Got the vaccines at noon Monday. That night I was shaking with chills, turned up the furnace, ate some Tylenol, slept badly (but stopped shaking, via the usual sweat bath), got up at 5:30 to do my early lifeguard shift, came home and went back to bed. Slept fitfully throughout the day, and today, Wednesday, I’m fully restored. It seemed a stronger reaction than normal, but we opted for the Moderna mRNA flu shot, said to be 27 percent more effective than the usual one, and so disapproved of by the current HHS secretary that it almost… well, let the NYT tell it:
Initially the F.D.A. had refused to even review Moderna’s application for approval earlier this year, but quickly reversed course after a public outcry. The flu kills more than 300,000 people worldwide each year and was particularly harsh in the 2024-25 season, with an estimated 45,000 deaths in the United States, including at least 297 reported cases in children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The new vaccine is authorized for people ages 50 to 64. The F.D.A. issued an accelerated approval for adults 65 and older, which allows widespread use and can be converted to a full approval if the results of a follow-up study are deemed acceptable.
If Bobby’s agin’ it, I’m for it. But it did kick my butt. Of course, maybe it was the Covid jab doing the kicking; who’s to know? I keep a record for no particular reason, and this is my 10th Covid shot. :::scattered applause::: Still a Novid, to the best of my knowledge. I/we test whenever we have a cold, and so far, no positives.
And I’m really glad no one needed to be fished out of the pool yesterday morning, because I was operating at something of a deficit.
Moving on! I’m starting to feel more confident about Abdul El-Sayed’s chances in the Senate race, although I refuse to get smug about it. One reason is, he seems to have caught the attention of the right-wing media, but in a way that inevitably makes him look better, in some way. He runs circles around Fox News questioners, and the more he does it, the more they keep inviting him back to drop bombs like, “My name didn’t cost Michigan families $5,600 last year because of tariffs.”
Funnier, though, is this New York Post story, which inevitably was laundered through the Gateway Pundit, i.e., the stupidest man on the internet. The headline alone is great:
Abdul El-Sayed farts in public, ex aide says — and blasts Senate candidate as immature ‘manufactured man’
My brotha! It so happens that I, and virtually every other human being on the planet, farts in public, because farting is part of having a human body, and we can’t be in private spaces all the time. Of course, what this “ex-aide” says isn’t exactly just farting in public. He farts as comedy:
“He would openly do so without warning or embarrassment as his form of stand-up comedy,” Domingue wrote.
“To this day for him, the act of farting is easily one of the funniest things a person can do.”
Ha ha. Many well-decorated humorists would agree with Abdul, but honestly, who cares? His opponent is a Donald Trump rubber stamp, and that’s all that matters to me. Speaking of whom:
WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers appears to be breaking with President Donald Trump on another key issue less than a month before Election Day.
“Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings, man, it just doesn’t get any more Michigan than that,” Rogers said in a new video ad released on Oct. 7. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now.”
The statement marks the second time in recent weeks that Rogers spoke out — albeit without criticizing Trump by name — against one of the president’s unpopular initiatives. This time, Rogers is calling for an end to Trump’s widespread trade war against Canada, America’s biggest trading partner.
The Republican Senate nominee also split with Trump on the Iran war in late September, saying it “needs to end and end quickly.”
The ad was shot in a bar:
The 30-second spot features Rogers wearing a flannel shirt and sitting at a bar stool at Bigg’s Bar & Grill on Gratiot Avenue in Chesterfield Township.
That’ll get the blue-collar crowd, ain’a?
OK, then. Time for me to push this out into the world and start exploring how we might make our gas-log fireplace less of a pain in the ass to use. Happy Wednesday, all.
Deborah said on October 7, 2026 at 12:13 pm
Got my flu shot in my Drs office, no problems. Got my Moderna covid shot at Walgreens a few weeks later, felt nauseous and tired the next day, but was fine the day after that. But they’re done, until the next ones are due.
My Dr wants me to take a new pneumonia vaccine that is better than the one I already had, haven’t done that yet.
Lovely weather in Chicago, cool and sunny, but most of all dry. It’s been so humid that our towels didn’t dry by the next day after a shower, which I don’t remember happening as often as it has since we got back from NM.
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Suzanne said on October 7, 2026 at 12:39 pm
I got my COVID shot as soon as it came out and the flu shot a few weeks later. No problems with either. I never get them together so if I have a reaction, I will know which one is the culprit. Only once did the flu shot knock me down but I think that was the first time I got the over 65 stronger dose, aka “the old people dose” according to my son.
