Most years’ resolutions are made that center on losing weight, exercising more or involving some other behavioral change. While I definitely need to revisit those, let’s face it: we’re still in COVID mode meaning that, like just about everything else, resolutions will have a different tone this year. They might include getting the vaccine (side note: no mention of the name of the vaccine is even needed).

Though it is early in the distribution cycle, I know some who have already been vaccinated. Among those who have been given their shots are members of our local Montrose Search and Rescue team. For these men and women who respond to the call of anyone who needs their help – regardless of and unknowing what the health is of those in distress – these shots represent a safety barrier that is much needed. I’m glad they were high on the list of recipients and I’m sure they, and their families, are grateful too.

I will add that it is mind-numbing trying to understand why, after 10 months of the pandemic and knowing that active work was being done to create a vaccine, there appears not to be in place a solid distribution model for California. What exactly was our governor doing in preparation of getting the vaccine to his constituency?

Maybe he should have been figuring that out instead of deciding what to order at the French Laundry…

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I am writing this on Wednesday afternoon as chaos is erupting in Washington, D.C. Congress is under siege by (yes, I’ll say it) protesting nutballs who are hell bent on reversing the results of the election to keep President Trump in office and interrupting the count of the Electoral College votes. Some elected officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, were evacuated though some sheltered in place, hunkering under chairs hoping to be safe until the siege ended.

It’s curious that more protection wasn’t in place for the Capitol and its inhabitants. Back on Dec. 19, it was reported that the President wrote in a tweet, “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Wild it was.

Reports of gunshots, explosive devices and possible tear gas come amid a statement by President-elect Biden calling upon President Trump to “fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution by demanding an end to this siege.” After saying to supporters at a Stop the Steal rally that he would “never concede,” the President told Capitol protestors to go home adding that there must be peace even though the election was “taken away from us.”

“You’ve seen what happens,” he said. “You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil.”
Who is he talking about? The protestors? Or …?

The events of Wednesday in Washington continue but time is ticking and I must close this column. As I do I reflect on a year that has been unprecedented in so many ways; it is another example of living in the Twilight Zone.