itinerary
Well, I feel like I really lucked out with my vaccination experience. I feel much better today than I did yesterday, and I hardly even felt bad yesterday. It's been a good, solid two days since the second dose now, and the most common number people seem to throw around is "36 hours." So much for expecting to need to take time off of work! I even slept better last night than I did the night before, and Shobhit had had a worse time sleeping the second night after his second shot.
I think I'm pretty much all set now. I did see a TikTok video yesterday by one of the couple of gay doctors I follow, talking about the ongoing development of booster shots meant for variants going around. I wonder if those will also be painful going in? I hope not. After all, the way it was explain, it was basically a slight modification to the existing vaccine, so I'm going to take a mental leap and expect that means it won't involve too much pain.
Honestly, between the two shots, and the lasting effects in the hours following both shots, the actual injection of the second shot was by far the worst part of all of it for me. And even that, as I said before, was really just akin to a bad be sting—nothing completely intolerable.
I watched another movie last night, while Shobhit worked a late shift at Big 5, this time a non-SIFF movie. This one was one of the documentary features nominated for Best Documentary, and it is also nominated for Best International Feature: the Romanian documentary Collective. And it was stellar: solid A. I could not believe what I was seeing, and I feel like all my nurse or former-nurse friends should watch it.
That killed about two hours, and then another hour after that was spent writing the review, which itself got interrupted to make myself a sandwich for dinner while I spoke for a little while to Gabriel since he called me. There's something new going on with him this year: we have discussed my "Birth Week activity" with him more than once, and not once has he gone out of his way to shit on my Birth Week as a concept! I'd say maybe it's because he misses me, although given the virtual Movie Drafts we do on average twice a month, I see him (albeit virtually) more than I do most people outside of Shobhit. Maybe he actually still misses getting to hang out in person and is actually just looking forward to getting together. Who knows!
Anyway, speaking of my Birth Week, it's been entirely booked with plans each day with 10 different people for a couple of weeks now, although I did recently have to modify it. Claudia discovered she had already committed to a hiking day trip with another friend on Saturday May 1, and since she could not reschedule for a weekday and I could not reschedule her for another weekend day, we just postponed the day trip to Fort Ebey State Park with her until a week after my Birth Week—not officially part of my Birth Week, it won't get inclusion in my photo digest emails about the week, but it will later be lumped together with my Birth Week collection of photo albums on Flickr. She'll be sure to sleep better at night knowing that.
So, just because I feel like sharing it, this is now the official plan for my Birth Week:
Friday, April 23: pick up rental car morning or early afternoon; drive right after work to meet Gabriel (and probably Lea and Tess) at Dash Point State Park in Tacoma
Saturday, April 24: drive to meet up with Jennifer at Jarrell Cove State Park in the South Puget Sound, then stay overnight at her and Matthew's new place in Union
Sunday, April 25: drive from Union to Port Townsend to meet up with Valerie for an "Auntie Rose memoria" visit to Fort Worden State Park, where she and I had made plans to visit before she died last year; drive home from there in time for the Academy Awards
Monday, April 26: drive with Danielle to Deception Pass State Park
Tuesday, April 27: drive to Long Beach, WA to meetup with Dad and Sherri; bike ride with Dad to Cape Disappointment State Park
Wednesday, April 28: drive from Long Beach to meet up with Shauna at (former state park) Mukilteo Lighthouse Park
Thursday, April 29: tentatively-planned long day-trip drive to meet Lynn and Zephyr at Dry Falls State Park in Eastern Washington
Friday, April 30: drive with Shobhit to Olallie State Park; birthday dinner at French restaurant Le Coil, reservations already made for their outdoor seating
Saturday, May 1: with Claudia's need to postpone, I will now meet up with Karen at Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore
Sunday, May 2: day drive with Tracy to Green River Gorge State Park
Note to self: DO NOT forget Discover Pass!
I just finished with FaceTime lunch with Karen. Unlike yesterday's Office Lunch Meetup, I actually remembered it by noon this time! So, I got a whole hour with her as usual. We talked a lot about books we have been reading or are interested in. And, a little bit about my Birth Week. She's concerned I won’t get to see enough of Saint Edward State Park being there with her because she's a wheelchair user, and I'm like, don't worry about it! First of all, I'll be visiting nine other parks that week. Secondly, this one is listed by the State Parks as "accessible"—granted, there will still be lots of trails not accessible to her, but so far as I can tell, plenty of it will be fine for us to explore, at least a little bit, together. Besides, I just want to go there and have a nice picnic with her anyway, which should not be too much of a challenge.
[posted 1:07 pm]