I’ve seen nothing from the CDC on the subject, but I cannot see any reason why lap time with a warm dog would not be part of a COVID treatment program.
Also, it occurred to me yesterday, as I was eating a bowl of Ramen noodles–still one of my dietary mainstays when I’m under the weather–that the Campbell’s Soup Company really could have made a killing when the COVID crisis started, had they returned to production with one of the finest of all therapeutic soups, Pepper Pot. Alas! I’ve still not got round to making my own. At this point it’s been so long since I’ve eaten the Campbell’s that I’ll be going off memory for the flavor, but I’m up to the challenge. (The main challenge for that soup will be finding its main protein component, cow tripe.) I did find the episode from The Frugal Gourmet on YouTube where Jeff Smith made Pepper Pot soup (the episode is in two parts on YouTube and the soup straddles both, so: part one, part two), and it doesn’t look hard at all.
(I also learned that there is a Guyanese dish called Pepperpot, which is not the same thing as the Philadelphia soup. From what I’ve read, the Philadelphia soup does come from Colonial Black culture by way of the Caribbean and then back to Africa, so maybe the dishes are of similar heritage. I don’t know about making my own Guyanese Pepperpot, but I’d sure like to taste it.)
Oh, as for how I’m feeing: Pretty good! The cold is almost entirely gone, with just the usual remnant throat crud to cough out or whatever. Again, had I had this exact cold without the context of COVID, it would have been just another annoying cold. I’m sad that my coldless streak has ended; I continue to think that our societal acceptance of regular colds is kind of insane. But then, I think a lot of things we accept as a society are insane.
Assuming I don’t relapse, my next target is Friday morning, when I plan to test again. I’m hoping it’s negative. Meanwhile…onward and upward, I suppose!
It’s a pretty big house, and you’ve got a lot of stuff to get rid of. But you’re sure the town trash service will be perfectly happy to deal with all of it, so you start piling it up down by the street.
And you keep piling…and piling…and piling.
It’s a giant pile you got there.
Think of the biggest garage sale you’ve ever seen, and imagine all of that stuff…in one pile, down by the street, with the idea that the town’s trash service will cheerfully pick it all up.
Naturally, the town’s trash service does not pick it all up…or even some of it. Or any of it.
So your pile sits there for a week, maybe two, before you finally rent a dumpster and transfer the contents of your pile into it. Which is what you should have done in the first place. And who knows, maybe a representative from The Town contacted you and said “Nice try, but get a dumpster, at your expense.”
Anyway, now the pile’s gone.
And it’s a month later.
And you’re still clearing out your house.
And inexplicably, you somehow still have enough stuff to get rid of to stock another biggest garage sale in history. (How you’ve packed this much crap into that one house is a mystery for another time.”)
So you decide–because it’s the obvious conclusion!–that what you do now is very simple: you start hauling all your stuff down to the side of the street and start making a nice giant pile….
[some steps omitted]
…and now, two weeks later, you’re on your second dumpster.
Mr. Carlin on germs and disease (play through headphones if you’re at work and you share a desk with some easily-offended Karen-type):
Obviously I’m not in total agreement here, but it’s fun watching an artist at the top of his game. Carlin’s language had such music, such rhythm to it. He’s an icon of comedy, but I don’t think he gets his due as a prose-poet.
As for me this morning? Feeling better! As I’ve said, this cold has been proceeding in exactly the same fashion that my colds normally go, and if not for COVID I’d never have thought much about this particular cold beyond its annoyance level. I’ve now reached the point where I’m sneezing a lot less and my throat is significantly less sore. I’m still waiting for the stuffiness upstairs to abate to the point where I can smell things*, but I imagine that’s in the offing soon. Whereas my sleep the night before last was interrupted frequently by sneezing and coughing, my sleep last night was much more fitful, and it was only interrupted a couple times, and those were by a dog making his “Excuse me, I need to go outside and pee now” noises. (The Dee-oh-gee had a rough day yesterday, but more on that another time. He’s doing OK, though, for a doggo who is about to turn ten years old.)
So, to sum up: Feeling better, not a hundred percent, but definitely on the mend. I suspect that by Thursday I’ll be feeling quite normal. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep on imagining my vaxxed-and-boosted immune system working its way through my bloodstream and escorting freshly-dead COVID virus molecules directly into my colon.
(And a promise to you, readers: barring something significant happening down there at some point in the future, this is the last time I shall ever mention my colon in this space. A writer has limits.)
*On my sense of smell: I know that loss of scent and taste were major symptoms of COVID’s original variants, but that is apparently much less the case with the current versions of this damned thing. Also, when I get colds I always lose my sense of smell for a day or two, pretty much because I’m pretty stuffed up. I can still taste food and beverages, though with the scent component out of play, eating is a lot less enjoyable.
I started feeling a bit of scratchiness in the back of my throat the other night, after we got home from the County Fair, but I didn’t think much of it. It was a dry and dusty day, I didn’t drink nearly as much water as I usually drink, and I do occasionally grapple with mild hay-fever this time of year. But yesterday it started feeling suspiciously like an actual cold, and this morning I got up and thought, “Yup. This is a thing. I’d better take a test.”
And, to no surprise at all, there it is.
I’m not terribly worried at this point. So far this just feels like every other mild head-cold I’ve had, though I’m irritated because I’ve enjoyed not having had a cold in at least three years. I’m vaccinated with all boosters available (second booster came a couple months ago), and I’m in decent health for a fellow my age (the weight could be less, yeah yeah, whatevs, I’m working on it slowly). I’ve also maintained my habit of masking, though maybe not quite as religiously as I was. I’ve no idea where I got this from, but I’m happy that it’s taken me this long, and that my hard work to not get it does seem to have paid off. Dating from the day the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, I’ve made it 886 days without getting this damned thing. I know folks who have had it more than once in that same period.
I continue to be vexed by resistance to simple measures like vaccines and masking. My commitment to “personal freedom” does not outweigh my awareness that I am a part of what I still hope is at least a partially-functioning society, and on a more mundane note, I genuinely don’t understand why we’ve all just accepted “getting sick two to four times a year” as just…something we do. Like it’s the cost of doing business. What is that about?
So anyway, that’s the latest. Sigh…but if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a virus to curb-stomp. I ain’t got time for your shit, COVID!
Our summers are partially dominated by two Fairs: the Sterling Renaissance Festival (or Faire), and the Erie County Fair. We’ve done the former already, and later today, we go to the latter! More to come on that…but for now, here’s my favorite of all the photos I’ve ever taken at the EC Fair. I took this eleven years ago, and I’m not sure which camera this was. But I like the energy here and the gentle hazing of the light….
If I needed a visual summation of the last six months, this would be it.
Ayup. That’s an orthopedic boot.
I was not in the boot. The Wife was. She has had troublesome ankles her entire life, but this past winter it really started to flare up to the point where she needed medical attention. Medications and physical therapy were up first, as was this big honkin’ spaceman boot.
This did not work.
Enter…orthopedic surgery, six weeks of icing and elevating and not putting any weight on it, and now, finally, physical therapy. She just today got the OK to stop wearing the Big Honkin’ Boot all the time, so for the first time since, I dunno, February, she has two regular shoes on.
This whole ordeal has been a struggle, in a lot of ways, but it was a necessary struggle that will hopefully lead to better days ahead.
And yes, this post was also an excuse to use the fun phrase to make fun of Canadian accents, “oot ‘n a boot”.
August has always been my favorite of the summer months. My relationship with July has never been the best, though I admit it’s improved in the last few years. Back when I detested any temperature over, say, 73 degrees, I found July to generally be 31 days of torture where any minute spent outside the comforts of force-air cooling was akin to some form of Medieval torture. August, however? August is still warm–it can be just as hot as July–but usually August starts to see the shift toward more comfortable air, with cooler and less humid nights. Also, August is when the shortening of the days starts to be noticeable at last: I am a lover of night, and its return is something to cheer.
August is, really, the first of my five favorite months of the year. The light seems a bit more golden, and the stars begin to brighten.
Last weekend we attended the Sterling Renaissance Festival for the first time since 1999! Huzzah!!!
Knights at play!
Obviously the Festival didn’t happen in 2020, and I’m honestly not sure if it tried to happen last year, but in any event we did not attend if it did. This year, though, we finally returned. Sadly, The Wife has to wait until next year to go back! She was unable to go this year due to recent foot surgery (everything’s fine, just a tendonitis issue that needed fixing). The Renfest does the best it can, but the nature of its location–it’s literally built onto a hillside–makes it very difficult for folks with mobility issues. We just didn’t want to go through all that struggle, unfortunately.
So this year it was just The Daughter and I. Still, we had a great time. There were occasional moments when The Wife’s absence was felt, none moreso than, of all things, the roaming pickle vendor. He’s a fellow who roams around with a wagon loaded with giant, juicy pickles, which are one of The Wife’s favorite treats. Usually at some point we see the Pickle Guy and The Wife says, “You should go buy me a pickle.” And I do. Alas, ’twas not to be this time!
(In an amusing moment, at the late-afternoon joust, the pickle vendor finally sold out, so he shouted “FREE PICKLE…JUICE!” And a couple of people actually took empty water bottles to take him up on the offer. I do not always understand my fellow humans.)
This year, I finally was able to partly dress for attendance at the Faire!
Note my pendant watch…I’m representing Renaissance dress, steampunk, AND modern workwear here. Were I a knight, I would be Sir Eclectic!
Yes, I know that this outfit is anachronistic to a Faire set in a faux-Elizabethan village. The shirt is a Renfest-style shirt, though, so I was only half a walking anachronism.
(I dressed like this as an experiment, too, regarding how to dress in high heat. I’ll save those thoughts for another post. Yes, I was hot…but I don’t think shorts-and-a-tee-shirt would have made me feel any cooler.)
The drive from home to the Faire is a long one, roughly two-and-a-half hours. The first two-thirds of the drive is a boring hundred miles down the New York State Thruway, but after that, it’s a lovely drive through the hill country north of the Finger Lakes and into the Lake Ontario watershed.
I love this house and I look forward to seeing it every year as we drive by. It looks like it’s been there since the War of 1812. I don’t know a thing about this house’s history.
A trombone in a Renaissance group? Yes! While the modern trombone didn’t exist yet, the forerunner instrument, called a sackbut, was quite common.Daily parade. God save the Queen!Acrobatics and such. I didn’t see this whole performance, but just the very end when she did this.“You can’t tell a day from a knight without a program!”I scoped out my spot to watch the joust early, 45 minutes early, to be exact. By this time I was glad to sit with a cool beverage and do some people-watching.“A mighty whack?” “His skull will CRACK!”
In terms of food, we really didn’t eat much at the Faire! Our tradition is the big roasted turkey legs that are dripping in barbecue sauce. And when I say ‘dripping’, I mean, DRIPPING. I was almost successful at getting through it without getting sauce and turkey grease on my white shirt, but…yeah. Almost.
I’ve already got it washed out, thankfully! I know what to do in such events.
Later on, I enjoyed a wine slushie. This was my only alcohol at the Faire. That shit’s expensive, yo!
(On the way home we stopped for dinner, at a fried chicken joint we love in Webster, NY. We had chicken and waffles, which is a killer combo.)
Some candids I snapped:
These two had the best costumes I saw all day. The woman on the right had a stunning femme-fatale pirate thing going on. Magnificent!
The Queen and her Royal Party, taking in the jousting entertainment.A knight addresses the crowd, encouraging lusty cheers.One of the attendants for the joust.I’ve seen Milady at the Faire before. Usually she is on horseback. This time she was not.
Not a great shot. I was trying for the stilt-walker, not the fellow in the hat or what might be his family.
A fine knight, astride his noble beast!A pirate lass. Fantastic costume work here!Another fine costume. That puppet on her shoulder articulates! There’s a wire that runs down through your clothes and you can twitch the wire in certain ways to make the puppet lift its wings, turn its head, and the like. I know this because The Daughter bought one.
At day’s end, we were tired and fulfilled and happy…but also sad because the Faire was over for another year. (I mean, we could go back, there are a few weekends left, but we have other happy events coming up as well….) I did my best to look reflective and melancholy at the prospect of returning to real life after a day in an Elizabethan England that wasn’t also a rather violent realm of short lives and many poxes….
There was still some beauty to be had, though. One of my quirks regarding road trips–and there’s a very good chance that I inherited this from my father–is that on any out-and-back-again trip, I don’t like coming home the same way I went out. In this case, that means that instead of driving south from the Faire to the Thruway, I take Route 104 along the Lake Ontario shore back to Rochester, and then I-490 back to the Thruway for the last 35 miles or so. This is a lovely road that goes over Irondequoit Bay…
…and through downtown Rochester.
Alas, there comes a time when our revelries are now ended. So, we shall see you again next year, people of Warwickshire!
Oh, and the title of this post comes from, naturally enough, Camelot:
Hey folks, just a quick check-in here…I’m taking a few days off from work as my sister visits from out-of-town, so posting will likely be scarce here for a bit. Going offline is a good thing!
Meanwhile, since it’s summer, here’s Joe Hisaishi and “Summer”.
