Coronavirus: Los Angeles: 2021. #5. (January 31)

  As always: many of us get too many emails already, even before this pandemic.  So, if you would like to be removed from this email list, please feel free to say so.  (No reason needed; and you won’t be the first to do so.)

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Tuesday, January 26: Our son Adam is a conservative rabbi in St Paul, MN. He and Judith keep a kosher home.  Nadine asked Adam if it was OK to send the grandchildren Valentine's Day cards, with some candy.  He replied that any and all contact with the kids is great, so "yes" as long as the candy is kosher.  Is that an oxymoron: kosher Valentine's Day candy?

As I suspected it would, after a slow start, the pace of vaccinations is starting to pick up in Los Angeles, at least among people we know (many oldsters like us.). Two friends have recently gotten their first vaccinations at The Forum, and Nadine and I are scheduled to go there on Thursday for our firsts.   (The last time Nadine and I were at The Forum was to see Neil Diamond...in the last millennium.)

Thursday, January 28: Vaccination Day for us.  Ronald Reagan once was quoted: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem."  I don't know what the crisis was that he was referring to then, but I wish that he had been there today to see some government in action in our present crisis.  

Our appointment was at 11:30.  We arrived at 11:30 sharp.  We left the Forum at 12:30, and that included a required wait of 15 minutes after the shots to ensure that we did not have an allergic reaction.  The process included 5 "stations" in sequence, all outside in the huge parking lot.  The "shot station" (number 4 of 5) was under an open tent. The workers included employees of LACounty Dept of Public Health, and many volunteers, all young.  The process and everyone running it were efficient, clear, polite and patient.  We were also given our cards, showing that we got our first shot, and to come back in three weeks.

I estimate that this Forum site did approximately 3,000 vaccinations today.  With 10 million persons in LACounty, at two shots per person and herd immunity at about 75% of the population, there will have to be about 5,000 of these days or their equivalent to get to herd immunity, but we are now on the way there.

Thursday night:  Watching the NewsHour on PBS, a segment about how difficult getting a vaccination is for many persons, especially older ones.  For instance, you have to come by auto to The Forum site. Some people don't have computers or internet access.  Some/many seniors are just not comfortable or adept at using the web.  I suspect that trying to make an appointment by phone is more difficult than on the County website.  By the end of watching this, I was feeling some guilt that we got our shots, and many are still not able to do so.

Friday, January 29: Nadine and I are experiencing no side-effects except some soreness at the injection site.  Hearing reports that the reaction may be stronger to the second shot, still to come for us.

Saturday, January 30:  Dodger Stadium is one of the LACounty "mega-sites" doing COVID vaccinations. There they are doing approximately 8,000 jabs per day, running on a 14-hour shift, from 8AM to 10PM.  Today, anti-vax protestors blocked the entrance for about one hour, before they were removed; no violence.  The site still did the full quota for the day.

Coronavirus: Los Angeles: 2021 #4 (January 25)

 As always: many of us get too many emails already, even before this pandemic.  So, if you would like to be removed from this email list, please feel free to say so.  (No reason needed; and you won’t be the first to do so.)

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A correction: in my last email, I listed prominent names from the civil rights  struggle: "...Stephen Douglas, Rosa Parks,  John Lewis, ..."  As pointed out to me by my brother Stan, I meant to list Frederick Douglass.  Thanks, bro.

Wednesday, Inauguration Day, January 20: Nadine was up earlier than I was and had the TV on by the time I got up.  We watched the main event together, and I made a little noise at noon right after Biden was sworn in.  The sun came out midway, which felt like a good omen.   I felt grateful that Clinton and Obama were there, and especially W.  Even though smaller in scale than prior inaugurations, still a lot of pomp and circumstance.  Don't know if POTUS45 will say it, but the crowd for his inauguration was larger than today.

I was very hopeful when Obama was first elected in 2008 and sworn in in 2009. Twelve years later, I find myself far less optimistic about the future for America.  The events of especially the last four years have further exposed a dark side of America, one that I was aware of, but underestimated.  Was I naive then, or am I too negative now, or both? 

Based on a comment from today's paper:  You know what it's like when an errant car horn out in the street starts beeping and goes on and on. Well, having to endure POTUS45's constant barrage of outrageous acts, statements and tweets felt like that car horn, that went on for four years.  A multi-year headache.

