COVID Diaries Pt. 29

The End?

The end of what you may ask?  Well, I guess I will say it is the end of this series at least.  No one in the States is paying ANY attention to COVID at all.  Other than the immunocompromised that is. 

Shortly after my last post, the CDC posted new guidelines that basically amounted to “Eh, we give up.”  So, people basically did.  You would be hard pressed to see many precautions any longer. Everything has basically eased back into what normal seems like.  Which means people are catching and passing around COVID all the time, but if you aren’t testing, you might not even know.  My mom had it for a second time during this period, and it was nothing more than a mild cold this time around. 

At least one positive is the release of the Omicron focused booster shots.  They are out now, which should hopefully help combat the most common variants that are still circulating.  COVID isn’t over, but I’m sure it will end up becoming more of a yearly flu situation.  As such, this morning I got my updated booster AND my flu shot.  So hopefully I’m well protected for the fall.

Let’s see, what else happened since June?  The war in the Ukraine is still raging on, Boris Johnson resigned and the Queen died in the UK, R. Kelly was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life, there was another mass shooting in Highland Park, IL, James Caan, Ivana Trump, Anne Heche and Oliva Newton John all died.  Mar-a-Lago got raided due to improper storage and handling of classified documents, a childhood friend committed suicide, the NFL season began and a neighbor destroyed a privacy wall of trees on over 300 feet of my property.   So yeah, it’s been a hectic couple of months, and most of the news kinda sucked.

On the good side, Biden got some legislation through that should help the economy and the middle class.  He also is forgiving some student load debt, so that’s huge for a lot of people as well.  Things are trending well going into the mid-terms.  We’ll see if it makes any difference.

I’ve also been trying to buy a car for the last several months, and it has been a nightmare.  I want a hybrid as my last two cars were also hybrids.  I like being less reliant on gas and having the emissions better for the environment as well.  The problem is, due to sky high gas prices, EVERYONE wants hybrids. I haven’t been able to see the model I want in person because they are all sold before they ever hit a dealer’s lot.  I’ve had my name on waiting lists at several places, and even went to buy one, until they showed me the bill with a 20 percent markup of the price due to inventory scarcity.  They also added another $1200 in “protective coating”.    They added $7200 to the cost of the car.  I, not so nicely, told them what they could do with their offer.

So, that is ongoing.  I’m finally supposed to have a vehicle coming in October.  I won’t believe it until I’m sitting behind the wheel though.  Fingers crossed.

Lastly, this is a special day for the blog, as it is our 19th anniversary of posting here.  Pretty wild that I’ve been writing down my thoughts on the interwebz for so long.  I want to at least hit the twenty-year mark before I hang this up though, so you’ll have to hear from me a tad bit longer.  Thanks for being a part of the ride.