I have likely mentioned here that I also had to get the measles vaccine ($150 thank you very much) because I was born pre-vaccine and there is no way to verify if I had the disease or not. My siblings both had it when I was an infant and I was given some sort of immune boosting shot but it’s unknown if I had the actual disease.
And then I watched this idiotic exchange between Tom Tillis and Luke Russert…
https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/im-done-ms-now-anchor-throws-down-with-thom-tillis-over-rfk-jr-vote/
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David C said on October 7, 2026 at 1:29 pm
I’m still nursing a cold, negative for Covid or flu, so I have to wait still and it’s driving me nuts.
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Scout said on October 7, 2026 at 2:39 pm
Rogers et al talk a big break-with-trump game until they get in office and then? Just another RRRubberstamp. None of them are to be trusted with anything, much less any important office that directly affects real people’s lives.
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Jeff Borden said on October 7, 2026 at 2:55 pm
It’s funny to see a tRump licker snarking on El-Sayed when, by all accounts, tRump is a fart machine and is often wearing a full diaper. There are several photos/videos of people near him in the Oval Office whose faces change into grimaces as if they were smelling something really, really horrible. Because they are.
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Julie Robinson said on October 7, 2026 at 3:58 pm
We stopped getting the shots together when it wiped out mom. This year the flu shot alone wiped her.
Today’s drama, a meltdown over the height of the pictures in her hallway, a height she chose. The boxes lining the sides of the hall? The ones where you have to turn sideways to inch your way down? Don’t bother her one bit.
And Home Depot has totally screwed us on the shower pan for the bathroom, with shipping delays and not one but two arriving damaged. (It’s an unusual size.) Our guy is on the hunt for something else. The whole project could have been finished by now. It’s always something, right?
Sherri, I’m glad your husband was finally able to begin treatment after the insurance delays. I hope it will continue to go well.
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Deborah said on October 7, 2026 at 4:55 pm
My husband and I voted today, for Democrats all the way down, of course. I’m proudly wearing my “I voted” sticker.
The wife of the Dell computer guy was standing behind Trump today when he was sitting at his desk falling asleep. What is wrong with her? Does she have some kind of medical condition? Or is it just a horrible plastic surgery job? She’s way too thin and her face looks odd, disturbingly odd. There are pictures of her online as she used to look which is completely different and attractive. I think I remember us discussing her previously but I don’t remember what was said.
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alex said on October 7, 2026 at 5:18 pm
From Deborah’s description, I wondered if maybe Dell’s wife’s face was contorted from smelling farts, but no. To me she looks like a man in a wig and falsies.
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Colleen said on October 7, 2026 at 5:42 pm
Got both shots yesterday….only a slightly sore arm. Just saw today that Florida is going to have a bad flu season. Go figure. I had to get a new MMR within the past few years. I’m old enough that my childhood booster wasn’t boosty enough.
I’m so tired of…of….this. Him. His unqualified administration. And good lord, his moronic followers. Someone help me understand why the Dems, the people who want everyone to have healthcare, clean air and water, and food for children, are a “threat to America”? Their leader wants liberals dead. We want everyone, including Magats,to not go bankrupt because they got cancer.
Someone make him go away.
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David C said on October 7, 2026 at 5:43 pm
My god. She looks like she had it done at Spirit Halloween.
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nancy said on October 7, 2026 at 6:16 pm
Deborah, I’ve seen experts break down Mrs. Dell’s face, and they basically concluded that she could do with a makeup/hair consultation, and she does have a prominent nose, but basically what you see is what you get.
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Jeff Gill said on October 7, 2026 at 8:59 pm
One caption I saw that made me chuckle: “Susan Dell of Dell Computers running
C:\Users\Susan>start blink sequence.exe”
As to fart jokes, has the ex-staffer not seen the 2016 “Ghostbusters”?
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Deborah said on October 7, 2026 at 9:01 pm
There are some things I don’t get about how people decide that’s the look they want, like Trump himself for one, with his wildly combed over hair and orange make up, baggy suits etc. Then you see see sad, sad women with anorexia who don’t look good at all, or with those weird duck lips and you wonder, can they see themselves in the mirror? It’s very weird to me how they can’t seem to see themselves as others see them. All of us have our idiosyncrasies about ourselves probably, there are things I do with my presentation of myself that other people wouldn’t think to do at all, or they just don’t even think about how they present themselves but when you see someone present themselves so weirdly and seem so OK with it, it boggles the mind.
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Brandon said on October 8, 2026 at 1:32 am
https://www.tmz.com/2026/10/07/mia-goth-and-shia-labeouf-divorce/
According to court docs obtained by TMZ, the actress filed Tuesday night, citing the boilerplate “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split. She lists their date of separation as July 28, 2025.
