valeriesbookofme

Richard and I had our COVID booster shots on Friday afternoon. This was my third Moderna shot; Richard had had the one-shot Janssen vaccine so he opted this time for Moderna. The pharmacist at CVS said the dose was half of the regular Modern. She also said that some people had experienced a reaction of sore arm, fever, fatigue, etc., and some hadn't had anything. Richard didn't have any reaction to the shot. I started feeling feverish, achey and just all around flu-ey in the middle of the night on Friday. Spent Saturday on the couch and in bed, alternately shivering and sweating. I am better today but still so tired! Curious as to why I was so sick and R had nothing more than a sore arm, I Google'd "Why some people have side effects...." The article had lots of medical jargon in it but, basically, the fact that I had side effects means that my immune system was working harder than R's was. (Some may argue with this, but it works for me.) Apparently, it's u...

One of the worries I had while I was away last month was about Mitzi. R had email'd me that she wasn't eating, that the sore on her neck was bleeding. He felt she was on her last legs and wondered if he should help her on her way across the Rainbow Bridge. Mitzi is probably 12--she was a rescue, we adopted her 10.5 years ago so we don't know when exactly she was born--a senior dog. She's had the lump on her neck for months, I took her to the vet and it was diagnosed as a cancerous tumor. Vet said it could be operated on and removed but it was a major operation, a few weeks' recover with the dreaded cone, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't come back. R and I made the decision together not to have it operated on. I realize that others might have made a different decision and that's their right, I respect anyone for making a difficult decision. In our case, our decision was mainly based on her age and the trauma that the operation would put her through.  No...

  Mitzi is glad to see me. And so is R. I arrived back in Phoenix at about 6:00 pm last night. R wasn't aware of how chaotic it is in Arrivals at Phoenix so it took awhile for us to meet up with each other. We eventually did, I heaved the cases into the car (last time this trip, yay!) and R drove back to Tucson, which is about 2.5 hours. Arrived home at about 9:00 pm to rapturous affection from Mitzi and a leaking toilet in my bathroom. We'd closed off my area of the house so that the dog wouldn't lie on the bed. A lesson learned: check on toilets, even if they aren't being used. When we go off traveling, we usually turn the water off. Ah well, it's fixed and thank goodness we have two bathrooms! Of course if we'd only had one, then R would have known about the leak.... I woke up this morning at 5:00 am full of energy. Groceries done and put away by 8:30, dog walked, all my clothes and stuff unpacked, washed and put away or hung up by noon. And then I collapsed ...

Although my actual flight to JFK isn’t until tomorrow, modern travel and my own paranoia necessitates that I begin the journey today. Driving in the UK is so very different than the US, even on highways, something I think I have mentioned in previous blogs. Although it is only 133.4 miles from where Sheila lives to Heathrow, closer than the distance from Sierra Vista to Phoenix, the journey takes 2.5 hours, assuming there isn’t an accident on the motorway. Sheila didn’t want to attempt the drive and I don’t blame her at all.  I could have gone by train but that would mean heaving my suitcases up and down from platform to train, since most of the platforms are several inches lower than the trains are. And transferring first at Bristol—platform change, one lift (elevator) per two platforms up and down to the tunnels connecting said platforms—and then at Paddington—walk from train station to Underground and try to make sure cases don’t go rolling down the subway car during the half ho...