(photo R Angert)
It’s Today! My Rebecca and I off to Vashon town to get shots later this morning. We are so excited. It feels like a big piece in the puzzle to getting back to normalcy.
I hear Bill Gates is working on preparations for the next pandemic. Personally I am glad someone is because I for one am going to be so ready to forget this whole episode. I will be so gone, so rear view mirror.
Was just looking on my family tree on my mother’s side and I see a child that died in 1920, my mother’s brother, my uncle. This could have been related to the Spanish Flu outbreak. Hmm. We are hooked into history by living in the times of these major happenings.
Then there is the problem of Spanish in the phrase Spanish flu. If I am wrong on what I am going to write someone let me know but I remember learning that the Spanish really had little to do with it. All the European countries had the flu and all those countries censored their news to deny that fact except Spain who freely reported it. So it appeared to most that the thing started in Spain when it is now believed that it started in the US.
Well, how much fun can we have with epidemiology? Let’s have our fun now because as soon as this is over it will be party time and we will be on to other topics and pursuits so quickly. We will be like the Jetson’s blasting of for summer vacation!
Hey, off to walk and feed the birds. They are chowing down this time of year and I can hardly keep up with them. The trail is pretty dry with almost all of the standing water dried up. Only one small detour.
small detour loves, Felipé.
Yeahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cris ~ We are doing it! Was just walking with Catherine and we were figuring that we would probably feel good enough about ourselves to go to Easter Mass. That is pretty exciting to think about! Our second dose scheduled for February 20th, that’s Rebecca and me. Catherine and Dana are a few days ahead of us. Anyway, jumping through the hoops! Felipé.x
According to Wikipedia
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu) it might best be called Kansas Flu. It seems military personnel movement help distribute this H1N1 virus. Note 4 waves and two years duration:
“ The first observations of illness and mortality were documented in the United States (in Kansas) in March 1918 and then in April in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized these early reports. Newspapers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the name “Spanish” flu. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic’s geographic origin, with varying views as to its location.[2]”
Rebecca, are you taking notes?
Ronaldo ~ hi. Thanks for the fact check. I was pretty close. I forgot to mention that my uncle, the child that died in 1920, was named Henryk. He might have been a cool guy. Felipé.
Hi Phil,
Glad you and Rebecca got the vaccine! Hurray! A big step.
Needed to get caught up on the posts today and enjoyed reading them all.
Just finished a fairly new camino book–The Walk of a Lifetime by Russ Eanes. Really a good read. Two of his mantras for the camino were: “It’s a great day to be alive” and “I will not be in a hurry”.
I’ve copied those down and have them in front of me as good reminders to appreciate this very day,
and that I don’t need to rush through it.
Blessings to you and Rebecca! Susan
Two great aphorisms. It’s a great day to be alive. I will not be in a hurry.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Susan ~ I don’t believe I have read that Camino book. I will put it on my list. Yes, we got our first shots and have our second scheduled. Getting the puzzle pieces in place one by one. Hoping to have things organized enough to have the Oasis in August. Looking forward to meeting you both! Felipé.x
Hola, Felipe!
Ronaldo does a good synopsis of the “Spanish Flu”. An excellent resource is John M. Barry’s “The Great Influenza”, 2004. “In the winter of 1918, the coldest winter the American Midwest had ever endured, history’s most lethal influenza virus was born. Over the next year it flourished, killing as many as 100 million people. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century.” It’s hallmark was that it attacked the young and healthy with a fearsome lethality. Our family history indicates several lost to “the influenza” in the second and third waves.
Cathy and I are scheduled for our vaccine on 6 Feb, if all goes according to plan!
Inoculated loves,
PFJ
Juan ~ yea, that was a tragic period along with WWI. I forgot to put my uncle’s name in the post, the one that died in 1920, Henryk. OK, you both have shots scheduled. Right now I have a sore left arm. We had a drive through and it’s roll down the window and bam they shoot you. The hard part was getting scheduled. Hey, hang tough there in the Heartland. I’ll think of you when I fry some bacon here in a minute. Hello to Cathy, Felipé.
Congrats to you both on your valuable shots. (You didn’t happen to make a large donation to Overlake Hospital, did you?). I have spent more than an hour a day for two weeks now online, and cannot find an open slot in King/Snohomish County. It’s worse than trying to get concert tickets, or a pass for Comicon.
I like your analogies of East Germany escapes and hostile enemy beaches. I am afraid by the time I get in for a vaccination, the new strain will have done me in.
Easter in church–inside–what a gorgeous thought.
Still on hold love,
Henriette Anne
Henriette ~ good luck with your quest. Keep trying. Maybe you could write an article about how not to do things. Maybe start getting up at 3AM and get logged in. Do something oddball. Call Jesse. Isn’t he that big guy on the local news that solves everyone’s problems. I’m trying to make you laugh while you are pulling your hair out. Felipé.x
(cont.)
I like your analogies of East Germany escapes and hostile enemy beaches. I am afraid by the time I get in for a vaccination, the new strain will have done me in.
Easter in church–inside–what a gorgeous thought.
Still on hold love,
Henriette Anne
Henriette ~ I got the large donation part, that is a good idea! Felipé.x
WordPress ate the first half of my comment. Maybe it was too subversive. I implied that you and Rebecca had made huge donations to Overlake to get your vaccines so quickly.