COVID Vaccines

 

 Getting inoculated at Dodgers Stadium 

Finally. Something to report on this blog!

 

Tim and I got our first COVID vaccines. But, as we know, nothing is ever easy. Let’s just say, despite the fact that California is the most populous state in the country, the supply has been spotty with even medical providers receiving either no or not enough vaccines. Our provider Kaiser Permanent advised us to get vaccinated wherever and whenever we could. It looked like many weeks before we'd get vax’d.

 

Then two things happened. The governor lowered the first tier age group to 65 years or older and our friend Heather—a true wiz at navigating the internet—got us appointments via a secret scheduling website. At that point, I was not enthused about going to mass inoculation sites, like Dodgers Stadium or the Forum, because of the long wait—even Sir Patrick Stewart, Star Trek’s Captain Picard, had to wait in line for 4 hours, for pete's sake!—so Heather found us openings at nearby Ralph’s supermarket pharmacies. Tim got his vax last week. But the supply ran out before I could get mine, so it was back to square one for me.

 

My abhorrence of mass vaccination sites continued until Karen went to Dodgers Stadium and got her shot in an hour and 10 minutes. Other friends started sharing their success stories on Facebook as well. So, with Karen’s help, I mastered the county’s appointment webpage. Unfortunately, there were no openings on my first try. Karen was determined, however, and so when she called me the next day with news of available appointments, I was able to schedule one at 3:50PM on Friday. Not enthused about traveling to Dodgers Stadium during rush hour traffic, but I was starting to get desperate.

 

We left the house at 2:30PM. An hour later, we joined a line of cars streaming into the stadium parking lot. A volunteer from CORE, Sean Penn’s Community Organized Relief Effort network, stopped us at the gate and asked how many people were getting vaccinated. She then wrote a big number #1 on our windshield in blue felt-pen. We followed the cars in front of us into the stadium parking lot. The feeling was so familiar; but instead of going to a baseball game, I was going to get my first COVID shot.

 

Looking through the windshield at our big, blue #1

 

 As if we could go any faster!

 

Getting closer

 

We followed the same cars for the next two hours, driving slowly up and down make-shift switchbacks on the northwest end of Dodgers Stadium’s massive parking lot. In the distance we could see the tents where the vaccinations were being administered. We listened to Sirius’s Soul Town channel and danced in our seats. We arrived at the tents as the sun was setting. By then, our bladders were bursting, so we decided to brave the outhouses. “Very nasty,” a woman warned as I approached one of the facilities. I shrugged and went in. She was right.

 

After another half-an-hour waiting in the car, a CORE volunteer came over, took my information, opened the car door, and asked me to dangle my arm. The shot was relatively painless--I told the guy he did a good job—and then we had to wait yet another 20 minutes to make sure I didn’t have a bad reaction. We drove home in the dark during Friday rush hour. 

 

The tents

 

The entire adventure took almost 5 hours. Still, well worth the peace of mind of being inoculated against COVID. We’ll do it all over again in a month for shot #2.