Thursday, January 21: The LACounty health website now has a page for trying to schedule a COVID vaccination.  So far, nothing too close to us, and many of them say "full" or "no appointments available".  So we'll keep trying day by day and see what develops.

Walked up to our go-to bagel source, Bagel Broker on Beverly Blvd.  Sign on door says "closed for two weeks to give our staff a break".  Best bagels in Los Angeles.

Sunday, January 24: Woke up at 5AM and went onto the LACounty vaccination website.  Thought trying early might show some openings. Looked at several locations shown, but nothing available yet.  We're not in a big hurry. 

Lots of rain yesterday and last night.  More due tonight, and in the coming week.  Afternoon walk thru neighborhood.  Flowering fruit trees starting to bloom, white and pink; was this triggered by the rain?

Sunday evening:  Our daughter Ashley in Utah phoned as we were watching TV.  Ashley is both a nurse and persistent, and is currently volunteering at vaccine clinics in Utah.  She found each of us vaccination reservations on the CALVAX website.  After a couple of phone calls, and receiving our confirmation codes as text messages from CALVAX, we were confirmed for lunch time, this coming Thursday, at The Forum (former home to LALakers, concerts, etc.). A large vaccine clinic is in operation there, using Pfizer vaccine. Today also happens to be Ashley's birthday; happy birthday, you Florence Nightingale!!

Monday, January 25: Talked with our former co-workers at SOVA food pantry: Lisa and Kate.  They are now in northern California, in Nice, CA.  (Yes, ZIP code 95464: check it out).  Both are volunteers for the local fire department there, and so both have gotten both Pfizer vaccine shots.  Tell us to expect a larger reaction to the second shot.

Stay safe. Hope you can get your vaccine shots soon if you have not already done so.

Coleman

Coronavirus: Los Angeles: 2021 #3 (January 19)

 

As always: many of us get too many emails already, even before this pandemic.  So, if you would like to be removed from this email list, please feel free to say so.  (No reason needed; and you won’t be the first to do so.)

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Sunday, January 17:  To you who are receiving these emails.  I can't call you my subscribers, as you did not choose to get them.  I chose you from the different parts of my life, and added your email address to my list.  One of you wrote back to me briefly recently: "I don't always read your emails, but I enjoy getting them".  Such honesty, and I mean that.  Very refreshing in a world of we humans who often hide our real thoughts behind a mask (and I don't mean a pandemic mask).  Thanks to that "reader" for their honesty.

Monday, January 18:  Martin Luther King Jr Day.  A tribute to MLK, and those many who came before and after, including Stephen Douglas, Rosa Parks,  John Lewis, Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and John Ossoff.  The fight for complete justice will never end, but we can hope that the arc is bending in the right direction.  This pandemic has highlighted some of the injustices in America, not just for Black Americans, but for other struggling groups as well.  Meanwhile, reports of lawyers taking fees to try to influence POTUS45 in his last days as president to pardon convicted felons; will the swamp ever be cleaned out?

Tuesday, January 19:  Our one daughter Ashley and a daughter-in-law Tracy are both nurses, and they both have gotten at least their first vaccinations.  Vaccinations are starting for us "over-65" crowd.  As mentioned in an earlier email, my cousin in Ada King and her husband Don went about a week ago for their COVID shots in Florida, but had to turn back when the supply available that day was far exceeded by the number of oldsters who showed up.  Latest reports are that cousins in the Bay Area are scheduled for this coming week, a friend in NoCalif wine country for early February, and a friend in No Carolina for mid-February.  LA county is the largest (by population) county in the USA; almost 10 millions souls, and almost twice as large as the next one, Cook County, IL (Chicago).  

This is a huge undertaking and I hope it goes smoothly, but so far no real information from our primary care doctor or our local CVS.  Until then, we have become more cautious, in part due to the new variants of the virus that are about.  No more in-store grocery shopping at Whole Foods and Trader Joes senior hours.  We are now doing curbside pickup at Whole Foods and Ralphs.  It feels like we are just waiting for the cavalry to save us.

