Listening to a Young Storyteller

As a writer and storyteller, I’ve learned that it’s important to put obstacles in the way of my protagonist to add conflict and tension in a story. Recently, I experienced my 5-year-old grandson doing this as he played. He was moving a train along a wooden track and narrating what was happening. To make it more interesting, he started adding obstacles to the train’s progress: taking out a piece of track and adding barriers over sections of the track. He then had to come up with solutions for continuing to move the train along the track. Instinctively he has discovered how to make his play story more interesting.

More Back to Normal?

March 19 will be a key date for my wife and me in returning to a little more sense of normality. That date will be two weeks after our second vaccination. Sure, we’ll continue to wear masks out in public, social distance and avoid large gathering. But I expect to slowly move away from the home isolation we have followed for most of the last year. I’ve been ordering food online. For the most part this has worked but, often the store is out of items we need and we don’t get exactly what we’re expecting. I plan to resume in-store food shopping with my mask on. Our pod has included our 5-year-old grandson. I’m his zoom assistant, and we play, work on school assignments and perform science experiments. I think we’ll be able to pursue more outdoor activities in the near future.

Success

After trying for a month to get an appointment for a COVOD vaccination, I finally succeeded. I’ve been tracking 27 vaccination locations near where I live and none of them has had openings for reservations. As a last resort, I decided to visit six pharmacies close by to speak with a person. At five of these, they said they couldn’t do anything and to go to the web site. I explained I had been going to their web site multiple times a day, but no reservations were available. I asked if they could put me on a waiting list but they said they couldn’t help me. At one pharmacy, I had a good conversation with the pharmacist, and he said he would put me on a waiting list. I thanked him profusely. That night I received a phone call from this pharmacy with news of spots opening for my wife and me the next day. I leaped on it.

When we went, there was no line, we quickly filled out paperwork, got our shots, waited fifteen minutes, were given vaccination cards and our follow on appointment. It was refreshing to find helpful people in this frustrating situation.

Good News, Bad News

On the vaccination front, there is good news and bad news. The good news: more pharmacies will be providing vaccinations. The bad news: it’s still impossible to get a reservation for an appointment where I live. It’s disconcerting that some health care workers who qualify are refusing to get vaccinated while many of us wish we had their appointments. Hopefully, we will see progress.