Baker's heartbeat

       The basket of masks is located near the back door.  You can't miss it!      I ran errands a couple of weeks ago and encountered confusing face mask-wearing signs at two businesses.     One, at Green Thumbers, a flower vendor, said that masks not necessary inside the store. The second, at the Menard's store in north Davenport, said that unvaccinated persons should wear masks, others need not.     I put on my mask when indoors at both places.     I don't know about you, but I'm still cautious when shopping indoors.       We Bakers have been fully vaccinated since May, and both of us are quite healthy, thankfully.  But this "in-between" time of wearing, not-wearing masks, is problematic.     A smart friend suggested I simply social distance from others, indoors. That's very difficult at a place such as HyVee, the grocery store. I wore a mask when shopping there on Monda...

      I was happy to have finished my first 5K!         That's the 1973 girl's track team at Tipton High School.  ( I'm 4th from right, second row ) Folks at the Gigi's Playhouse Superhero event in Bettendorf.  They were most supportive of runners and walkers!      The June sun was shining, a light wind kept the humidity at bay and I was among a few hundred men, women and children who today (Saturday, June 5) ran a competitive 5K race on the Duck Creek bike path at Veterans Memorial Park, Bettendorf.     This was a fitness challenge I set for myself last year. When that became impossible I made it a priority this year. Regular blog readers will know that some of my main interests include staying fit and gardening. Gardening ( gardensirencall.blogspot.com ) takes priority this time of year.     But a user-friendly 5K,  https://gigisplayhouse.org  was set for June 5 and that race ...

A new pair of Balega socks feel great! Socks in a special drawer: Organized with critters on some styles, other styles for cold weather, half-sized nylon sockies for certain shoes and several pairs of athletic socks.        I've got a love affair going with socks: Clean, colorful, comfy socks.     (This has continued for years, luckily, husband Steve just puts up with it.)     I have a dresser drawer especially for socks and it holds styles for summer, winter, and seasons in between.    Some socks are for around the house but also when we are out-and-about.     Some are for certain shoes. Many pairs of mine are for athletic shoes as I work out five days a week and also plan to do a 5K race. Seasonal pairs are for Christmastime; others have critters on them.     I have socks for when I substitute teach in local schools. I have socks for when we head out to lunch or dinner, usually outdoors somewhere.    ...

       The Bakers took a selfie while on a hike at Scott County Park, Iowa.      It was exactly 14 days ago when Steve and I received our second, and last Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19.     It was six days ago when the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, or CDC, issued a surprising edict from Atlanta: Fully-vaccinated individuals could safely go without masks outdoors and indoors.     So it was that I entered Modern Woodmen Park on that same day, one of about an estimated 40 percent of those at the baseball game so attired. Lots of folks seemed to be immediately comfortable without a mask in mixed company.     I am not.     "I don't change, quickly," I recently explained to Amy, the hair stylist who helps me monthly. We talk about COVID-19 and vaccines a lot, because, well, it's a popular topic of conversation.     Yesterday (May 18) I got my hair colored and cut, and did not wear a ma...

The first thing Steve and I did after getting our second Pfizer shot on May 5 was to buy tickets to a Q-C Bandits game. Here I am, on Thursday, masked up as full vaccination isn't until May 19.      The governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, has the right idea: Earlier this week, DeWine announced financial incentives to those who still have not gotten a COVID-19 vaccine. Residents of Ohio can win up to $1 million after they start the vaccination process.     Ideas like this are most necessary to reach those who are hesitant about actually getting the shots.      Life is getting somewhat easier. Fully-vaccinated individuals now may resume activities they did before the pandemic, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, Atlanta. Fully-vaccinated means individuals have received one of the three recommended vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson) and waited 14 days.     That will be May 19 for us.     ...

Steve and I after our second Pfizer shot on May 5.   Entrance to the Genesis Covid Vaccine Clinic in Davenport, Iowa      The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine went into my left arm seamlessly. I hardly felt it and had to ask the nurse, Katie, if she was finished or not.     This was Wednesday, May 5, the Baker's "Second Vaccine Day" at the Covid clinic run by Genesis Medical Center.       We'd gotten the first vaccine on April 6 in a clinic that included maybe 100 or more people.  After that shot I had no side effects but Steve became feverish for about one day.     The second shot had to be on a Wednesday because that is the hospital's "second shot" policy. We'd originally planned to do this a week earlier but worried about possible side effects interfering with our daughter's family coming to visit; it was the first time to our home in almost six months.     We thus delayed the second shot for one week. The side effects...

Cory Deutmeyer watches as Ryan McCaw unloads trash bags full of litter collected from about two miles of ditches in rural Scott County, Iowa. The men report there was more trash and litter collected than usual.        It was a sunny, warm Saturday morning when more than a dozen men, women and teen-agers met at the Jason and Casey Feller home in rural Scott County, Iowa. Jason Feller had contacted volunteers to do the spring ditch-cleaning around the Lake Huntington neighborhood, located east of Scott County Park.     The group was about equally divided between men and women, and it was decided that the women would work collecting litter, trash and debris for about a mile along 270th Street. The men would take Utica Ridge Road, also for a mile. (Utica Ridge poses a bigger challenge so the groups take turns on that stretch.)     The debris clean-up project took about an hour. In general, three folks walked along the ditch to spot the trash in t...