Pandemic, Week 61 (Mother's Day and Birthdays and Vaccinations, Oh My!)

This week, at least 140 people were killed in Gaza as violence in the Middle East intensified after Hamas launched rockets in protest of Israeli raids on a Jerusalem mosque and Israel retaliated by bombing residences and buildings, including those that housed the international news offices of Al Jazeera and the AP. Liz Cheney was removed from GOP leadership in the House after fist bumping President Biden at his Address to Congress and calling out Republican's perpetuation of "the big lie." The Colonial Oil Pipeline was shutdown for six days after a ransomware attack resulting in gas shortages and lines in the southeast of the country. Chik-fil-A is rationing its dipping sauces due to supply shortages.

The world reached 163.2 million COVID cases and 3.4 million deaths this week, of which the US accounted for 33.7 million cases and 600,000 deaths. The CDC authorized 12 year olds and older to receive the Pfizer vaccine this week, and so Owen promptly got his first dose on Thursday. Meanwhile, Ohio announced five, $1 million lotteries for adult vaccine recipients to try and increase vaccination rates. With the influx of Ohioans and the under-16 crowd, 47 percent of the US population has now received at least once vaccine dose and 37 percent are fully vaccinated. The CDC revised its guidance, so that if you're fully vaccinated, you can pretty much go anywhere now without a mask, which given the resistance to adopting a "vaccine passport" to indicate who's been  inoculated, means that the US is now relying on the honor system for its public health.

But for us, the focus was the annual week long festivities of mothers known as Mother's Day and Mom Mom and Elaine's birthdays. We kicked off the week with a Mother's Day brunch at Katherine's, followed by a suite at the National's game (which included unlimited food and beer, which dulled the pain of the Nats losing to the Phillies), homemade ravioli and dinner at Rose's Luxury with Megan & Steve (in between there were presents and COVID shots and the harvesting of peonies). As usual, it was a stressful time for Allen (particularly after we ruined the suite surprise for Mom Mom and the CSA was late delivering some critical ingredients for my birthday dinner). But also, as usual, he did an amazing job (and now gets to relax for another year). 

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)