We are expecting SNOW this week – bookending April with winter, I guess – and I am recovering from my second Covid vaccine (woo hoo!), so I am NOT going to the grocery store and NOT thinking about meal planning, which is sure to bite me in the butt. Oh well! La la la going to type some randomosity instead! 

• While literally no one else I know has had ANY ISSUES with their second Covid vaccine, I was one of the lucky few who had some side effects. I mean, I guess I’m glad it was me and not my parents or my husband, right? And FOR SURE it’s better than having Covid! All day yesterday, I had a fever of 102, which is Deeply Unpleasant, and full body aches. My fingers ached. My knees. My back. My skin. My eyeballs. I was so achy I could not sleep the night after receiving the vaccine, nor during the day. But! Like magic, I am all better now! Not better enough to want to go to the grocery store, though. 
• My second vaccine experience was QUITE different from the first, even though it took place at the same location. There were far fewer cars this time, so I didn’t have to wait at all. I simply pulled up close to the building, walked in, got my temperature taken by a volunteer, gave my insurance card to a staff member, and got my shot. Easy peasy. The atmosphere through it all was also significantly different from the first time. During the first vaccine – and this could be purely projection – there was kind of a nervous energy. Like, people were excited, but also anxious. This time, the overriding feeling was of pure jubilation. Everyone, from the volunteers to the nurses to the vaccine recipients, was cheerful and friendly and talkative in a giddy sort of way. For example, while I was waiting with others for our little 15-minute timers to go off so we could leave, one of the men called out to the nurse in charge that his timer had only zeros on it. She teased him about it, and the rest of us laughed. And then another vaccine recipient said she’d come in roughly the same time as he had, so he could leave with her, and then someone called out that he should pay her for her service, and there was some more laughter and back and forth. And the nurse in charge carried on kind of a one-sided conversation with all of us, telling us about her trip to Florida, and how no one wears a mask there, and how she was both delighted by that (because she hates wearing a mask) and deeply uncomfortable. It was just a cheery, friendly experience. 
• Oh – my second “stop” (after getting my temperature taken) was at the intake desk. This was a long table, populated by staff/volunteers on one side, each with a computer in front of them, and chairs on the other side for the vaccine recipients to sit in. When I sat down, the staff person gave a huge, dramatic gasp while looking at her computer screen. The type of reaction you might have to, say, a news report of an asteroid destroying Idaho, or the discovery that you somehow deleted the entire database of vaccine information. I asked her, as one does, “Are you okay?” and got no response. She kept her eyes on the disaster unfolding onscreen and motioned me to sit down, then asked, in a very calm voice, for my ID and insurance card. Then, as she was inputting my information, she gasped AGAIN. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m watching a movie.” Oh. Okay then. 
• The other notable aspect of my second vaccine experience is that I FORGOT MY VACCINE CARD AT HOME. I mean. Really? REALLY? Sigh. The nurse who gave me my shot was very nice about it. She copied down the information from the photograph of my original vaccine card onto my NEW vaccine card. And I have photographed them both and keep them together just in case. I guess I am telling you this so you know it is not the end of the world if you forget your vaccine card. 
• The first thing I did after I scheduled my Covid vaccine appointments was to schedule a hair appointment. I have been coloring my hair myself this past year, and while I HATE DOING IT, the outcome has been acceptable. But I need a professional to cut my hair. I have hacked some side bangs into my hair a couple of times, with disturbing but hidable results. But my hair is lank and too-long and uneven and I just want someone to shampoo it and shape it into something manageable and aesthetically pleasing.   
• When we drive home from school, Carla and I have noticed that one of the homes we pass has a Roomba-type device for their lawn. At least, I assume that’s why a bulldog-sized machine is roaming across their grass. At first, Carla and I referred to it as a Mow-ba (like Roomba). But she came up with a MUCH BETTER NAME, so much better that if the actual device is not called this then it has missed a REAL opportunity: Mowbot. Like a robot that mows. It doesn’t seem to be particularly efficient, in my opinion; I see it often in the mornings, too, and multiple days per week. Whatever it’s saving in lawn-care fees or the homeowner’s time, I suspect it’s certainly losing in gasoline/electricity. Maybe it isn’t a Mowbot at all, though, and has some other purpose. 
