Getting my second COVID-19 shot today, April 2021

It's April of 2021, and today I went over to my local Walgreens and got my second COVID-19 shot. And I thought that you'd be interested in what it felt like. Getting a flu shot isn't something that I usually write about in my history adventuring blog, but this particular one is a piece of history, and I gotta tell ya, I was underwhelmed today.

Don't get me wrong, I was pleased to have it done, and appreciate the Herculean efforts on the part of the people who made it possible, from the researchers, the developers, the people who drove it to here in Glendale, Arizona in of them big-rigs, right down to the nice lady who jabbed me in the arm while I babbled about my wiener dogs (I'm a typical tough guy who doesn't like needles, and my technique is called "refocusing", which means thinking about something else, and looking away). But to me, it was just another shot. I get a flu shot every year, and I'm sure that I got a lot of shots as a kid. I'm a squeamish person, so I do it, but I really don't like to think about it.

So, I really don't have much to say about the experience. I walked over to Walgreens, checked in, filled out the usual paperwork (I read the questions, which say something like "Are you troubled today with Dung Beetles?), go where they tell me to go, read a book on my phone, and then wander off. It was just ordinary, wonderfully ordinary.

Right after my shot I treated myself to a delicious lunch at Boston Market, and felt so good that I decided to take a stroll through the Sahuaro Ranch, and see some peacocks. It was a gorgeous day today, something that I always refer to as "Chamber of Commerce weather".

It's about eight pm now and I'm just starting to feel a bit of tenderness in the left arm, and other than feeling kinda groggy and sleepy, I'm fine. And I'm filled with the feeling you get after you leave the dentist - glad it's over, and ready to move on with my life.

I live in Arizona, and I know that there will be a percentage of people who, for various reasons, will not get themselves vaccinated. I'm a "live and let live" person, but I'm also someone who likes to lead by example. When people ask me how I've managed to become such a fit old guy, I'll tell them that in addition to eating my veggies, I take my medicine, and that includes vaccines.

If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more