so true
Once again I haven’t got a lot in the way of updates today. I can barely even remember what I did last night. Shobhit and I made our own dinners, which is rare; he didn’t want the only kind of veggie burger patties available and I wanted a veggie burger, so that's what I made myself, and ate while watching the third and most recent episode of Y: The Last Man on my computer in the bedroom.
Other than that, I spent a fair amount of time just . . . scrolling through TikTok. Oh wait, I also did go out into the living room for a little while so Shobhit and I could watch the new episode of Only Murders In the Building, which was pretty funny. I kind of feel like that show is tailor made for "the olds" . . . which, in entertainment industry terms, basically means anyone over 40. That's Shobhit and me! But, its two biggest stars, Steve Martin and Martin Short, are 76 and 71, respectively. I have a feeling Dad and Sherri would really enjoy that show.
I guess I'll mention something that is kind of a downer. You may recall that my stepdad, Bill, died of COVID in July—the first notable person I know to die of the virus. He would certainly have caught it from either my brother Christopher or my nephew Tristen; all three of them tested positive, although my understanding was that Tristen was the first to do so. Not one of them was vaccinated, and had they been, in all likelihood not only would Bill almost certainly be alive right now, but there's a very good chance he would not have contracted it in the first place.
In spite of that, and this is what truly stuns me, so far as I can tell Christopher and Tristen remain unvaccinated. I had a Facebook Messenger exchange with Tristen much earlier in the year in which I told him I really hope he gets the vaccine, and he just gave a noncommittal "okay"—he was not combative. But, I am getting increased signs of him being anti-vax, based on things he shares on Facebook. He almost certainly gets this attitude from his dad. Three days ago Tristen shared a meme that reads:
If you have to carry a card in your pocket (or a pass on your phone) proving you injected a drug into your body to gain access to grocery stores, receive medical care or to freely move about society then you no longer live in a free country and you are no longer sovereign over your own body - And that should concern everyone - regardless of political party or medical choices.
So much about that entire message is so, so wrong; Tristen's additional commentary on the post was: "So true." The most positive thing I can say about the post is that it got zero likes or reactions whatsoever. This would suggest very few people actually saw it—although if you go to the original post, plenty of people saw that.
I opted not to respond to Tristen's post, although I wanted to. I knew it would go nowhere. Tristen's circumstance bums me out, as he showed so much promise when he was a kid, a voracious reader of books who now barely holds a job in nowheresville, Idaho while living with his dad who himself lived with his mother (also my mother) who is now passed on. My brother's divorce appears to have had more of a deleterious effect on Tristen than anything, coinciding with him barely graduating from high school, then going to live with his dad and not getting any kind of job for two years. He's massively under the influence of ignorant parental figures and deeply uneducated. He clearly has no understanding of objectivity or genuinely critical thinking and spends a lot of his time sharing posts on Facebook about pizza or Marvel movies.
I would think, at the very least, the death of Bill might make them reconsider their position on vaccinations, let alone the fact that Northern Idaho health care systems are now so overwhelmed with majority-unvaccinated people getting hospitalized that they are rationing care. I wouldn't even care what might convince them, or what reason they could use to finally get themselves immunized, but I would sure be relieved if they did—but especially if Tristen did. Maybe they think that having had COVID already makes them safe (not true at all; there's widely disseminated data on that), I don't know.
[posted 12:26 pm]