Good 15th of March to you all.

Well, here it is--another Monday and in the middle of another month. It is gray and cold. The sky looks like it wants to dump something on us but with the temperature about 35* whether it will be slushy snow or rain is a question. With a brisk wind it feels colder. We did our shopping this morning so we don't have to go out any more this week. I hope we don't get anything like what Denver and Cheyenne are getting.

I just found this item on Axios which had me scratching my head. I had read something about EU countries suspending AstraZeneca's vaccine but forgot the details. Then this morning on the early talk/news shows one segment talked about pressure on the U.S. government to share the vaccine stockpile we had with other countries--specifically EU countries. I was perplexed because I thought some spokesperson or other had said we were shipping some of the AstraZeneca vaccines to some other country because we hadn't approved it yet while that country had. We are making some great headway in vaccinating our population but have only about 11% (last I heard) having at least one dose. And, if I am remembering what the administration has published, we won't have enough doses to complete the job until the end of May. By the way-- Italy and France are in lock downs again. Germany be joining them if it hasn't done so already.

Talking about vaccines--Mom and I got ours last Friday. For a while now we have been looking at where the shots might be available near us. A mass vaccination site has opened on the fair grounds but we weren't too keen on getting into that kind of line. Since we don't have much exposure and always wear our masks, we decided to wait until something closer to us--like, maybe, the local Walgreens where we got our flu vaccine last fall. She found a notice that the local Healthlinc clinic was taking appointments and we decided to fill out their on-line application. The state recently opened the eligibility to those over 60 which describes both of us. (Actually we could have got in line when they opened it to those over 70.) We weren't sure how that would work because of the stories we have seen and read. But we signed up a week ago last Saturday, got a call on Thursday asking if we still needed the appointment and if we could come in for the time they had open on Friday. We could and did. They told us that they were giving the Johnson&Johnson shots and asked if that was all right. We were fine with that. All three are really good when it comes to preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. No reason to be picky. So long story short--we got our jab and full immunity should be in place in about two weeks.

During the Former Guy's tenure "infrastructure week" became a recurring joke. Since he had the attention span of a flea his focus shifted almost immediately to something that would rouse the adulation of his rally-goers--like those dirty immigrants, or the wall Mexico was going to pay for. But this piece by Nomi Prins at Tomdispatch.com goes into some detail about how badly investment in infrastructure is needed. The question is whether our political class can muster the will to work together on it. Given the response of the COVID relief legislation, you'll excuse me if I am a skeptic. Even though no Republicans voted for it most are now trying to get some credit for it. One Republican female in Florida had the gall to gush about how the Biden Administration implemented her Covid relief compromise. Which she, of course, voted against. Pfui!!!