Soda Is A Drink, Pop Is Your Father

Aside from an unexpected wave of fatigue around 5 PM there really haven’t been anymore nasty side effects from my second shot so I think I am over the hump.

Energy level feels as high now as if it was around 10:30 AM and not PM so I figure I’ll bang out a quick post and then jump on the treadmill.

Have to follow through on a promise to set up an appointment for a physical so the doc can give me a list of all that is wrong with me and I can nod and smile and promise none of that will kill me.

Or at least I don’t think it will, I still think my life will follow one of two paths and that I’ll live for decades to come or just drop dead.

Not really worried about the latter and figure if I am going to be around I ought to try to make it easier, even if I am good at doing things the hard way.

Anyhoo…

Lady on Facebook tells me I ought to thank Impotus for my vaccine and I say I don’t thank arsonists for trying to put out the fire they started, especially when they do it poorly.

She tells me if the ‘lousy left’ hadn’t fought hydroxychloroquine it would be different and I let her know I enjoy speaking with people who don’t have the foundation to provide substantive arguments.

“What does that mean?”

“Soda Is A Drink, Pop Is Your Father. Unless you want to discuss linguistics based upon region. If so you can talk about people who grew up in places with winters Eskimos would love versus those of us who were raised in warmer climates.”

Just The Facts

Could tell you about the Joe Friday moments of saying “Just the facts ma’am or could tell you about something I wrote that is explicit, intimate and honest that I may post later.

In the interim if you are interested in more about soda versus pop you can click here or keep reading.

The younger Mr. Wilner and I engaged in conversation earlier today about the magnitude of the pandemic upon the world and what things might look like once we’re past it.

“You think I sound old when I talk about what flying was like before 9/11 and I understand.  You actually took your first flight before 9/11, so you did experience it but you were too young to remember. But this time you are old enough to have ample life experience so you’ll have pre and post pandemic memories.”

Spent a few minutes afterwards thinking again about life and the impact of big things upon us and distinctions drawn by age.

I was 21 during the first Gulf War and went to a few goodbye parties to send off guys I knew in the service before they shipped out. We took it seriously, but not that seriously because it seemed it didn’t seem possible that anyone we knew could be seriously hurt, let alone die.

Eleven years later I took 9/11 very differently not just because it was an attack on the country but because I was a new father and knew that at 32 I wasn’t in the prime demographic anymore for defending the US.

It was a weird revelation and strange to realize how young 18-21 year-olds seemed to me because felt so damn old at those goodbye parties.

Now I am in the demographic in which they tell the boys and I to start watching for signs of heart disease and remind us that some activities like shoveling snow might cause a heart attack.

Won’t stop me from buying a snow shovel. I don’t know if we will or won’t get enough snow again to need it, but I definitely could have used it during Texas Snowmaggedon.

Would rather have it just in case than not have it at all. It is one of a few items I am going to buy to have on hand for emergency use.

No Californian with common sense goes without an earthquake kit, same concept here.

Coming At You Sideways

Twenty years ago I worked with a man who used to talk about people coming at you sideways.

He was the same age as my mother but seemed like 5’7 of a guy who couldn’t decide if he wanted to fight middle age or accept it.

“Watch out for people coming at you sideways. That smile isn’t friendly. It is a mask.”

I have a deeper appreciation for his words now than I did then. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand it but I was naive enough to believe that people wouldn’t intentionally look away.

Sometimes I miss being less cynical about some things, but can’t go back in time and can’t change what happens with wishes.

Can only create a road map to get you from here to there and hope the actions you take mitigate the impact of the speed bumps you encounter.

And if they don’t, well you just roll over, go under or around. Sometimes all it takes is grabbing a soda and taking a few minutes to build a plan that will let you pop the obstacles or so they say.