Small Town Wren

Between my server going down and a ridiculous amount of work that had to get done yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to post. Much apologies for the interrupted service.

Let’s see, what have I missed? Well, there was the earthquake that happened yesterday morning. You know, the 3.8 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter about 12 miles from my domicile that woke pretty much everyone up at exactly 4:00am. I had the added pleasure of having a puppy launch herself onto my body in a fit of panic.

Another thing that happened yesterday was a touch embarrassing. I was taken out by a first grader. And I don’t mean on a date. I was pretty much bowled over by an autistic seven-year-old. Sweet kid and, to some extent, my fault. If I’d been watching my buddy a little closer I could have stopped him from waving and thus prompting a bit of a freak out on the other child’s account. Gosh darn my kid being so friendly! Luckily, it turned out okay and I managed to get my buddy out of the way so I was the one who got run into and not him.

As for today: today was a special day. Today was 100 Day! Our kids had their 100th day of school today (thought it’s only my 97th; shhh). So I got to wear my educational tshirt on a non-friday and was given an awesome sticker. And boy did we count to 100 a ridiculous amount of times. Out entire day was filled with math activities involving counting to 100 and kids brought in collections of 100 things and it was awesome and silly.

The Chicago area was hit by a pretty ridiculous ice storm yesterday. Freezing rain led to some of the highways temporarily shutting down and our driveway being covered in a sheet of ice.

But yesterday’s horror makes for today’s cheer. The trees are beautiful, if not a bit weighed down by ice.
Click pictures to see the full size glory.

A: When you walk out of work and a sheet of ice is covering all your windows inside your car. Thank goodness I was stupid and touched the windshield in front of the driver’s seat a few months back so that part didn’t freeze over.

I’d have a picture of it, but there’s no way in hell I’m going back outside.

Kane County held the first of several Monday clinics today at three local high schools.  For some silly reason, they decided 4pm to 9pm was reasonable. Which, in theory, it certainly is. But when you have people panicking about a possible pandemic…no, that is not reasonable. That is not reasonable at-fucking-all.

I’m supposedly at the front of the front of the line.  I’m in the at-risk group (under 24s) and I work with young children in a public school. Pretty much everyone wants people like me vaccinated.  And that’s all fine and well, if that whole “front of the line” idea actually meant something. Which it doesn’t.  It’s first come first serve, no matter what your risk is, who you are, etc.  In a “fair” and “equal” society that’s probably not a bad thing, but in the world of science and disease control, you really do want to get your vaccine to certain segments sooner.  First come first serve isn’t going to deliver that.  Neither is exceedingly stupid clinic hours.

Normal people, I hear, tend to work to 5pm. I get off at 3:45 (though I snuck out at 3:35 to try and get to St. Charles North High School in a timely manner). Considering I had no hope at all to get a vaccine, I think it’s safe to say that most people working full time didn’t either.  Not unless they wanted to take the day off.  A lot of us can’t afford to do that.  I can’t on a monetary or an ethical level.  Any day I take off work, my students–and particularly my special buddy–suffer.

I drove up Rt. 31 from Fabyan. I was lucky and managed to not hit the massive traffic jam also trying to get to St. Charles North until after Rt. 64.  But hooboy, when the traffic stopped, the traffic stopped.  It took me about an hour to get from Rt.64 to St. Charles North.  I tried to call my mother when I saw the line, only to be informed that the cellular network in the area was being reserved for 911 and emergency calls only.  Um, what?  Oh, and then there was the line of a couple thousand people that wrapped entirely around the high school which, as anyone from around here knows, is not a small one.  I turned around and left.  I don’t have endless time to wait outside in the rain.  I have homework to do.  Research reading + rain = not going to happen.

Entirely poor planning for something so in demand.  Turns out Kane County only has about 12000 doses.  And since they don’t seem to be planning this out in the smartest of ways, my only conclusion is that we are all doomed.

So I think this is quite good.  Um, huh?

I live in the heart of IL-14, so we often get some crazy things happening around here. Granted, we (finally) elected a Democrat* to congress, which gives me hope, there’s still a lot of right wing crazy around here.  But sometimes we get things right out here in Kane Co. I’d say this is one of them.

I’m pretty sure it’s not a secret that pretty much unilaterally, government is having some budget issues. I find it thoroughly refreshing to see a progressive and fair way to help with that issues.  Sliding scales are what we need more of in this country.  And before you come marching in saying that making richer criminals pay larger fines is unjust, need I remind you of the link between poverty and criminal activity?  How is exacerbating that problem of any help?

* This is my childhood best friend’s dad. Pretty cool, huh?