Again, today we talked about the vaccine, and who was legitimately qualified to get it. We talked about the definition of “obese” and how alarmingly low the bar is to define oneself as obese, but how some people we knew used that definition for themselves in order to get the vaccine. We discussed the different vaccines, the different delivery modes of Moderna and Pfizer and AstroZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. We worried about the New York variants and how it was found in Georgia and how the UK variant was found in Florida. We all knew of people who had it and who died of it. We talked about the monoclonal antibodies and how they did help. We discussed how we heard trucks carrying the vaccines were being hijacked and the vaccines sold on the Black Market.
Too much of this talk is a downer so we veered to our group dog in his Zoom box and his new crew cut, about strange pets people have had, and how herbal cures for people, like nettle tea for allergies and ginger for upset stomach, can help dogs too. While our call was going on some people were watching the Oprah interview of Meghan & Harry, and some of us were taping it for later. I mentioned I met someone who had met the Queen several times so now all the PareaGroovers were two degrees removed from her. They liked this.
As the Coronaversary, as it is being called, approaches this week, when the lockdown was first declared, we talked about our experiences immediately before that happened, what we bought, what we thought. We then talked about how Dr. Seuss’ books were canceled, how Mr. Potato Head was now gender neutral, and somehow how Mother Theresa wasn’t always so great according to stories that came out after she died. “You gotta be tough to climb to the top of the nun business” one suggested. And then he posited perhaps weaponizing the Flying Nun, which was hysterical. We talked then about watching television, shows online, on our phones, then to the eye strain all these screens were leading to and whether the blue glasses actually helped, and whether all these screens caused insomnia, or was it just stress. We talked about how family parties, even Bar Mitzvahs, were now “hybrid,” where some were in person and many more were attending online alongside the streamed in-person event. And we ended with a little combined FOMO and worry for Florida where things seem as back to normal as ever, as our Floridian resident comically warned “if you stand too close to a door they push you inside.”
