LOOK AT ME! 

I fell in love with the groomer. I strutted my way out, tail wagging non-stop.

Looking good. Feeling even better. My future looks bright.

MY 'REAL' ID

 Soon, my PA driver's license will no longer be an acceptable form of ID to enter federal buildings or travel by air. I would need a 'real' ID.

Fortunately we have had a few years notice of this change and I had set about gathering the required documents. 

First was my birth certificate (not the original but an official embossed one). For this I had to locate my District's State Representative's office. They took my information and sent for my paperwork. I'm glad that I did this when I did. The Representative we had at the time had a very constituent friendly local office. From what I hear, the current Representative's office would have been more likely to hand me an address to submit myself if I asked really nice.

Second was my Social Security card. That wasn't a problem. I have that.

Third was proof of why my name doesn't match my birth certificate. I had been married. I needed my marriage certificate. I'm sixty years old and have moved many times over those years. I was fortunate, I actually found that particular piece of paper.

Lastly, I needed two proofs of residence. My current driver's license and a bank statement in my name sufficed.

I arrived at the DMV with all of the required paperwork in hand and $30 to cover the fee. Now I am a 'real' person.

I feel that I am very lucky. Not everyone can get all of these documents as easily and as cheaply as I was able to. Even for me, just the fee for the ID represents half of my weekly food budget. 

I hope that all of my fellow Pennsylvanians can manage to get their ID as well. Start early if you hope to gather the documents you will need.

I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO YOU?

Forgive and forget? Sorry, but no!

Over this past year, I have done all that I could do to protect myself, my family and the rest of society. How? By simply wearing my mask. I have been able to go anywhere and do anything that I chose to do. The only thing stopping me has been you, the maskless people who 'choose' to put the entire nation at risk by enabling a virus to continually spread and at this point kill over a half a million fellow citizens.

When businesses reopened and my job was available to me once more, I returned to work. As a responsible adult, I was contributing to the economy and supporting myself. My job does not offer insurance so if I were to get sick, it would be an extreme financial burden for me. The risk had been low until Covid came along. Even so, I was ready to do what needed to be done. I took the precautions available to me and continued to do my job.

In November, after many months of doing my part and being ridiculed for being a 'sheep' and being 'afraid' and being 'controlled' while protecting these same people, I was tired of placing myself and my family at risk while being treated so poorly. It is very hard to work in customer service, smile and be pleasant to people who obviously cared nothing at all about you (or others for that matter).

When our local firehall decided to go ahead with their annual gun raffle, usually the social event of the year, complete with the all-you-can-eat buffet and the all-you-can-drink beer tent just one week before the Thanksgiving weekend, the writing was on the wall. Covid was about to surge in my area. I opted out. I quit my job and stayed home just as these anti-mask people had been saying to do.

I have been unemployed now for four months with no income. The only thing I did get was insurance, Medicaid. Yep, I'm a drain on society. Too bad folks.

I recently have had the opportunity to receive the Covid vaccine and jumped on the chance of returning to a more normal life. Research and statistics show that these vaccines provide extremely good protection against the virus and total protection against hospitalization and death. I can reenter the world with confidence.

The varients that are appearing are more contagious and possibly more likely to lead to hospitalization for those who had previously avoided the worst outcomes overall, the young adults. I see these people going about their days as if there were no pandemic, gathering together without masks. As we go forward and these people now start falling very ill, I find that I have no pity for them. I really don't care, in the words of the former first lady. Let them reap what they have sown!

Life and Morality

 The headline reads: Aunt's boyfriend arrested after child dies during visit to home over weekend.

We have all sadly seen such headlines. The mother in this case, despite her shock and grief, decides to sign an organ donor slip. In some small way, she wants her child to live on through the lives his death can save. It is a way to honor a life cut short.

Do the organ donations of this child become somehow immoral because he was murdered rather than in an accident? I don't see how anyone could think so.

Today, I read that some church leaders are calling the J & J vaccine immoral because of the use of embryonic stem cells in its development. 

Johnson & Johnson confirmed in a statement released Tuesday that the vaccine formula itself includes no fetal tissue. So what does make their COVID-19 vaccine so much more controversial than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?

The particular cells that are involved in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are called PerC6 cells. "These are retinal cells that came from a fetus that was aborted in 1985 in the Netherlands, which were treated in the lab to allow them to reproduce in lab settings since that time," Barker explains.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are different—they involve HEK293 cells, which also came from an aborted fetus in the Netherlands (in 1973). These cells have also been reproducing in lab settings since that time, Barker says.

I don't care where you stand in the pro-life, pro-choice argument. The point is actually moot when it comes to these vaccines. None of the cells used came about by someone intentionally getting pregnant for the purpose of generating those cells. 