For tomorrow, Inauguration Day: This from an 88-year-old Park La Brea neighbor and friend, Wanda Sanders:

"Because of the current pandemic President Elect Biden and Vice-President Elect Harris will not be honored with the traditional inaugural ceremonies.  Moreover, our democratic republic has been under tremendous stress and division over the past four years.  I suggest the nation celebrate the inauguration of a new president and the hope for a better future by ringing bells throughout the nation.  At 12 Noon (EST) as President Biden is sworn in, let every church bell, bells at educational institutions, as well as those of private citizens, ring out in a show of national celebration.  Please spread this suggestion by sending it to your friends, social cotacts, elected leaders and local and national news sources.  Thank you.  Wanda Sanders"

New Year 2021 starts for many of us tomorrow.  Best of hopes and wishes for the New Year.

Coleman  

Coronavirus: Los Angeles: 2021 #2. (January 16)

 

As always: many of us get too many emails already, even before this pandemic.  So, if you would like to be removed from this email list, please feel free to say so.  (No reason needed; and you won’t be the first to do so.)

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Saturday, January 9:

Months ago, there were several reports of more than usual amounts of bird sightings in Los Angeles.  This was attributed to diminished traffic and congestion in the city, due to restictions of the pandemic.  And we did notice what seemed to be more than usual birds and bird calls.  

Nadine and I have both subscribed to a local, community app "NextDoor".  This has all kinds of interesting local postings in our neighborhood, including lost cats and dogs, items for sale (or free), burglaries, etc.  Locals have reported sightings of coyotes, raccoons, and skunks.  We did see a hawk sitting on the roof of a car during a walk about a week ago.

We have not seen any skunks, but definitely have smelled them several times.  Or so we thought.  Then Nadine suggested that the smell might not be skunk after all, but pot.  I contacted some of our children about this possibility, and got this response from our son Dan:

"True story... when I lived with you guys on Cantura (Studio City, circa 1990) I had some very pungent weed sitting in a drawer and mom came in my room and after a minute scrunched up her nose and asked “do you smell that?.. smells like a skunk in here?” To which I just shrugged my shoulders and changed the subject. “

So I guess we have both in our neighborhood: skunks and pot. Maybe after the pandemic, the skunks will go away?

Sunday, January 10:

We have remarked to each other that we are hearing more and more sirens in our neighborhood.  The nearest fire station is about a 1/2 mile east of us on 3rd Street.  Cedars-Sinai hospital, a small city unto itself, is about 1 mile west of us.  Fire trucks and ambulances frequently speed down 3rd, sirens wailing.  Now our senses are confirmed in the NYTimes article about COVID in L.A.: "Los Angeles County has a coronavirus-related death every eight minutes, a grim toll accompanied in many neighborhoods by the soundtrack of shrieking sirens."

This reminds me of something Rabbi Mordechai Finley said shortly after 9/11.   If you have ever driven in LA traffic, and been late for something, you have had to pull over when you see the red lights blinking in the rear view mirror and hear the sirens.  You're annoyed because you're late, and now you will be later.  Rabbi Finley noted that he had experienced these same feelings; but after 9/11, he remembered that these firefighters and EMTs could well be saving lives, and also putting their own lives in danger, on whatever their mission is this time.  So, you're late, but remember what's most important here.  Maybe say a prayer for them.

Monday, January 11: Especially for the ladies:

Heard this interview by Terrry Gross of Fran Lebowitz on Fresh Air.  Nadine listens to Fresh Air a lot.  Me, not as much, but usually find it interesting when I do. The whole session is about 45 minutes long, but the first 15 minutes are especially funny to me.   Lebowitz was born about 1950, in New Jersey across the Hudson from NYC, and describes her childhood in very funny terms.  As a girl, she often asked if she "could do something", and was told "No".  When she asked why not, the answer was "Because you're a girl!"  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

     Fran Lebowitz on Fresh Air

A quote I heard recently that I just liked:

    "Tell me something good before it's too late”

Only three more days of POTUS45 to go.  Stay calm and safe. 

Coleman

Remembering the Rodney King Riots in LA (1992)

I remember the Rodney King verdict and riots like yesterday.  We were living in Studio City, just behind Art’s Deli.  I was working in Canoga Park, and Nadine was working in Beverly Hills.

Nadine got a warning at her office about 4PM to go home for the day, that there was rioting going on in many locations in the city.  She left work, and proceeded start to drive up Beverly Glen.  Beverly Glen was bumper-to-bumper with people trying to get out of the city.  The Saab overheated in the stop-and-go traffic (mostly stop), and stalled.  She had to pull it over and park on the side of the road, and leave it there.  

