My son moved to Nashville in 2004 so I have had plenty of opportunities to visit Nashville but my visits were primarily summer or winter. For the past month, being able to sleep with my window open and wake up to the sounds of bird chirping has been wonderful. Today as I was still partially asleep, I heard a rooster crow and it took me back to the Iowa farm for a brief period of time. Monday was in the 70’s with sunny skies and 25% humidity. I was transported to summer in Seattle. I didn’t know the humidity could be that low here.
The past 2 evenings, I have had wine on my deck with no bugs – not sure how long that will last. I am a magnet for anything that bites so we will see how well I am able to control the pests during the summer so I can continue to enjoy my deck..
I just had a visit from the HVAC man who do the inspection prior to buying the condo last fall. He was very friendly and said ‘mam” in the most charming way. He knew I was new to Nashville and asked how I was trying to build my community. That was a lovely gesture.
I am really looking forward to being on the other side of the pandemic so I can actively building a new community. My first vaccination is scheduled for next Tuesday. I am so excited to put my arm out for the injection.
I am working to understand vaccine hesitancy – on NPR this morning heard that one third of adults are not planning on getting vaccinated. Some of those will likely never be convinced it is the right thing to do. But I think is a reasonable percentage of those that are justifiably confused and can be convinced with different information. I am concerned we have not done enough to understand where there is confusion and need for clarification but have instead just assumed those that are hesitant believe the misinformation which is difficult to counter. I think we can do better….
By the way, a few people have asked how to subscribe to the blog – I wasn’t sure so I figured it out: At the top of the Page on the right you should see Blog About and Contact. iClick on Blog, it takes you to a different view of the blog and at the bottom of the page you can subscribe. It is fun to have followers.
Tamara Unleashed 
As an engineer it took a while to figure out how much of health problems is not engineering or scientific hurdles. Messaging is huge. I’ve thought about this a lot with vaccine and mask messaging. I wish I had a solution. The only thing that comes to mind is that perhaps we should directly invest in public health education efforts. Do we have government PR people whose only job is to create health campaigns and actively shoot down misinformation? And by health campaigns I mean cool ones with celebrities (of all types) and scary anecdotes. Relevant story on anecdotes: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada (I think, going from memory)
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