Diane and I want to be vaccinated against Hepatitis A before we go to Africa this fall. She definitely needs the first shot soon (and the second shot after we return); I’d rather avoid unnecessary shots.

I’ve made two trips to regions which have a high Hepatitis A risk – Brazil in 1993 and China in 2005. There was no vaccine available in 1993, so I went to the Santa Clara County Travel Clinic and got a gamma globulin injection; I also avoided uncooked fruit and vegetables like the plague, even though they looked delicious and I was staying at a five-star hotel.

In 2005, I think I got the Hepatitis A vaccine before my trip, probably at the Travel Clinic, but I can’t find any record of it. I can see the immunization record card in my mind’s eye, but I can’t find the real thing (nor a copy of it). My doctor’s office shows me getting a dose of the vaccine in 2006, after the China trip, which would give me lifetime immunity if it was my second dose but is useless to me if it wasn’t.

The Travel Clinic has been closed since March of last year, so I can’t check to see if they still have my records, so I guess I’ll get the shot anyway. Costco offers the vaccine at a reasonable price, so we’re planning to make our first post-pandemic in-person visit to Costco this week. I expect we’ll visit the wine aisle as long as we’re there, too!

The weather today was very pleasant, though we’re in for a hot weekend. I enjoyed the cloudscape on our evening walk, too.

SPOILER ALERT — If you are only part-way through the first season of Ted Lasso, stop reading and come back when you’ve finished the season.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, which was named after Richmond, England, so I had a little bit of extra affinity with AFC Richmond while watching Ted Lasso, and I was sorry when they lost the last match and were relegated. I’m looking forward to the next season to see if they can get back to the top rung.

I also play trivia in Learned League – I’ve spent the last 10 seasons in Rundle A (the top level of five). Yesterday was the last day of the season; I was sitting in 24th place and looking at relegation. I could avoid it if I had a better result than the person ahead of me – so naturally, I wanted to win. I was disappointed to only get 4 of 6 questions right, but I had hope – and when I woke up this morning and checked the results, I was happy to find that I’d won. So had the guy above me, so I got relegated anyway.

But there was something curious about my win – my opponent had NO correct answers, after getting all six right the day before. A zero match day is very unusual in an A Rundle – it usually happens if someone is expelled for cheating, withdraws, or dies. And when I looked on the Memorial Wall, my opponent was newly listed there.

Being relegated was much less important after seeing that news.