• Along those lines, I walked past the church the other day and the wolves are back. 
• Did I tell you I got a new bike? Like many, I developed a compulsion to own a bicycle when the pandemic began. Like many, I was unable to get one because they were all sold out. As of a few weeks ago, FINALLY, I have a bicycle in my possession! But I have not yet tried it. You see, I have never been much of a cyclist. I had a bike when I was a kid. I used to ride it up and down our mile-long gravel hill of a driveway. I used to ride it out past the barn and up to the duck pond. Once in a great while, I would ride the three miles to my neighbor’s house. (She was a year older than me, and my best friend for many years.) But after middle school, I stopped riding my bike. The next time I attempted to use a bicycle was after grad school. My at-the-time not-quite-husband and I rented bicycles in Copenhagen and rode them through the streets. This was not a good choice for someone who hadn’t been on a bicycle in a decade. Copenhagen was very busy, the streets congested with lots of traffic and hundreds of other bicyclists, all of whom were much more confident astride their metal steeds and much more impatient to get places than I was. I wobbled along and managed not to die from either accident or stress, but I had NO DESIRE to bike again. Skip forward another decade and a half to last summer. We met up with another family for a biking date. (They brought bikes for me and my husband because they are ANGELS.) It went okay. Okay enough that I thought I was ready for my own bike. And here we are. I have one! And I am too afraid to ride it! 
• (I did have to ride it the day I picked it up from the bike shop. The staff person who sold it to me wanted to see me ride it, in case he needed to make any adjustments. While I was wobbling my way across the parking lot, trying valiantly not to fall in front of this stranger/bike expert, the staff person anxiously asked my husband, “Does she have a helmet? She needs a helmet.” Which is not really the level of confidence in my abilities I was hoping to inspire.) (I do have a helmet.)
• Do you experience a springtime clothes-buying frenzy? I feel like I am in a frenzy right now, and it seems like this may happen annually. Or semi-annually. The I-Have-Nothing-To-Wear syndrome has hit and hit hard. I have ordered a trunk from Trunk Club with no success. I got a fix from StitchFix, which arrived with only athletic clothing in it; fine, but not exactly what I was looking for. I tried on a bunch of clothes from Nordstrom and only bought one measly tank top. I have added MANY THINGS to digital shopping carts at Loft and J. Crew and their various factory stores, but have held off on buying anything else because I sense I am going a little overboard. What I want is The Perfect Summer Dress, which may not exist. And The Perfect Non-Skinny Jeans, which may not exist. And The Perfect T-Shirt, which also may not exist. SIGH. I may need to take up sewing just to design clothes that I like. Or, worse, wear some of the vast collection of clothing I already possess.
• Speaking of sewing, I am getting up the nerve to alter something. I bought two dresses for Carla and they are adorable in every way except for the arm holes. The arm holes are too roomy. I finding them wanting in the chestal modesty department, if you will. My mother found me a very clear video of how to adjust the armholes of a garment, and it seems simple enough and doable, even though I have never once operated a sewing machine. But I feel wildly uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe I will make Carla do it. 
• This is the first week in awhile that I feel overscheduled. I have a freelance project for the first time in a year, which is great, and satisfying, and invigorating, but requires several meetings this week. And I have plans to go walking with a friend, which is also great. And a twice-monthly video chat with another friend, which is always great. And, weather depending, maybe plans to get and eat takeout with some family friends this weekend, which would be lovely. But that is enough to make me feel overwhelmed and panicked and like doing a complete 180 and holing up in my basement with some books for a month. I mean, how am I going to come up with enough words for all these interactions? What am I going to wear? And my hair is so bad! 

That’s all I have for you, Internet. What’s happening with you this week?