friday...
..at last.
Another of us has fallen to the evil virus. It's Middle's turn. He is silent but mentioned that his neck has been quite painful - for three days. I was pretty sure it was his lymph nodes but wanted the doctor to have a look. Of course he has to ride it out - just like the rest of us. Doesn't matter. We laughed until we cried, Middle and me, before the doctor walked in, over a photo in a landscape magazine that I cannot begin to describe. I love laughing with him.
The trick, I see now, to victory over the cough that has kept us awake for the past four nights is NOT suppression. My potent cough pills (I'm allergic to codeine and this narrows the field of medication considerably) were useless against it - with its tight dryness and tearing pain.
Suddenly, last night at 2:00, I had a brainstorm and ransacked Youngest's room for the nebulizer and mask and gave myself a treatment and finally slept. Maybe now I'll have a handle on it.
In unrelated news: I heard this while waiting for K's train -
Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,
Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.
When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.
It's a lovely poem, isn't it?
It's Friday. That's lovely too.
*by Walt McDonald
Another of us has fallen to the evil virus. It's Middle's turn. He is silent but mentioned that his neck has been quite painful - for three days. I was pretty sure it was his lymph nodes but wanted the doctor to have a look. Of course he has to ride it out - just like the rest of us. Doesn't matter. We laughed until we cried, Middle and me, before the doctor walked in, over a photo in a landscape magazine that I cannot begin to describe. I love laughing with him.
The trick, I see now, to victory over the cough that has kept us awake for the past four nights is NOT suppression. My potent cough pills (I'm allergic to codeine and this narrows the field of medication considerably) were useless against it - with its tight dryness and tearing pain.
Suddenly, last night at 2:00, I had a brainstorm and ransacked Youngest's room for the nebulizer and mask and gave myself a treatment and finally slept. Maybe now I'll have a handle on it.
In unrelated news: I heard this while waiting for K's train -
Anniversary: One Fine Day*
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,
Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.
When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.
It's a lovely poem, isn't it?
It's Friday. That's lovely too.
*by Walt McDonald
Comments
you can find it here.
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/03/19
hope you're feeling better.
Hope Middle feels better.
Happy first day of Spring---break out those new clothes!
"Suppressing" your illness just makes it drag out longer in many cases. Let your body do its job and fight it out.
Here's to good weekends.
Happy Birthday Bb's mom!
Paola
jbhat
Get well Middle!
I have a love/hate relationship with the Neti pot. I think it works, but it kinda hurts. I'd rather use it then lots of disposable items/drugs. Gets rid of a lot of PND issues.
Humidifier in room during dry season=wonders. Happy.
(also have one severely asthmatic child, weening off meds)
Grandma: wine/carrot/poetry, lived past 100. *toast*
J
I wish your mom a very happy birthday! And a speedy recovery to the rest of you!
ErinH