One Day Cold

Yesterday I was sick. No, not just sick, super sick. I caught a one-day cold.
How on earth do you get a one-day cold?? I have no idea. I only know I got one.

Sure, I had had a few sniffles and such since school came back, but that’s par for the course every year. Kids go back to school, mom gets sniffles.

But, yesterday I woke up to a face that felt as if it had been beaten with a bag of hammers. Sinus congestion that hurt so much and the sneezing!

Okay, let me tell you something. I’m forty. I’ve had five children. My bladder isn’t always my best friend. Sometimes…it also sneezes. And when I sneeze violently my bladder also sneezes violently. Suffice to say, I had a stupid, awful morning.

I sat in my kitchen experiencing a nose tap, the sneezing (and sneezing), hot flashes and throbbing pain in my face and I contemplated staying home from work.

Those of you who hate germ-share-ers will say immediately that I should have stayed home. You are probably right. I should have. But, since I HATE missing work, I took myself a couple of buckley’s cold pills (which have always worked for me) and drove off.

Buckley’s did NOT work for me yesterday. I arrived at work, shut myself into my office and proceeded to go through half my kleenex box. I started sneezing again. I was mortified, uncomfortable, sick and just miserable. I informed my boss (after one of my co-workers told me that she could hear me clean down the hall) that I would go home at lunch and try to knock this thing out of my system. He agreed. We did not shake on it.

So I went home. I stopped at the drug store and picked up some day-quil and did a shot in my kitchen and went promptly to bed.
Olivia Pope and I hung out on Netflix together as I dozed on and off for the afternoon. Thankfully, the liquid shot of nasty tasting cold-killer seemed to take the pressure off my face and it stopped feeling like a prize fighter without a prize so I ran out to the store to pick up bread and cheese and soup and came back home where the kids and I ate a small dinner and I went back to bed.

Somehow this morning the cold was gone. I have no idea how, but I have learned never to question good fortune.

Thank goodness for the one day cold. I don’t think I could have dealt with more of it. I’m far too busy to be sick.

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Morning

It’s chilly, but not cold.
There is a fine mist covering each individual blade of grass, making them acutely beautiful, which is to say, I’m noticing them, each and every one, and I’m smiling at the simplicity juxtaposed with the complex beauty nature is. I turn to the other side, where my overgrown garden still holds several flowers in oranges and pinks and lilacs. The same delicate mist shimmers from the stalks and leaves and petals. In the middle, a spider has spun its web. I might not have noticed but for the sheen on each strand of silk. No sign of the spider. I guess she’s still asleep.

It’s so still. There are hardly any cars and the air is crisp and clean and smells faintly of dill and cucumber. And salt. The ocean is a twenty minute drive from me but I can still smell it. It something I love about living here; the air smells.

The sun is just over the tree tops now, but if I look carefully, I can still see hints of pink and orange in the sky. The few clouds are golden. It looks more like a painting than reality.

I close my eyes for a minute and just breathe. For someone who is traditionally not a morning person, this has to be a favourite moment in life. Just me. Standing outside soaking in the morning. I don’t mind right now that it’s early. I don’t even mind that I’m the only one up in my house, besides the dogs of course. I am only thinking of this: the dew on the lawn, the smells in the air, the painting of a sky and the fact that all things considered, I am pretty happy.

It’s going to end, of course, this moment. And it does. I get in my car, drive to order my coffee and head into the city for work.

But something about taking those few moments before doing anything else today has changed me. Just a little. My drive takes me by a large river and I notice today the diamonds of sunlight dancing on the surface and how crystal clear the water looks. I see the beads of happy perspiration on the smiling jogger that runs by my car. I sing louder to the radio, and I notice the birds, the currents of air flitting past my face. It all makes me so very happy.

I arrive at work and for the first twenty minutes, I am alone. I open the front blinds and let the now much higher sun stream it’s warm light in and over the seats of the waiting room.

I don’t usually like mornings.

But this morning was a symphony. And I loved it.

Read Full Post »