Tag Archives: Colds

Music

‘Mary’s Boy Child’

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I think I’m actually in denial about Christmas this year. I need to get started with my cards and newsletters, and I need to get my tree up. I used to get right on those things the day after Thanksgiving, but this year it seems like a lot of work.

Still, it’s not too early to post a Sissel Christmas song. This is the young Sissel, way back in 1987, on Norwegian TV but singing in English for your convenience. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do this song better.

My cold lingers, which it would be surprising if it didn’t, because it’s only been a few days. I have an idea this one will hang on, though. Had to do my annual eye appointment this morning. I arrived at the usual place, and behold, it was deserted. Lots of room in the inn.

I had a vague memory that they’d announced they’d moved. Again. This clinic changes venues more often than Nathan Detroit’s crap game in Guys ‘n Dolls. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, though, I was able to find the right location on my cell phone, and I still had time to make the appointment.

The new place is a medical complex. With signs for various clinics and services. But none for my ophthalmologist.

The address was right. I double-checked. I got out of my car and went to investigate.

By the door, one of those three-foot stand-up yellow plastic signs, saying my eye clinic was inside.

This seems to me a rather cruel thing, to have a vision clinic with no visible sign. Like playing blind man’s bluff with an actual blind man.

But I did get in. Verdict: My eyesight has deteriorated slightly, but only slightly. My cataracts (every old person has them) have advanced marginally, but not enough to call for Steps to Be Taken yet.

Also finished my translation job and submitted it.

I am tired now. Wake me Monday morning.

Goofing

‘General’ concerns

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Above, a clip from Buster Keaton’s “The General,” one of the funniest, most creative, and genuinely terrifying movies ever made. No CGI there. Keaton put himself into real peril with those stunts. That was his business.

(By the way, if you’re a Democrat, you’re not allowed to laugh at this. He’s playing a Confederate railroader, and THAT’S NOT FUNNY!)

Anyway, I posted the clip because I feel kind of like Keaton’s character right now. Run ragged, just barely surviving. The comparison’s absurd of course. I’m in no real peril. But I do feel ragged as I run. Or waddle. Come to think of it, Fatty Arbuckle would make a better comparison. But I don’t know his work.

The translation jobs keep coming. This is reason for thanksgiving. There are retired guys out there who don’t know what to do with their time. I weep for their meaningless lives. Me, I wonder where I’ll find the hours for all I have to do.

I’ve got a cold, on top of it. I’m pretty sure it’s not Covid, because I retain my exquisite connoisseur’s palate. (Unless it’s the new Omigosh variant, but it seems too soon for that.) I generally get a cold every winter, and sometimes it lasts me the whole season. Last year, probably because of the Levitical sanitation measures, I got no cold at all. But I have one now. And it’s making me tired.

But someone on the translating team in Norway has Covid (mild, I’m told, thank the Lord), so I must do my part and put my shoulder to the wheel. The shows must go on. And, I must not forget, I get paid for this.

But things keep popping up to steal my valuable time. Had to do the whole mortgage refinancing signature dance all over again today, for some reason I don’t quite understand. Some t not crossed the last time, I guess. A prescription to pick up. Bill-paying day, with an associated cash flow problem. And I need to find a new internet service provider before the end of the month.

I really need a valet. Jeeves would handle all this stuff, freeing my time up for translation and witty repartee. And he’d no doubt have a secret concoction whose ingredients would include honey, lemon, turmeric and Bombay gin, to make me feel better.

I could have been a great financial success, I’m pretty sure, if only I’d been born rich.

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Journal of the plague season

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I apologize for my radio silence last night. I was just too run down to do anything but go to bed early. I’m celebrating my annual Cusp of Winter Tradition – the massive bronchial infection. It makes no sense to me that – every year about the same time – I come down with a cold which must inevitably descend into my lungs and take up residence like 1970s hippies, putting shag carpet up on all the walls. But such is the case. Every blinking year.

And every blinking year I imagine that this time my immune system will do what I pay it to do, and kick the deadbeats out. According to what I’ve read, you never get the same strain of cold twice, so it only makes sense that once in a while it would be a cold I could beat. But I never can. So at the point when I’m coughing all over my work and living spaces, infecting everyone I encounter, I finally break down and see the doctor. As I did today.

Actually it was a Physician’s Assistant today. She listened to my lungs, had a good laugh, and prescribed an antibiotic and an inhaler. Plus suggesting an over the counter nostrum.

So I guess I’m not a hypochondriac.

When you’re Norwegian, you can’t go to the doctor just because you feel sick. You need to feel you have something interesting to offer, something they can tell their colleagues about, and write up in a JAMA article.

And now I need to lie down. Titanic powers are at war within me.