Getting the Band Back Together

 

Last night was the first time my regular trivia team got together at our regular trivia night. We didn't get our regular table, and we're permanently missing one member (ALS, not COVID), but we had a few special guests (husband and young son of a teammate) and a decent waitress, so things were looking up. 

We were in first place at halftime and almost swept the second half. If we had written down one other Robert Downey Jr. movie on our answer slip instead of just on our brainstorming list, and if anyone on the team knew anything about The Handmaid's Tale, we could've had a perfect game, since I managed to figure out the "Name the Flick" question in the final round. 

It was nice to see everyone -- we had tried to play virtual trivia early in the pandemic, but eventually gave up.  Besides, even if we won at home, we didn't get any gift cards that we could transmute into tasty pizza for the table next week. 

Almost Back to What We Might Consider Normal

Had a lovely dinner tonight with eight other people from one of my OU alumni clubs. It was great not only to see them face to face, but also to sit shoulder to shoulder in a restaurant! The last time some of us saw each other was via Zoom around Christmas, and before that it was a socially distanced picnic in the early fall. 

Almost the first thing we mentioned as we said hello was our various vaccine statuses. I'm *just* on the edge of being officially fully vaccinated, since it will be two weeks tomorrow since I got my second dose. All of my dining companions are older than me, so they had their shots earlier than I did.

A few of them even did some traveling this year. There are a few snowbirds who tend to spend a few months each winter in Florida, as well as a world traveler who, it seems, is always headed somewhere interesting. I think one of her trips to Europe had to be cancelled during the pandemic, but I'm sure she's working on rescheduling.

Despite the recent rapid shift in the CDC's guidance on masks, we still had to wear them as we went to and from our table. Most of the other tables were full; I'm trying to decide if they were spaced six feet apart. I've never been to the restaurant before, so I don't have a mental floor plan from "the before times" to compare with tonight's setup. 

The whole reason for getting together was to plan out our group's activities for the next year. I think we basically decided to try again with all of the events we had planned for 2020-21 that had to be scrapped: blueberry picking in July, a community service project in October, and a book discussion in March. Here's hoping we get to do all of those things, and that we'll meet again next May to make more plans. 

 

Book Report: Volume 20

During quarantine/lockdown, I was looking around for more book recommendations. Hard to believe that I was hard up for ideas about what to read next, since I was already getting deluged with emails from Goodreads and Amazon's Kindle Unlimited touting new releases,  plus picking up the free Bookpage at the local library branch every month, discovering classic mysteries featured on the Shedunnit podcast, and following a handful of book blogs via Feedly. (RIP, Google Reader!) 

 

I could've tackled some of the titles I'd already bookmarked in my accounts with three local library systems, or picked up any of the dozens of physical books I have bought on the cheap at the local used bookstore over the last decade, but noooooo.... I wanted something new and different. 

I came across a title by Kelley Armstrong in one of the mystery book blogs I follow, Criminal Element. The blog entry was for the latest in the Rockton novels, and the whole setup sounded intriguing. 

I always like to start a series at the beginning, and I was able to get City of the Lost,  the first book in the Casey Duncan series, as an ebook from the library right away. I read it right away, too, and right away I wanted to know what happened next. These novels are potato chips, and all the popular slogans apply: Betcha can't eat just one. Once you pop, you can't stop.  

I was too impatient to place a hold and wait for the dozen people to ahead of me to read each 300+ page book, so I broke down and requested physical copies of the entire series. Those came in pretty quickly, so I've happily spent the last week plowing through the whole series. Can't wait for the next installment!

 

 

I Totally Want This: TMBG Science Is Real Mask

 

I already have the "Science Is Real" t-shirt* from They Might Be Giants, so why not get the mask? My credit card has been getting a workout over the last 48 hours, though — I dropped almost $200 on clothes** yesterday and then donated $250 as part of OU's Giving Day*** this afternoon. 