Nadine flagged down a woman who was driving just behind her up Beverly Glen, and this kind person, seeing her dilemma, gave her a ride to her house, which was off of Mulholland.

Nadine called me at work from the woman’s house (no cell phones yet) and told me what was happening and where she was.  I left work immediately and drove to the woman’s house on Mulholland.  When I got up on Mulholland, I could look down into the city and there were many plumes of smoke rising up into the air from where fires had been started.  It looked like a scene out of a war zone, a city after being bombed.

I found the woman’s house, where I met Nadine, and her savior briefly.  I was worried that the Saab would be stolen or vandalized and by this time the traffic had thinned out a lot.  I talked Nadine into going with me to try to rescue the Saab.  So back down we went on Beverly Glen, and found the Saab unharmed.  And it started right up.  So, from there, we drove both of our cars home.

Coronavirus: Los Angeles: 2021 #1

As always: many of us get too many emails already, even before this pandemic.  So, if you would like to be removed from this email list, please feel free to say so.  (No reason needed; and you won’t be the first to do so.)

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New Years Day, 2021:

From the NYTimes letters to the editor:  A New Years resolution that I am taking up also: Never again to utter the name of you-know-who.  And that includes in writing.

Monday, January 4:

Nadine and I have been married for 35 years.  We play some hands of Gin Rummy, but agree not to keep score (just for this special day, which was good for her because I won some big hands...but who's keeping score, it's our anniversary).  Pandemic celebration with take-out dinner from Wood Ranch, at home with candlelight and Moscato and Andres Segovia.

Notes from the pandemic vaccination program: from my one living cousin, Ada King, in Daytona Beach, FL.  (Ada is ten months older than I am, so until her birthday next month, we are the same age.  When we were kids, we lived just four blocks apart in Havertown, PA, a Philly suburb.  We were in the same grade at Oakmont Elementary for about two years, but never in the same homeroom.  Then her family moved away to Luray, VA, and then my family moved to Buffalo, NY, and we only got to see each other on summer vacations):

"Vaccines were offered for those 65 and above here in our county this Monday and Tuesday.  So we left home in the dark on Monday (Jan 4) to go to the site giving the virus injections.  The lines from all directions were as far as you could see.  The number to be given was 1,000.  That number was reached by 7AM!  So thousands of cars turned around and went home.   We did so as soon as we saw the mob.  People had parked the night before and slept in their cars!  Of course it was stated not to do that.  Hope they get a better system next time."

Wednesday, January 6, AM:

The Georgia senate runoffs were yesterday. It appears that Dem Warnock won, not yet called for Ossoff vs Perdue.  I hope Ossoff wins also, so I don't have to put up with two more years of Mitch McConnell's stalls and refusals to allow votes.  Normally, I might have had the TV on last night to catch the results, but I realize I am "electioned out"; after more than a year of feeling like we are living on the razor's edge between sanity or madness, I just could not watch another night of returns.  Not to mention the unending emails requesting donations.  POTUS45 will no longer have the power of the presidency in fourteen days, but he'll still be around, with a lot of supporters.  It could happen again, and that is terrifying.

Wednesday, January 6, PM:

Hooray.  Ossoff won.  Goodbye Mitch.  Hello, a much better chance for some meaningful legislation.  Many heroes here, but especially Stacy Abrams.

Then we watched for hours the storming of the Capitol by POTUS45 supporters claiming the election was stolen.  And he instigated this travesty.

For weeks as the COVID death toll climbed, especially in Los Angeles, Nadine and I have been aware that we had not yet personally known anyone who has died due to COVID.  But it seemed inevitable that we would, sooner or later. Turned out to be sooner. We learned that our good friend Sid Rosenblatt died two days ago.  Sid and Arlene grew up in the same neighborhood as Nadine, though they were older by about seven years, so did not know each other then.  Sid went to the same grade school (Wilshire Crest), middle school (John Burroughs) and high school (L A High) as Nadine.  Sid and Arlene met as middle schoolers when they had competing paper routes in their neighborhood; when cities like LA had more than one major newspaper.  They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in 2020.  We will remember Sid fondly as a real mensch, devoted to his family and shul.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to Arlene and their whole family.  Zoom service later today (Thursday).

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Happy New Year, 2021.  Breathe a little easier but continue to wear your masks for a while. Looking forward to inauguration day, Jan. 20.  Hope security is better than yesterday.

Coleman