So I woke up at 5:30 a.m., drank my coffee, planned what I had to do today, and then I listened to my morning podcasts. I start my day with a huge mug of coffee with half and half, no sweetener, and The Rachel Maddow Show podcast. Rachel and Lawrence are my news shows in my ears. When I take the dogs out I tell them mommy needs her earbuds so she can listen to your Auntie Rachel, and they wait until I’m ready.
Don’t judge my crazy; it’s been a long fucking year of this shit.
I don’t watch news in the evening. I need to sleep, and for a while there I got waaay too worked up, even in morning podcast form. But this morning there actually was GOOD news!
As I’ve mentioned before, both my daughter and son in law work in special education. They are behavioral professionals, not classroom teachers, but that means they spend their days among students of various ages, sizes, and behavioral issues from all over their schools. There are damn few students who are capable of wearing masks, and far more students who melt down and express themselves in a way that certainly spreads a lot of aerosol droplets. So, between the two of them, I think at least once a month of this school year one of them has had to come home and isolate after a confirmed COVID exposure, then get tested and go back into the fray. They are not eligible to be vaccinated in Florida. Our governor has focused the vaccination efforts on rich retiree Republican strongholds in a way that hasn’t been subtle.
So, yeah, they’ve been on the front lines with fingers crossed since last August, when they were forced to go back to the classroom or potentially lose their jobs. This meant my granddaughter also had to go back to in-person learning, but fortunately, her school is in a rich enough neighborhood that a lot of parents could opt for online learning, and they’ve been fairly unscathed by the virus.
But this morning I finally caught up on the news that the Biden Administration is basically doing an end run around governors like ours, and is rolling out a federal teacher vaccination at actual warp speed. My daughter and son in law could both be vaccinated by the end of the month. I shared this with my daughter, and like me, she’s withholding her excitement until we see whether Gov. Florida Man will find a way to fuck it up. My guess is he won’t: he’ll just find a way to claim credit for it.
And the rest of us could be vaccinated by the end of May. Pinch me.
If this doesn’t teach those “Both parties are just the same,” dipshits a lesson and prove that “politics” has a very real effect on actual people’s lives and livelihoods, nothing ever will. But I do have a lot of faith in the younger generation – I think the cohort that is younger than my own kids, down to the ones who are in high school now, are going to save this country’s ass if we can get the fossils out of the way and let them.
So glad about the good news for teachers and your beloveds. I’m hoping it gets even more widely distributed and fast. I’m really, really worried about the variants.
Gae! Great to hear from you! Yeah, it’s been a difficult year for a lot of teachers here. I’m not sure of the numbers at my son in law’s school, but my daughter’s school has had a lot of cases and has had to close classrooms and send teachers and aides home practically every week.
“Sleepy Joe” has been amazing, fixing messes on every front, and this vaccine news is really great. I’m still working from home and probably will be through the summer, but if I really can get vaccinated by the end of May I might be able to go back to the office sooner. Either way I’m fine; I was way more concerned about people who have to be face to face with the public.
As a fully retired Little Old Lady, who will legitimately be in the next phase of our vaccination rollout (77 & Asthmatic), I am absolutely horrified that your youngsters are so wickedly exposed and neglected by the authorities, and so glad that ‘Sleepy Joe’ is doing something about it!
Stay safe and well,
Gae, in Callala Bay.