Yesterday, Anders saw on the news that hospitalizations of patients with COVID, who have received their first vaccination shot (here in Sweden, at least), were on the rise. Maybe no one told them that 1) it takes 3 weeks for the first shot to reach full effectiveness and 2) it takes TWO SHOTS (for most of us) and a couple more weeks after that to be fully covered. I get that people are increasingly willing to take risks because they are so tired of the restrictions of the past year and a half, but HOLD OUT.
Anders got his first vaccination shot this morning. Mine was on Wednesday. We got them in different places, with different methods of handling the flow of people, but both were very efficient. I had no side effects other than a sore/tender arm that night and into the next morning. Hoping his reaction will be the same. I still have the band-aid on my shoulder…I suspect ripping it off will hurt more than the actual shot did. 😀
It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and all next week but I hope Karin and I will be able to do the 5K tomorrow as there is just one more weekend in May. I was hoping to do it today and it was sunny (if chilly) until late this afternoon, but she was busy and asked to put it off another day. I can see it just started raining…at least I won’t have to go out and water! Anders weeded the vegetable garden and almost all the potatoes are up. The snap peas and soybeans are thriving, and we can see baby onions sprouting and the very beginnings of carrot tops. I’ve never been so excited about onions before, haha! I just wish it would warm up enough to get the tomatoes out.
The cherry blossoms have pretty much finished as well, and we need to get net on the tree ASAP if we want any cherries, but are trying to figure out a better method than the typical very stretchy pain-in-the-ass regular netting that most garden centers carry. Our tree is a little too tall to be able to get that net on it easily. Not sure what else we can find, though. The only other thing I found after Googling was a heavy fabric mesh that looks like it would be impossible for sunshine and rain to get in to the tree! (also don’t know if that stuff is available here anyway) We’ll see.
I did the layout for Karin’s resume yesterday evening. She had done it up in Google Docs but had trouble with the margins and a few other issues, and when I went in to edit and try and fix the layout, I couldn’t get it to behave either. She gave me carte blanche to redo the layout and I had a lot of fun coming up with a nice, simple but visually fun, design for her. Anders checked the Swedish wording, and then I translated the whole thing to English as well, so she has it in both languages. Her girlfriend Nelly took photos of her for me to use and they came out great. I’m quite pleased with the result, and hope it will stand out in the batches of applicants when she uses it.
Tonight is the Eurovision final and yes, of COURSE, we will be watching it, even though I know Anders would probably rather be watching almost anything else. 😀 We watched both semi-finals this past week as well. I enjoy the whole thing: the spectacle, the songs, the over-the-top-ness. The man who has run the Swedish song contest that chooses Sweden’s entry for Eurovision every year has quit and is moving to the US to organize an American edition of Eurovision.
I wonder if it will work. I know that song contest shows are still very popular in America, but pitting the 50 states (plus DC and 5 territories) against each other seems a bit weird. It won’t have the same geo-political bloc issues that Eurovision has, maybe, but I also wonder if the American tendency toward plastic, over-produced perfection will also mean it will lose some of its crazy charm. I guess we’ll find out next summer when it airs! The American version will also whittle down the 56 possible entries to only 10 in the final. I think that will definitely make it much hard to decide which song is the best.
Usually, with Eurovision, a clear favorite emerges early. This year, there are a good dozen decent, strong songs, and many that are favorited-to-win, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out tonight. Since I can’t vote for Sweden, even though of course I’m rooting for Tusse, I’ll be voting for Iceland and Norway. Geo-political bloc voting, indeed! (though, seriously, their songs are great!)