3/9/21 How We Survive

Normally I post on Sunday as the weekend ends to recount what I have been scribbling down over the weekend. I didn’t do much musically, but I did do some stuff. 

I bought a new Gibson studio a few weeks ago, it finally arrived last week, and I finally got to jam some of the songs I have been writing on it. It plus so smooth. Couldn’t have asked for something better. I did learn about the tuning I’m playing in, that’s a different story. 

Music normally takes over my Sunday afternoons, and I’m able to get stuff wrapped up. This weekend was the first of the end. I got my first COVID shot, it was a crazy process.

Let me start with the plan that was supposed to happen. Three weeks ago, I got a message from my mother about how we would go with them to get the Pfizer shot, as they would be going for their second. They we’re doing the ride alongs at the location. So Sunday was the big day. 

Oddly enough, Mar 7 2020 is the last concert I went to, Escape the Fate  at Club Red (which was just recently a COVID victim.) So it truly was a full circle day. 

We arrived an waited in line with my father. We split out family up into three cars so we could be sure we all could get it. After a short wait, we were told by a man named William we WOULDNT be able to get out shot, because both my wife and I weren’t close in criterial. I was pissed. I thought this was the end, but it was just another letdown. Do we went through, and left. 

We get to the rendezvous point where we would switch cars and everyone would go home. My mom calls my dad and says that my cousin managed to talk his way into getting a shot. Me being upset screamed some profanities that I now regret, but irrationally made sense. I stormed off and went for a short walk. I walked up to the Salt River by the 202 and I looked out blankly, depressed and curious about what is going to happen. I saw something tht amazed me, people were living along the River. These were homeless people. Fringes of society living a breath away. I thought my life isn’t that bad. So, I walked back.

When I got back I had a frantic message from my moms saying that she found a way to make this happen. We had to go back to the site to try again. We went back and saw that dude again, this time my mon made a frantic plea. Now as just a other person, but as a mother. I felt like I was a little child again, and she was standing up against some bully. This time a gentleman that was with the Army came up and asked us some questions. Now, I have multiple sclerosis, and that luckily is a stretch for a preexisting condition, but one nonetheless. Big reason why it was so difficult was we are so much younger than the current age cutoff. Needless to say, her plea was heard, and the Army dude said we are good to go because he wants to see everyone get vaccinated. 

We went back to registration, and they got us signed up. We had to go back around this line, and we managed to get the first shot. It happened. The beginning of the end for us. The side effects was so minimum, a sore arm, that was it.

It was a crazy weekend. Four hours at the vaccination site. Four long fucking hours. We got the vaccination though. My whole family is on their way to safety. We’re lucky. 

Three more weeks until I am saved.