Whether you consider an aborted fetus a child with a soul or not, these cells have led to extending the lives of thousands over the years. The research and development of stem cell therapies, vaccines, and tissue regeneration programs honor the lives of these embryos and to call this immoral is equivalent to saying their existance did not matter at all.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

The world is definitely changing. As difficult as it is to accept all the craziness that is going on all around us, change is a necessary and positive thing.
Letting go of the past to allow for the new is never easy. We see the world that we grew up in being torn apart and grasp for the familiar. The thing is, the new may be something so much better than we ever could have expected.
Consider this; children who are reaching adulthood today never experienced 9/11. They never experienced a world without school shootings. They've been raised with anti-bullying campaigns and can recognize that behavior even in their own parents when we are unaware of it ourselves. They know what global warming is and the things we can do to lessen its impact.
These are the newlyweds, the parents to be. There are very few things in life that bring into focus what kind of world we want to live in than impending parenthood.
As a person of some age, I knew how to navigate the world that I spent my lifetime in. It doesn't seem to exist anymore but I believe something better is coming. We are going to survive these growing pains.
You and I might have opposing views of what this new world will or should look like. Doesn't matter, we'll both probably be proven wrong. If we trust that God is in charge, neither of us has reason to fear the change.

PANDORA'S BOX

Back in February it was easy. I could watch the news and feel confidant in my decisions. I followed the events in Italy closely because we seemed to be about two weeks behind them. I decided to clear my debts, make sure that my pantry and freezer had enough to keep us fed for two to three weeks. I prepared for the inevitable shelter in place. I was ready. 
I waited for our President to make the announcement. It never came. Eventually the governors finally did the job. It fell to them to prepare, to procure what was necessary to keep their citizens safe while we learned what this disease was, how to treat it most effectively, how quickly it could spread, what the mortality rate might be. No one had seen this virus before and no one could say with any certainty what to expect.
Today we know that this disease is extremely contagious. We know that over 90% of those that get it recover. We know that those who suffer the most or die from it are predominantly elderly or have underlying conditions. We have learned a lot. Do we know everything? Certainly not.
I'm old enough to remember chickenpox. We knew then that it was a one time disease. Once you had it, you had immunity. It was much harder on adults than on children so when a kid came down with it, there were chickenpox parties to intentionally infect the kids so we could get it over with while we were young. It wasn't deadly, we only needed to avoid aspirin so as not to get Reye's syndrome. Most children today are vaccinated against this disease but these days people of my age are getting shingles vaccines because the chickenpox we had as kids never completely left our bodies. It laid in wait for when our bodies grew older and weaker.
The point is, we rarely know what we think we know.
As a person who falls into the vulnerable population for Covid, I really would prefer to not take my chances of recovering well from this disease. Most of my friends are also vulnerable to the worst of what this disease can hand out and I certainly wouldn't want to put them at risk.
I am not old enough to retire yet so I have to go to work. When we first opened the economy, people were wearing their masks and I could feel that at least the attempt was being made and if I kept my hands clean and did my part, I stood a reasonable chance of staying safe. 
These days, few people are wearing masks and all of the hand washing in the world doesn't remove their contagions from the air. While at work I do not have the option to remove myself from the situation. Out of the hundreds of people that come through the door, it only takes one to pass this virus to me and from me to my partner.
I don't know how many of you have dogs but if you have ever travelled with one you'll be familiar with the window. Those nose prints are gross and hard to clean. That is how my plexiglass screen gets at work if we don't stay on top of it. That shows me that people put out more nastiness when they breathe than they think they do,
As I go about life outside of work, I've become more aware of the people around me. There are fewer and fewer places that I feel confident to be in. My world is slowly shrinking. 
I no longer feel capable of preparing for what may come. I watch the news and seek information from other countries to gauge what actions will be best for me and my family and get no answers. No other country is in our position. Pandora's box has already been opened and the lid lifted off.

REOPENING THE ECONOMY

We all agree that small businesses need to be able to reopen. Before they do they need many permits, registrations etc .Covid or not, it is part of having a business. All of those cost a lot of money to procure. They also need employees that are able and willing to come to work. They put all of that expensive paperwork at risk if they don't comply with CDC guidelines, and most of their employees are not high income people. They come to work to earn a paycheck to pay their bills and feed their families just like anyone else. As more and more people come into a business 'choosing their freedom' to not wear a mask the risk per dollar earned grows less and less at the same time that the treatment that they receive from these customers gets more and more belligerent. It is rapidly reaching the point where the stress and risk is no longer worth the money that is made.