19 March 2021

 

Tomorrow is the official St. Baldrick's shave...but it's being held inside a mall, and I am not fully vaccinated (1st shot done, tho!) so I opted for a virtual. Done at home, in the back yard, with a clipper set that is not ideal.

Not ideal as in...ouchy. Very ouchy.

This year, thanks to your generosity, I raised over $2200...which mean that DKM had to cut off 12 inches of her hair for charity (pics at the bottom) so y'all get a 2fer!

I gotta be honest. This year it felt kinda...meh. It's just a hell of a lot more fun done at the bar, getting a drink before hand, and watching as the crowd grows and participants get rowdy. Last year's shave was the last normal thing the Spouse Thingy and I did just before everything shut down...the upside to this year's lonely shave is that it marks the very beginning of life getting back to some sense of normal. He's fully vaccinated, I will be next month, the Boy will be by the end of this month, and our DIL should get her first soon.

So. I didn't want to skip this year, so the back yard it was.

Do I look thrilled? He was threatening to leave it like that.

And this is when I realized how bad the clippers are. It's like getting stabbed in the head with toothpicks.

This is as short as we could get.

Look closely, you can see a couple of places where it got me.

Any further hair will have to be taken off with shaving cream and a razor. I'm waffling on that. This actually is as short as I've been at a couple of the events. It's about the same length as in this picture, taken right after my first event 8 years ago.

They didn't make me bleed tho LOL

Last night a friend asked me--she does pretty much every year--how many more years I'll do this. And every year I'm not sure. Because I hate this, I hate the looks I'll get, I hate how cold I'll be, I hate everything about it.

BUT...I do it by choice. And too many people don't have that choice. I went into this year with someone specific on my mind, someone who has just started chemo for breast cancer, and it breaks my heart because she absolutely does not deserve this.

Neither do any of the kids for whom St. Baldrick's raises research funds.

I'll do it for sure until I reach year 10. And unless something happens that thins my skin out too much for it to be safe, I'll probably keep doing it.

Because I have a choice. And this is the least I can do.

Y'all...give mad props to Michelle--DKM--because she had a choice, too, and she did not have to do this to help me bump up donations. 

That's a lot of hair!

When we're both fully vaccinated, I'm totally taking her to lunch for doing this.

Also because I miss having lunch with her, but also for this!

Again, y'all THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

2 March 2021

Toward the end of February last year, the Spouse Thingy and I sat in the local Cenario's Pizza, discussing the news as we waited for our medium half-pepperoni, half-bacon pizza. The topic was, of course, COVID-19 and what to expect, and his take was simply, "This is going to be bad. Really bad."

I'd had an inkling and an impulse: already on its way from Amazon was an 80 roll case of toilet paper. We'd just bought a multipack of paper towels at Costco. What we pondered as likely to happen as the virus permeated the U.S. was centered more on a crush of people clearing out food stocks in grocery stores than anything else. And while I admitted it was a knee jerk reaction, I told him I wanted to get a freezer to stick in the garage, and to make a just-in-case major grocery store run.

We bought one the next day; it was stocked by March 5th. We had enough for a month; if things went to hell, we at least had everything we needed for a month. It felt like we'd gotten ahead of the curve. He still had to go to work, but I was fine with staying home for a few weeks. That was not a big deal.

We honestly thought a month was about what it would take. If everyone did what they were asked, the curve could be flattened, and it would be just weeks.

Sure.

Here we are a year later.

Who'd've thunk it?

But hey, at least we had a lot of toilet paper to get us through the first 6 months or so. And now we have a spiffy garage freezer. And some stuff stuck in the back that will likely never get eaten.

Right now all I want is to get the vaccine. I am jealous of those who have had both doses. Happy as hell for you, but jealous.

Eyes forward, folks. The light is there, it's just moving toward us a little more slowly than we'd hoped.