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Bitter Scribe said on October 8, 2026 at 10:19 am
Dear Mike Rogers: Don’t tell US that the war and the tariffs need to end. We already know that. Tell the one person in the world who can actually end them: Trump.
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alex said on October 8, 2026 at 11:43 am
I notice in some of these debates — Hinson vs. Turek in Iowa, for example — that the Republicans are suddenly opposed to the Iran war and tariffs while the Dems are promising not to impeach Trump. Tammy Duckworth in Illinois lost a lot of my respect when she made leniency for Trump part of her campaign, but in the desperate fund-raising texts and e-mails I’ve received the last few days she has been walking it back completely. It doesn’t regain my respect, however.
In a five-way debate for Indiana’s secretary of state, an office that came into play only because the Republican holding it became an embarrassment to his own party (which is no easy feat these days), the Republican candidate said his top priority is ending noncitizen voting, a problem which we all know is nonexistent. He’s facing off against Beau Bayh (son of Evan, grandson of Birch) who’s scaring the shit out of the GOP, as well as three third party spoilers who hope to siphon off votes from both major party candidates.
Early voting has started here and I need to get off my ass and go vote a straight D ticket.
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Brandon said on October 8, 2026 at 2:59 pm
https://politics1.com/in.htm
SECRETARY OF STATE:
[ Diego Morales (R)* – Lost for renomination in 2026. ]
Max Engling (R) – Ex-Congressional Aide & ’24 US Rep Candidate
Beau Bayh (D) – Attorney, USMC Veteran & Son of Ex-US Sen Evan Bayh
Lauri Shillings (L) – Marketing Director, Libertarian Activist & ’24 US Rep Nominee
Greg Ballard (LIN) – Ex-Indianapolis Mayor, Businessman & Retired USMC Lt Colonel
Andrew Delano (WI) – Neo-Nazi Activist & Frequent Candidate
Ballard is running on the Lincoln Party, which I’ve never heard of till now.
https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/09/08/whats-the-lincoln-party-ballards-secretary-of-state-run-could-expand-indiana-ballot-access/
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Julie Robinson said on October 8, 2026 at 3:26 pm
It’s pouring down rain in Orlando for the second day, probably the very outer bands of Hurricane Isaias. The meterologists don’t seem too concerned otherwise.
I officially hate Home Depot. Hours on the phone, trying to cancel the twice-damaged shower pan, then they sent an email thanking us for picking it up. I didn’t have time to deal with it until just now, and finally the system says the order is cancelled. I thought I was going to have to drive over there and wait for the store manager and this is a victory I will happily take.
Is anyone else here a fan of Josh Groban’s like-buttah voice? He will be at Epcot in December and I jumped on reservations, changed a doctor’s appointment, and cleared the day. Bucket list!
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alex said on October 8, 2026 at 9:44 pm
Just read the NYT live reporting on the El Sayed/Rogers debate. Sounded like one nasty throwdown. Would love to hear from any of our commentariat here who happened to watch.
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Jeff Gill said on October 9, 2026 at 7:16 am
I’ll be curious to see if the Oct. 21 debate happens. Not sure it’s in Rogers’ best interests to step into the ring with his opponent again. I’d say El-Sayed won the “turn the sound off and watch” debate for sure; Rogers worked hard at backing him into a corner on various issues which may land for him, with voting blocks already in his corner, but other than trying edge away from Trump on tariffs, he didn’t sound terribly coherent to me.
Not a fan of NewsNation, but as the airing platform, they had an early fact check out:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/fact-checking-el-sayed-rogers-debate/
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Deborah said on October 9, 2026 at 11:10 am
Why in the world would anyone want to watch an execution? Why in the world for that matter, would you even support any executions? How barbaric. I know there have been horrendous crimes committed but retaliating by murder is wrong in my book. Do I think the world would be a better place if some people were dead? Yes I do, but I don’t think it’s the right of any person to take the life of another for any reason. IMHO. We should separate dangerous people from society if they could do more harm. You may disagree.
My ability to be patient is disappearing as I age. I’m having a hard time getting through a day without being in a rage. I’m probably going to stroke out eventually.
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Colleen said on October 9, 2026 at 2:06 pm
Deborah, I am 100% with you. Disgusting.
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Dave said on October 9, 2026 at 2:18 pm
We’re getting the Covid Moderna shot this afternoon. We had Moderna flu shots two days ago and it didn’t bother either of us so we will see what happens with this.
Does anyone else imagine the Orange one is screaming about the Nobel Peace Prize today?
