family, food Leave a comment

Comfort Food

I’ve had the meatball recipe tucked away in my recipe box for some 20 years, but tonight was the first time I actually made them.

Technically, it’s not Memaw’s recipe; she got it from the Italian girl who worked in the kitchen with her at Bix’s, back in the mid-1970’s. I also didn’t make the recipe exactly as written, since it’s a restaurant recipe calling for 7 lbs of hamburger and three dozen eggs.

I didn’t think of these meatballs as comfort food as I was making them. It was only when I sat down to dinner and tucked into a savory memory that I realized what they were.

I’ve been missing my Memaw more than usual lately, even though she’s been gone for almost 18 years now. Even though it wasn’t my intention, making Memaw’s meatballs helped.

health & fitness, pandemic, the ongoing saga of my job Leave a comment

Dose Number One

I got my COVID-19 vaccine

Thanks to what’s known as a Closed Point Of Dispensing, I was able to receive the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine this morning, via my employer.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be vaccinated… but there are so many others much more at risk than myself who should, by all rights, be getting this protection before me. My husband, an “essential worker” in the shipping industry, has been working as usual throughout the pandemic, and he’s unlikely to get vaccinated for weeks or months yet.

I’m scheduled to receive my second dose in four weeks, at which point I should only have a 6% chance of contracting and exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.

(My birth control pill only had a 3% chance of failure back in 2011, though. Just sayin’.)