New month and good news

 Happy first of February!

Gratitude is at a high level today...yesterday (Saturday) two wonderful things happened. A friend called to say there's a climic that we can go to this afternoon and get our COVID-19 vaccinations. Another friend of ours had told her about it, who had just returned from getting hers. My friend asked if I wanted to try it. I thought of all the nothing things I was in the middle of doing and said YES!

So we met a few minutes later, I having changed from a long sleeved tee-shirt and sweater to a short sleeved sweater...and my "Connecticut coat." It's a puffy coat of many colors that is for when the weather is in the 30's or below. Anyway we drove through Asheville, and finally found the clinic. Incidentally we wore masks in the car, and I sat in the back seat...about 3 feet from my friend.

We saw two rows of cars in line, and turned in to the clinic where everything was set up to distribute vaccines. A man in a red coat came up to us and said the appointments would be over at 3:30 and if there were enough people waiting, they'd open another container of vaccines and give them out. We were told to drive over to a line of cars going up the street outside the clinic parking lot. We were the 5th car in that line. The man said with two of us we made 8 waiting. 

We waited about half an hour, and enjoyed talking together. Then the red coat man came by and said they were going to be taking us, just follow the car in front of us. We did! And by then there were probably 10 cars behind us.

We filled out the forms on their clipboard. Then we were at the door to the clinic, where a nurse came out, wearing wings! I kid you not! We had our temperatures taken, orally! 

This was the most upbeat nurse I've seen in ages. Well...at least since I was in rehab.

Entrance to the clinic had people coming and going...we didn't even get out of the car.

My friend receiving her shot. She said it was the tiniest needle and didn't hurt at all. I agreed.

That's when it started to snow!

We then drove to the area waiting to be sure we had no side effects for 15 minutes. We were told to come back in 4 weeks about the same time for our second Moderna vaccine doses. We received a paper describing it. (I haven't looked at it yet.)

And then the snow started to fall harder and harder...all the way home, and for at least another hour after we had come home. I thanked my friend immensely, and we called the friend who told her about the drop in clinic. What a blessing...or as I defined it, grace was smiling upon us today! 

Did I mention I got my mail while waiting for my friend to pick me up? In it was my stimulus check. So I'm waiting to go to the bank on Mon. to deposit it. I don't have any extra expenses at this time, but you never know. I feel doubly blessed. What a day!

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Today's quote:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott