YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street and I have discovered the hard way that I wasn’t immune to the Covid virus.
Not by a long shot.
I have good about keeping up with vaccinations for Covid, and got my most recent one this past week of Jan. 25.
I believe in medicine, not the Internet experts.
Late in February after a typically busy week around lots of crowds, I woke up during Saturday night with what I thought was a sore throat. Missed church that Sunday because of the throat and a persistent cough.
I had no temperature, but on Monday decided to get ahead of the cough so I went to a physician’s office where I was diagnosed with a respiratory infection.
As is my practice I shamefully asked for some radioactive heroin cough syrup because my coughs are typically bad.
I got a prescription for antibiotics and limped through the week until Thursday when I got a call from daughter who told me she had self-tested positive for Covid. Since I had been with her in a crowd on Saturday I went to Howard Memorial Hospital to get a Covid test. I am a fumbling bumbler with ADC and ACD and I just cannot do those home tests.
During this time I still had no temperature and no loss of the sense of smell or taste.
The hospital tested me and told me I was positive.
I went home and mostly quarantined myself for the next week. Watched a lot of reruns on tv.
Looking back, I had no temperature or loss of taste or smell waaaay back in 2021 when I went through a spell of extreme coughing. I have blamed the strain of that coughing episode for the loss of vision of my left eye — a loss that a retina doc said was due some trash in a blood vessel which blocked blood to the eye.
I have been told by Internet experts that my current bout with Covid was mostly light because I had kept up with the shots, and was already taking an antibiotic.
One thing that I have learned is that, after Covid, you will test negative with a home test kit, but may test positive for several weeks if tested by the hospital.
I mourn the loss of friends who were taken by this virus. It is still around and it is no less dangerous.
Get your vaccination and wash your hands.
And another thing: Covid did not reduce my appetite.
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DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME. For the second consecutive year I have had to throw away a digital clock because I couldn’t find the instructions to change the time.
This has happened more than once in my lifetime dating back to the advent of digital clocks.
Several times I actually smashed the offending clock with a six-iron, and went to the store to buy a replacement.
I pay a neighborhood kid to change the clock in my truck.
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THE GOOD EARTH. Spring is coming right along. Blooms cover the ground already under tulip trees and Bradford pears. Dogwoods are emerging as usual in time for Easter. Country drives are great!
In my own yard there is a flowering quince which is fighting with some privet which has hatefully come up in the middle of the quince. The quince is about to lose its red blooms.
And every day more pale pink blooms burst out on the Japanese cherry blossom tree. It’s hard to believe the tree has been there for more than 20 years. It’s not far from full bloom.
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THINGS I LEARNED by opening email: Every time you clean something, you just make something else dirty. This gives hope to us hoarders.
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ANIMAL CRACKERS. Cardinals can’t hide. There’s not much foliage yet on the patio around the bird buffet table. Bluejays are off to parts unknown, and so the dinette is monopolized by the redbirds that swoop in for raw peanuts.
That red coat just screams against the gray fence background.
I once saw a hawk knock a cardinal to the ground and clutch the unfortunate thing in its talons. It was a horrible thing to hear and see one animal eaten alive by another.
I ran toward them in my neighbor’s yard in hopes of freeing the redbird but the hawk just calmly flew away. The cardinal was still screeching in the hawk’s grip as they disappeared over the neighbor’s rooftop.
MORE ANIMAL CRACKERS. On Sunday I do believe I saw the first Mississippi Kite circling the buffet table of the neighborhood.
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WORD GAMES. Athletic twins: One and Done. They should be sitting on the bench of the Arkansas Razorback basketball team. Whatever happened to ‘student athletes’ who came to play AND to take classes AND to meet coeds?
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HE SAID: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Henry David Thoreau, philosopher and author
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SHE SAID: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Madame Marie Curie, Nobel scientist
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
