vaccines

Vaccines and bathing suits

~ MaryG ~ 35 Comments

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

I feel like the older generations have messed things up so thoroughly that our “best advice” should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, here are a couple of things my kids have brought up recently in a “you were right” kind of way:

My daughter said it was good that she got ALL her vaccines including the HPV series that some other parents declined. It prevents unnecessary complications later in life, including during pregnancy—a time when you absolutely do not need extra things to worry about!

So, I’d say get yourself and your kids all the vaccines you’re offered, including the annual flu and Covid shots. And people 50+, get the Shingles vaccine for God’s sake. It works and Shingles SUCK. (My husband had it and it was awful.)

In general, avoid the “I do my own research” crowd, especially followers of that quack RFK, Jr. Listen to actual doctors and scientists.

My son said he broke one of my “life rules” on a recent business trip and I laughed. He had forgotten to pack a bathing suit and it turned out his hotel had a lovely pool. I LOL’d, but it’s true, I always say pack a bathing suit, wherever you go. They take up so little space and you just never know when an inviting pool, pond, lake, stream, ocean or hot tub will present itself to you.

As a corollary to that, I think everyone should learn to swim well. Make your kids drown-proof. Get them swimming lessons, even if it’s a hassle.

I love this dish towel my daughter got me. 🤣

The hardest part about knowing Trumpers

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

I think the hardest part about having Trump voters/donors in your life is feeling like they don’t know the difference between right and wrong.

Even if it’s someone you thought you knew well, there’s like this suspicion that never really goes away. You’re pretty sure they’d have your back if things got bad. But would they?

If they turned a blind eye to the Access Hollywood tape in 2016 and voted for Trump, do they actually think that women deserve to be treated equally in our society?

If they never said a word of condemnation of the January 6th insurrection, do they really think that every person’s vote should count in America?

If they twist and dispute the most basic facts about climate science or vaccines, do they disbelieve in experts, and therefore education itself?

If they’re OK with a President who posts vile things constantly including a video of Black people as apes, are they really OK to have around your children and grandchildren?

It’s painful to say this but I’m finding that even a lifetime of actions to the contrary cannot erase the doubts introduced by this one thing.

I feel less safe

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

Another airplane accident yesterday, after Trump and Musk fired a bunch of critical FAA employees.

A doctor friend of mine posting this message on Facebook, after depraved anti-vax freak RFK, Jr was confirmed as Secretary of Health & Human Services:

We are so fucked. For my non-medical friends you deserve to know that so many of my physician friends are planning to leave the US, or leave clinical medicine rather than practice medicine with no research, no humanity, no respect for science, and what seems to be a deliberate attempt to make our country less healthy. This person is responsible for the deaths of children, not to mention him being a generally insane creep. Measles outbreak in Texas, TB outbreak in Kansas. Who knows what’s up with bird flu since the CDC is gagged. But sure, let’s “move away” from focusing on infectious disease.

And I don’t trust them with my money either. I downloaded my social security statement yesterday from SSA.Gov, even though I’m not collecting social security yet. Who knows what Musk and his merry band of teenage tech nerds are going to change in our accounts.

I’m not going to argue that there is no waste in the federal government (there definitely is), but I am absolutely certain that this “administration” is not motivated by a desire to protect and serve the American people. They do not care if we are safe and healthy. They are the opposite of public servants. Every single thing they do is a form of self-dealing.