I mean, there are a lot of knock on effects from the pandemic that I didn’t really think about, but I really never expected a cat food shortage. Like, it didn’t even enter my mind.

We already ran into delays with the LilyMonster’s prescription food – managed to snag a case directly from the vet’s office while waiting for Chewy to restock it, and her favorite dry food was out of stock for a while – even Royal Canin’s website was, “Yeah, we know, we’re sorry.”

Today I ran into the market, and they were out of Lily’s beloved packet snacks, along with quite a lot of other things. That was an awkward conversation with her when I got home – it was the insult on top of the injury of my leaving the house in the first place. (According to my brother, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in my absence.)

But, we have a metric fuckton of crunchy treats, including some Friskies Party Mix to change things up (we are mainly a Temptations household) and Chewy is saving the day on the packet snacks. (I just wish I’d known they were out when I ordered her other snacks two days ago, I would have had enough for free shipping.)

But, empty shelves in the cat food aisle – never, ever saw that coming.

Ran into my favorite gal that works at the market – she’s fully vaccinated! And they were able to get their shots right at the store, which is great. (Honestly, as weird as the whole county process was, I could see them sending them somewhere else.) She said she loves how many customers have come in going, “I’m good! I’m vaccinated!” And she’s been taking informal polls, and the Pfizer shots have far less after effects than Moderna from everyone she’s talked to.

I love that my community seems to really be embracing getting vaccinated. In the county, we’re at 60% with at least one shot, and 37% fully vaccinated. Our 7 day average for new cases is down to 88 a day – which is still 88 more than I want to see, but it’s SO much better than where we were a few months ago. Combination of vaccinations and folks being able to gather outside now that the weather is nicer seems to be helping.

I’m counting down the days til my next shot. And while there are going to be a lot of nice perks that come along with it – the whole “you can do maskless things now” isn’t even really on my list. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great – but what I’m really looking forward to is just being able to let go of some of my “I will not catch this shit, goddammit” anxiety/anger/whatever you want to call it. I’m not going to start licking doorknobs, but gawd, it will be nice to have some solid biological protection beyond the masks. The masks have been doing their job, to be sure, and I am super pro-mask, but they do feel rather…unsubstantial against something so big.

But it really feels like we’re going to get there. And that is a good feeling.