Finally got bivalent booster

And it wasn't particularly easy. I waited until 3 months past my COVID infection and then discovered that there was a month's lead time on scheduling vaccines at Health Partners. Cub Pharmacy seemed to have loads of appointments, but the scheduling engine was completely broken (which I suppose is why all those appointment slots were open). I found out later that they did accept walk-ins, but you couldn't tell that from the website. 

The Walgreen's scheduling engine worked fine, but there were no appointments anywhere in less than a week and no convenient ones in less than 2 weeks. I went with convenience over urgency, and my appointment finally came up yesterday. Went relatively smoothly, except for having to fill in the check-in form again on paper because they couldn't retrieve it from the computer system. The shot itself is so tiny - I literally didn't even feel it. My arm is a little sore today, but no other side effects. I got my flu shot last week (walk-in at Cub) so I don't have the double sore arm problem. I'm glad I didn't get both shots at once, since last week's hi-dose flu shot gave me a sore arm for a week, much worse than usual. 

The guy who gave me my shot said that demand has been sky-rocketing in the past week or two as people look towards the holidays. There has been a lot of official hand-wringing over the low uptake of the new booster, but I can't help but think this is partly illusory. Perhaps the health care establishment hasn't noticed that they are providing 3 contradictory sets of advice on boosters (as well as giving the impression that boosters are trivially easy to schedule, which I did not find to be the case).

1. Get your booster NOW NOW NOW! Do not delay! This is very important!
2. Unless you've had COVID in the past 3 months (as maybe 20% of the population has) in which case you might as well hold off
3. Or unless you have travel plans in the next few months, in which case you should wait

I'm probably not the only person trying to follow recommendations 2 and 3, while underestimating the scheduling issues. 

Oh, no! My phone number was found on the Dark Web!

Gosh, I remember when my phone number was available to anybody with a phone book. Which was everybody with a phone. 

Man, that's a blast from the past. Remember phone books?