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susan said on October 9, 2026 at 2:44 pm
Kegsbreath should be first against the wall, for what he talked Dump$hi† into in Iran. And for all his other villainy. Fucking Nazi. But I wouldn’t even watch that guy’s guts explode, because I don’t fancy that barbarity. Just awful, just a horrible person. Such a wretched political party.
I was at the Post Office earlier today, mailing a Priority Mail large box. That now costs $36.10 to mail. I exclaimed to the clerk that the price went up since I last mailed a box like that two months ago. And that was higher than the year before. She said the price went up just for the holidays. ?? A woman behind me asked, “What holiday? It’s October 9.” The clerk said christmas. Several people muttered things, and shook their heads. “That’s a LOT!”
I blurted out, “Goddamned Trump. Goddamned Republicans. They are trying to privatize everything and are ruining this country. The Post Office is IN THE CONSTITUTION! Vote them all out. Vote out all the damned Republicans. That party needs to be obliterated.” The fellow behind me said he is voting Democratic for the first time in his life.
So there’s one!
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Julie Robinson said on October 9, 2026 at 3:23 pm
And here in Florida, our unesteemed governor refuses to pronounce Hurricane Isaias (ee-sah-EE-ahs) correctly, so he is calling it Isaiah. Here’s his quote: “I don’t know how to pronounce this because it’s not normal.”
He is, of course, always quick to tell us he went to Yale and Harvard.
You okay, Colleen? All is calm here.
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Colleen said on October 9, 2026 at 4:25 pm
It’s all good here in the Tampa area….we’re just expecting rain.
DeSantis is such a putz.
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Dave said on October 9, 2026 at 4:28 pm
You go, Susan!
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basset said on October 9, 2026 at 5:22 pm
Meanwhile, the woman who the state of Tennessee tried to execute a few days
ago continues to live and breathe, even walk a little.
https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-news/christa-pike/christa-pike-walking-after-botched-execution/
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Dave said on October 9, 2026 at 5:49 pm
Nancy, how I wish your post from ten years ago today were true. Ummmm, a bit off the mark and that’s what I get for looking back out of curiosity to see if I commented. No snark intended.
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Little Bird said on October 9, 2026 at 11:03 pm
I got my Covid shot today, so I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. I also walked over 16,000 steps today.
That’s way more than I normally get in a day. Tomorrow will be a very quiet day at home.
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Mark P said on October 10, 2026 at 9:42 am
I got my flu and Covid shots yesterday. I had no pain or reaction whatsoever through bedtime. This morning my arm is sore, but other than that, still no reaction.
Here in NW Georgia we have had gentle rain and no wind since last night. We may still have power outages up on the mountain because of saturated ground letting leaning trees fall.
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Mark P said on October 10, 2026 at 10:07 am
I just went out and checked our rain gauge. The light rain totaled almost two and a half inches. And it’s windy.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2026 at 5:04 pm
Today is nuts in Chicago, tomorrow is the marathon and there are so many young, fit and trim people on the streets it’s crazy. We had some errands to run and it’s bumper to bumper traffic and jillions of people on the sidewalks. I think it’s lovely and it’s such an interesting crowd, so different from the usual group you see.
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Dorothy said on October 10, 2026 at 11:20 pm
We’re getting our flu and Covid shots on Wednesday and I expect we’ll react like we always do – sore arms and maybe a little bit tired.’’
I’ve been in a play for three weekends and tomorrow is our final performance. What a nice group of people I met doing this Agatha Christie-like show! Miss Marple in “A Murder is Announced”. I’m glad I was cast as Mrs. Swetenham. Everyone’s been lovely. Except for the di** director who quit three weeks into the rehearsal process. It’s okay – we wound up with Rosemary as our director, who lost her husband the day after the auditions. Rosemary is the real deal.
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David W. Kirk said on October 11, 2026 at 9:21 am
Got the flu and Covid vaccines a week ago and within 10 hours I had shivers and shaking that lasted for hours. Kind of freaked me out as I have never experienced that. I chalked it up to a degraded immune system as I had gone through radiation and some chemo treatments a year ago. I’ll do one shot at a time the next go around.
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Icarus said on October 11, 2026 at 11:31 am
Deborah, I’ve run the Chicago Marathon at least a dozen times and when I got to the downtown portion of the course, there was always somebody on the side wanting to get across, and the look on their face was “nobody told me about this race.”
Most people were smart enough to wait until it thinned out or find an alternative path (Pedway anyone), but some actually tried to cross while hundreds of runners were stampeding. I’ve never heard of anyone getting hurt but still.
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