Well, what a delightful Easter day yesterday. We had our traditional Egg Bake for breakfast, which a conglomeration of most everything you would have for breakfast, even topped with buttery Corn Flakes and baked for about an hour… later in the day, after the standing Rib Roast was in the oven getting ready for a 5:30 showing, we made the traditional deviled eggs from the dyed eggs of Saturday. One of the nicer parts of the day was the fact that it was sitting right at 68 degrees outside, so it ended up that we all sat on the back patio in the sunshine enjoying the April warmth, and just chatting along about most everything.
But today is back to work, and back to a bit of a normal schedule. Normal, except for one thing: I’m going to the shooting range this afternoon. No, I don’t own a gun. Instead, it is I who will be shot! Dose #2, courtesy of Pfizer, is waiting for me at the Thrifty White Drug at 2:55. It’s kind of an interesting set-up – it’s located in the big Cash Wise grocery store, and it’s a nicely done store in a store. However, that’s not where I get shot. The first time, and I expect it will be the same, I had to go into the room next to the pharmacy, which was decorated just as you would remember it in the 1990s. looking around the large room, you realize pretty quickly that it used to be the video rental store inside Cash Wise. The same color signs and thousands of racks are still on the walls. Kind of like stepping back into the past! Where there probably used to be a nice looking door when it was a sub-store, there is not a large sheet of plywood, with three hinges and magic marker scrawled on it saying, “Entrance.” It’s also the exit, by the way, but I guess they didn’t want to use up all the marker – those red ones cost a bit, especially when you are trying to write on raw plywood. Of course, everyone is in masks, and as you check in, you are handed one of three colored laminated cards. It sort of feels like you are in line or television game show or something. Anyway, one is yellow – for Pfizer, one is green, for Moderna, and one was blue, for Astra Zeneca. Brilliant way to organize. But wait! The first time I went there, there was a bit of intense conversation at the head of the line, and suddenly, the check in person produced some BROWN laminated cards. Yes – it was Johnson and Johnson. Well, I took my yellow card, proud to be a Pfzerian (if that’s a word), and quickly made my way over to the shooter’s table. After being asked my full name, phone number and date of birth for the fourth time in 12 feet, I think the gal smiled nicely, although who can tell under a sea of masks, and plunged the needle into my arm. Actually, she did a really good job, and I didn’t feel anything. Nor did I feel anything that evening or the next day – not even a stiff arm, and no adverse side effects, outside of feeling a bit invulnerable – but not quite there. Actually, in the back of my mind over the last four weeks, I have been wondering, in the still of the night, whether I had just gotten a syringe full of salt water or something, since I have heard of so many folks having an adverse reaction. Even my lovely wife, in her first shot, had an aching upper arm for a couple of days. I remember when we call got back from Australia, that we had to get Typhus shots. Basically, it involved having all six of us, plus Mom and Dad, getting jabbed in the arm, and then being unable to move it for the next four days. Imagine the joy in the house, of having six children all whining about hurt arms for 96 hours or so. I’m sure Mom was delighted. I’m also sure Dad was glad to go to work… So now it’s time for shot #2. I’ve also read about this little beauty. Some folks say that the first shot is only to get you ready for the main event. #2 apparently feeds on its first cousin, and does its best to help you feel sick and feverish and with chills and headaches, and who knows what else it could be! Actually, when Cheri got her second one, it hit her pretty hard, and she was down for the better part of a day and a half. We’ll have to see – there really isn’t an option, in this age and time – and I would guess getting the stinking virus would be worse that a little shot. But back to the shot room. I don’t know how many other people found the irony in using that room for vaccinations. Here in our lifetime we went through the entire age of video movie rentals, from VHS tapes to DVDs, all ready to be rented from your local video store. New movies were $1.99, or sometimes even $2.99, and the older ones were rentable for 99 cents, although when you looked through that selection, you were better prepared to fork over a couple of bucks more for the new stuff. But an entire industry, from start to finish, existed in that room, with thousands of customers per year. That room, with a now dead technology, is being used to house what is the very front end of medical technology in our lifetime. No matter what happens in future years, we will be the first ones to receive these doses, hopefully in order to save lives, to avoid illness, and to hopefully make it possible to go to the grocery store without having to put on a mask – in other words, moving back, or forward to a sense of normal. So I’m ready – I’ve been swinging my arm around and around just to loosen up the muscle, and I am prepared to place three fingers from my shoulder downward, to make sure they don’t jam me up in my bone or anything. Ah, what a delightful April day to spend getting medicated! I hope you will also have that joyful experience. Let’s get it done, and move on with our lives, shall we? THOUGHT for the day: If you are having a tough day, just be thankful that in the background you don’t have a banjo playing… or bagpipes…or an accordion… or someone whistling in that obnoxious way, like you hear in the checkout line at the store, and you can’t get away from it…
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AuthorAfter 43 years of ministry, Randy Cross lived his "fourth life" and shared about retirement, living boldly and intentionally in our world. To be sure, there was some North Dakota thrown in. Archives
March 2023
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