Farts anything, and it had been safe and the place had been carefully disinfected daily and monitored until just about a month ago. And then it wasn’t, because everyone got sloppy and decided Covid was no longer a risk. Surprise!

When you do get ready to go back out into public, here’s some more advice from the sickbed: until your symptoms are completely gone – and that means completely gone, not that you’re feeling better and even though you’re still harfing up a hairball every so often you figure you’re safe – you can still give this little giftie to someone else for at least the next three days post symptoms. This advice has changed several times during the two years we’ve been inflicted with Covid, partly because we know more now, and partly because the different variants all act differently and have different rules – so just believe it, you’re still contagious. WEAR A MASK. Everywhere.

So now I’ve had personal experience with the rapid Covid tests, here’s what I can tell you:

No point in wasting one before you have symptoms, you’ll just get a false negative.

If you suspect you’re coming down with something but don’t actually have symptoms yet, don’t go anywhere in public without a good mask on, keep your hands sanitized/well washed, and isolate at home after telling your spouse what you suspect. It won’t kill you. Two or three days later, if you have symptoms, use a test.

If your test is positive, you’ve got it.  Stay isolated. Wear a mask when your family comes to feed you. Don’t touch stuff they’re going to touch. Don’t cough/snot/harf all over everything, and put your used rapid test and all your snotrags in plastic bags that you can seal up once they’re full so the trash folks don’t have to touch them, either.

Stay to hell in your room until you’re really, truly over this. If you have a fever, take acetaminophen or ibuprofen or aspirin; ditto for the sore throat. My personal experience is that only 3 ibus worked and not perfectly, I had no fever worth mentioning, and from a Chinese medical point of view, this is a truly bizarre virus, and weird mix of cold and hot invasion and pretty much nothing has made an obvious difference. I finally tried a fire-toxin formula which may, or may not, have helped the sore throat. Or, it may be that it just stopped hurting when the virus decided to change symptoms. I have no idea.

Should you take a second rapid test? Don’t be confused by the instructions that come with the test: the 2^nd test they refer to really means IF you get a negative result after the first, BUT you develop symptoms in the next few days while you’re carefully wearing a mask in public to protect the innocent, THEN take a 2^nd test to see if the antigens have built sufficiently to test positive. IF you still get a negative result, you most likely do actually just have a cold, but wear a mask in public or even better, stay home, because your cold symptoms are going to freak everyone out and no one wants to catch that from you, either.

At the end of your ordeal, if you’ve isolated ‘til symptom-free PLUS isolated an extra 3 days minimum, no point in taking a test. You can get a positive test for months after having Covid, but it won’t mean you’re still contagious.  Yes, you personally will gain some limited extra immunity from the variant you personally contracted – could be for 2 weeks, could be for 3 months – but you don’t know how long, it’s very individual, and you don’t know which variant you had, and you don’t know which variant everyone else is spreading around, so don’t take a chance – WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC and around anyone you don’t know for certain is masking and vaxed and boostered and being careful.

WHY does the CDC now say you don’t need to wear a mask? Because they have no idea how many people are still catching the virus. All they know is how many people who caught it needed to be hospitalized, and how many of those died. The CDC doesn’t know about the local break-out of dozens of locals who caught it: rapid test results aren’t reported.

And maybe no one who works at the CDC has actually experienced a rotten case of this virus in their own body or the body of someone close to the, and they actually believe the thing is “no worse than a bad cold” for vaxed and boostered people. That’s true for some people; it’s true for part of the time you have it; but it ignores that getting it, bad cold symptoms or not or worse, disrupts lives – sick people can’t work, sick people’s families often can’t work, sick people give it to other people, and some of those people will indeed wind up in hospital or dead.

Yes, mask wearing is a pain in the butt. Proper mask wearing and sanitizing is a worse pain in the butt. But worse things could happen. How many really sick people, how many days of someone else’s lost work, how many hospitalized and dead people are you willing to be responsible for in order to not wear a mask?

Personally, I’m not ready to risk even one. And I hope the person who did the bad thing which gave the Husband Covid, which gave me Covid, which has caused already 10 days of him not being able to work, and me 8 days of not being able to treat patients, and another week moreat least of neither of us being able to work – should I add those dollar amounts up for you? – plus the days and nights of real discomfort, the risk and trouble to family and friends who have had to run errands for us, the civic work that had to be cancelled, the volunteer work that can’t be done --- you’re getting the idea, right? I hope that person who wasn’t careful who handed the virus on to me and he and the dozens of others who caught it – I hope someone slaps that person upside the head. Hard.

So, this is my contemplation from the middle of my own Covid world. Think twice before deciding it isn’t your responsibility to wear a mask.

And when you catch it, don’t give in to the urge to take your unmasked, Covidy self to visit the vax-denying, mask-refusing friends and relatives who think they’re immune. Just to cough a bit in reflective thought, and see what happens.

Because it won’t be just them.

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com    8 March 2022

All art and photos Deb Marshall: 

 Me; Two of a Kind (Rasta and Lynx); All Duded Up; Thinking About Stuff; Lynx