Hmm. Just reread the description and realized that I can get 2 for $20. Do I give the second mask to my sister? She and I were just texting about the possibility of seeing each other in person in a few weeks. She had the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine a few weeks ago, so she's all set, but I haven't had my second dose**** of the Moderna vaccine yet. She's also a TMBG fan, so this might be a fun gift for her when I do see her. 

Eh, why not? Impulse buy completed!  

* Like this one, but in blue:

** As part of my seasonal wardrobe rotation about a week ago (after the mercury shot up to the 70s for a few days but before it snowed three inches last night/this morning), after I transferred all the spring/summer t-shirts/cardigans (including my blue Science Is Real shirt!) from the under-the-bed boxes to my dresser drawers and the fall/winter t-shirts from the dresser drawers to the under-the-bed boxes, I tried on all of my pants. Everything I tried on was too baggy — !!!!! — so I was in the market for some new stuff. I went to Macy's when I was at Summit Mall for my eye exam last week, but I didn't like the super-skinny-leg style that seemed to be the only thing they had in stock. After I picked up my new glasses (my first pair of "progressive" lenses, ugh) yesterday, I went down to the other end of the mall to look at Dillard's, where I found two pairs of Levi's that I could tolerate. I also splurged on a striped button-down shirt and a white tee at Talbots, even though I needed those like a hole in the head. However, I do have a few situations coming up where I need to look presentable — I'm working at a friend's shop this weekend, and I'm going to be a poll worker for the primary election in about two weeks — so having something to wear that is not flannel pajama pants and a slightly grubby OU basketball t-shirt (i.e., the lounging-around-the-house outfit I'm wearing right now)  is probably a good thing.

*** This "giving day" concept seems to be going around, and OU scheduled theirs for 4/21. The gimmick is that you can donate any amount and direct it to a specific program that you want to support, and there are different challenges and matching gifts and power hours and social media sharing blah blah blah. I usually donate to the scholarship funds sponsored by my local alumnae chapters on a regular basis, but those groups haven't been able to host their usual in-person fundraisers. (Thanks, COVID!)  I wrote a check to one group in the fall anyway, since that's when we usually have that fundraiser. So today I donated the same amount to the other group's scholarship fund online and threw in some bucks for the band, the newspaper, the library, and the college of communication. 

**** Scheduled for May 5, meaning I should be fully protected on May 19. Yay!

A Busy Wednesday

After a few weeks of trial and error, I figured out the secret to actually getting an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine at the local grocery chain's pharmacy: Get on the the registration website just before the mass email goes out that tells everyone to go to the website to sign up for an appointment. 

I managed to make an appointment at the location that's about a 15-minute drive from the house, as opposed to the location that's about a 2-minute drive from that house (and that's really only even if you have to wait for traffic to clear before you can make the turn onto the main drag and then the turn into the parking lot). I know: First World Problems. God forbid I have to travel a little.

So, I took the first available spot (birds and hands and bushes came to mind) and was only mildly chagrined when, about twenty minutes after I got my confirmation message, a bunch of appointments at the closer location were suddenly available. Doh!

I arrived a little early for my appointment and essentially got right in with minimal waiting. 

I had no immediate side effects, so I was free to make my way a few miles down the road to the Krispy Kreme for a free Original Glazed.

After that, I decided to do my civic duty and vote early. 

I'm working at the polls on election day, so I needed to vote early or absentee anyhow. I voted absentee in the fall and was going to do the same this time around. However, when I saw my sample ballot online and realized that it only had the library levy on it, I thought it was a bit much to have to mail in a ballot request, wait for the ballot to arrive, fill it out, and mail it back for just that one thing. The Board of Elections was (sort of) on my way home from the Krispy Kreme anyhow.

So, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for checking off so many items on my to-do list. (I also returned some library books, made an appointment for an eye exam, and did a little grocery shopping.)  A busy day, indeed.