Gratitude Monday: the weekend

I got the second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine Saturday morning. (Thursday afternoon, while on a call with colleagues, we were sharing our weekend plans. I kvelled, “I’m getting my second dose!” And then wondered out loud, “Who’d have thought, 14 months ago, that the highlight of anyone’s weekend would be getting a shot?”)

The post-injection waiting period cat herder instructed us second-dosers, “Don’t make any brunch plans for tomorrow; have brunch today. Your body’s going to know you’ve had this shot and it’s not going to be happy. Those of you getting your first dose can have brunch tomorrow.” So I did my grocery shopping on the way home and spent most of Saturday getting chores done.

Yesterday I lay in bed listening to the rain and birds, telling myself, “Today you should take it easy. Post-vaccine crater.” But eventually I got up, made a mini brunch and—when nothing happened—I did some writing, finished folding the laundry and went out for a walk, during which I rescued a few of the approximately eleventy-three squillion earthworms littering the sidewalk and road. I also shot some pix.

For lunch, I had homemade matzoh ball soup, brought over to me on Saturday by my yoga instructor, which was precisely the thing for a rainy day and which would have cured any post-vaccine lurgy if it had attacked me. (Also, it was still, technically, the first day of Pesach.) And it was delicious.

So my gratitude, as you’ll imagine, today is for being fully vaccinated, no major side effects, clean clothes, matzoh ball soup and a springtime walk.