The Past Year VIII: Last winter.

 Last winter, I spent a lot of time on my porch, oftentimes with a friend, watching the world go by, eating and drinking a little, while I waited for my vaccination date to come around, which finally arrived in March for my first and second doses.  January and February were filled with fruitless 6 am computer searches for vaccine appointments which was supposedly the time that new appointment dates were uploaded.  My friend stumbled upon an appointment date for me because she would get up early every day and spend a couple of hours hitting refresh refresh refresh, trying secure appointments for herself, me and a couple of other friends.  She was like a saint because she found appointments finally for us all, although she had to drive one friend to York, PA for his appointment--twice.

I tried my hand at some political cartoons on Facebook.  I also read a lot, about the Revolutionary War and World War II..

Occasionally I went to have lunch at restaurants with outdoor seating.  I remember I was cold a lot last winter. With my covid beard, I looked like a real good Amurican, you know, like the type that would stroll by the Capitol and find the windows and doors smashed in and just go in to look around peaceful like, never looking for "Naaaanceee. Oh, Naaanceee, where are you?" or to "hang Mike Pence." Scum sucking bastards, those January 6th murderous miscreants. 

On January 6th I had lunch at the Lost Dog, it being the birthday of one of my boys, then went home to watch on TV the jaw-dropping spectacle that was unfolding a mere ten miles away as a band of seditionist white supremacists ransacked our two and a half century Republic and impugned our standing in the world as the beacon of democracy to the world. Traitorous bastards.

There were plenty of TV spectacles last winter.  The Trump era seemed to be full of them, like the Charlottesville Neo-Nazi riot and the brutal clearing of Lafayette Park by the police so Trump could have a photo-op. Not the least of them was the second trial of our disgraced, incompetent, antidemocratic president. Who ever voted for this boob even once, much less twice?

As the spring approached, I started to do yard work, building a berm, planting flowers, etc. I found a veritable platoon of my middle child's toy plastic soldiers, lost in the yard after he played with them outside during the last decade of the last century. A sign of a return to normalcy or of dreams forever lost? Goodbye and good riddance to 2021.