Three-quarters of us had been fully vaccinated since April with the Pfizer shot, with the exception being our 11-year old.
We'd been super diligent for a year and half and were hopeful we could finally begin doing some normal things, and left for our first family vacation since lockdown began.
We were being as careful as we could, but as vaccinated adults it's easy to let your guard down and to generally be less attentive than you had been regarding masks and sanitizing and distancing.
A few days into the trip our daughter started complaining about headaches, which we attributed to the heat. The next day, she began to get congestion and said her throat was sore. We took her to the local clinic and received her positive results. We immediately began lockdown.
A couple of days later, my wife started feeling sick and we were stunned to get a positive test for her, as she's been fully vaccinated since April.
I had two negative tests earlier in the week but began feeling much worse over the weekend, and today both me and our son tested positive. Thankfully, he is asymptomatic so far.
So, amazingly we are four for four with COVID here in the Pavlovitz house, with three fully vaccinated people testing positive for the virus... insane, scary, shocking.
The doctor who gave me my results said that this Delta variant is frightening and unpredictable. She has been alarmed by how quickly it has spread, and also by how many people are still avoiding the vaccine.
I'm hopefully in the worst of it now: congestion, headache, body aches, cough, fatigue. Lost my sense of taste and smell. Overall, it feels like a bad case of bronchitis. I shudder to think how bad it might have been had we not been vaccinated. My wife/daughter are much better.
Friends, please get vaccinated if you haven't. It's the only way we're going to get the edge on these dangerous variants and it will keep you from the worst symptoms and very likely save your life.
And please consider still masking after getting your vaccine. We're simply not out of this yet, and we need to take care of ourselves and one another.
I'll be down for a few days, but hopeful back to normal soon (or whatever I was before.)
UPDATE: Thank you all for the kind words, prayers and, well-wishes. My wife/daughter have recovered. My son is thankfully asymptomatic. I'm coming through the worst of it, feeling better than I have for the past few days. Been a rough couple of weeks, but seeing daylight.
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Back in 1989, I snuck into the Philadelphia Spectrum disguised as a roadie. I hadn't intended to, but just impulsively walked down the load-in ramp, and since I looked the part, no one stopped me. I was actually shocked. It was 2:00PM.
I spent the afternoon in the bowels of the venue, walking back and forth with a large roll of brown craft paper and trying to look busy. I ducked into the band's dressing room for a bit, looked at their guitars, and watched the stage being assembled.
As the afternoon wore on, the people in the hallways began to clear out, and it was getting more and more difficult to blend in. I found myself about six inches from Jon and the band as they arrived for soundcheck, but had to pretend my heart wasn't about to explode.
The Good Samaritan tended to a wound and helped a victim of violence, he didn’t use violence. You can’t strangle someone by accident.
And if you’re here trying to justify this for any reason, move along—especially if you claim to be a follower of Jesus. You’ve missed the entire point of your faith.
Last week I was coming out of the drugstore and in a hurry. I opened my car door, only to see a woman I didn't know in the passenger seat. It was then I realized I had opened the wrong car door.
I apologized immediately and profusely to the woman and pointed to the exact same make and model car next to her as I scurried away, mortified. She smiled through the window, laughing off the awkward moment and waving.
I later realized how grateful I was that the woman in that car was not one of the gun-clutching, fear-addled Americans manipulated by Conservative politics and media into being perpetually terrified. I know my family is grateful too. I made it home, embarrassed but alive
"The Club Q (the site of the murders) had planned to host a 'Friendsgiving' dinner this Thursday for all the folks who don’t have family that love them. If they go ahead, the one way we can help them is by donating food."
This not only shows the beautiful heart of the LGBTQ community, but it is a further reminder of the cancer of hatred: the way it permeates from politics and pulpits and into families and homes.
As Thanksgiving approaches, please consider supporting LGBTQ-friendly organizations in your community, opening your home to people without loving families, and speaking up in the face of phobia in your circles of influence.
No one on the Left is surprised by the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi and the brutal assault on her husband. This is what the Republicans under Trump are and will be. It is the rotten, putrid fruit of MAGA. It is the only logical evolution of Trumpism.
I could tell you countless stories about the documented cases of harassment, threats, and violence I and other progressive ministers writers, speakers, and politicians have received since 2016, all at the hands of professed "Christian patriots."
Republicans have no vision, no ideas, nothing redemptive to offer this nation, no decent or noble impulses. Their sole objective is inciting fear in their base by the demonizing of opposition through every kind of gross distortion and abject lie.
"If you keep attacking gun owners, you'll never change hearts!"
Nonsense.
It they had hearts capable of changing, any of these would have altered them:
Thurston High School.
Columbine High School.
Heritage High School.
Deming Middle School.
Fort Gibson Middle School.
Buell Elementary School.
Lake Worth Middle School.
University of Arkansas.
Junipero Serra High School.
Santana High School.
Bishop Neumann High School.
Pacific Lutheran University.
Granite Hills High School.
Lew Wallace High School.
Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
Appalachian School of Law.
Washington High School.
Conception Abbey.
Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
University of Arizona.
Lincoln High School.
John McDonogh High School.
Red Lion Area Junior High School.
Case Western Reserve University.
Rocori High School.