Night Shift Spider

      There was no sign of a spiderweb when I got home from work yesterday but -- Thursday being trash night -- I went outside with a bag of office trash well after sunset and she had a full web up, this time all under the eaves, the usual plane of the web carefully bent into a kind of saddle shape to fit neatly around the corner, well out of human reach.

     The spider scuttled smartly into hiding behind the downspout as I approached.  She's not taking any chances!  The web showed signs of a few big catches, holes in the mesh where something big had been trapped and secured (and consumed) or cut loose.  In deference to Tamara's concerns, I moved the big trash can out from the wall so it wouldn't be under the web.  (Tam used to live in a house with big, hairy wolf spiders haunting the entryway.  They had either poor timing or lousy eyesight, since they tended to rappel down on her to the mutual discomfort of both parties, and she's been suspicious of all spiders ever since.)

     The web near our back door is a good spot for a spider; there's a farmyard-type light high on the kitchen extension that lights the back yard and around the corner from it, a small sconce illuminates the back door.  The web is right between them, with a good influx of flying insects.

     Early this morning, most of the web had been taken down; the spider was motionless on the few remaining strands, legs pulled in, apparently asleep.  An hour later, she'd removed the last of the web and (presumably) hidden for the day.

     We've got a night shift spider, at least for a few days.

A Philosophical Approach

     "Aim high; adapt to difficulties; do your work; clean up after yourself."

     Last night, an ambitious spider the size of a fat cicada -- or an average thumb -- built a web outside the back door of my house, where the back part of the kitchen extends about six feet and overhanging eaves offer a little shelter.  The center was nine feet above the ground.

     The spider's shape resembled the Spiny Micrathena that visited a few years ago, but much larger and no spines.  She had gold bands on her legs, and was most probably an orb-weaver, a very large family of spiders.  Her web had four main anchor points: one up under the eaves, one on the crook of a downspout, one out of sight from the door, probably the sill of the west kitchen window -- and the last one ran all the way to a small pile of sticks on my patio!  Or so I inferred.  By the time I noticed her, it was too dark to see any of the web unless the sunset sky was behind it.  The spider would swoop down like a trapeze artist, apparently floating, tie a new strand to the anchor and head back up towards the center of the web.

     It was fascinating.  The spider's concentration was total, spinning and weaving.  I checked in several times though the evening and by the time I went to bed, she had completed the radials and was running a spiral of cross-strands.  I was considering the best path around the web to the garage for the next morning, since I would much rather have one spider than a surplus of flies and mosquitos.

     I woke in the night and it was raining.  A quick look out the back door found the grumpy-looking spider rerigging her web; the long ground-level anchor line had given way, and the web was flapping gently in the breeze.  While I watched, she got it well-secured at three points and went to work on repairs.  I went back to bed, thinking the problem of how to get by the spider without disturbing the web had been solved, leaving the problem of Tam's aversion to spiders overhead (and plotting, she says, to drop down on her) for later.

     This morning, the spider had solved it for me: there's not a trace of the web to be found!  The Spiny Micrathena had similar habits; she would make a new web every day, having taken the old one down at the end of her work.  Maybe this spider's on second shift.

     That's a pretty good tenant to have, one who works diligently and doesn't leave a mess.  My shy little indoor ghost spiders, who leave gossamer, dust-collecting traces in the ceiling corners week after week, would do well to follow her example.

Behold, the spider. Also, a cloud formation that looks like an enormous eye, watching the spider and me.

Rain!

     Summer in Indiana means rain.  It's normal.  The recent heat wave is unusual, but today we had a lot of rain in the morning (and there's more predicted for this afternoon) and it's cooler.

     We're also under an "areal flood warning," which I consistently hear as an "aerial flood warning," meaning the floodwaters will be higher than people's TV aerials.  Nope.  Nor is it "a real flood warning" but they forgot to hit the space bar.  The entire forecast area is at some risk of flooding.  Sure enough, my basement took on a little water, enough to make a puddle draining away to the floor drain.

     At least it's not so beastly hot.

U.S. Out Of UNESCO; RADAR Out Of Their Minds

     UNESCO is a UN agency that encourages peace through cultural exchange; they also list and track sites of exceptional interest and, yeah, they're pretty much longhaired idealists.

     They're apparently not racist enough for the Trump administration and, just like the last time Mr. Trump* had the gig, the U.S. has withdrawn from participation and funding; the Federal government was picking up about eight percent of UNESCO's tab.

     While it's not up to the level of abandoning international soft-power efforts that fed starving people and built good will towards the United States (cough, USAID, cough), it's another self-destructive move.  But it's also not the second but the third time the Feds have walked away from the table.  Like most UN organizations, UNESCO is kinda slapdash, prone to politicization, sketchy finances and a wavering focus; in 1984, the U.S. bailed for the first time.  Here's what U. S. Congressman Jim Leach (R - Iowa) had to say about it a few years later:

"The reasons for the withdrawal of the United States from UNESCO in 1984 are well-known; my view is that we overreacted to the calls of some who wanted to radicalize UNESCO, and the calls of others who wanted the United States to lead in emasculating the UN system. The fact is UNESCO is one of the least dangerous international institutions ever created. While some member countries within UNESCO attempted to push journalistic views antithetical to the values of the west, and engage in Israel bashing, UNESCO itself never adopted such radical postures. The United States opted for empty-chair diplomacy, after winning, not losing, the battles we engaged in... It was nuts to get out, and would be nuttier not to rejoin."

     You can't fix 'em if you don't have a seat at the table.

*  *  *

     Tam showed me a meme this morning that is circulating among the conspiracy-minded Right, claiming "NexRad," the next-generation weather radar system, actually means "Death Radiation"† in Latin.  At least one lunatic has already tried to blow up a radar tower recently.

     I have long railed against people who want us to live in mud huts, no matter if they were Green types who wanted to give up technology to save the planet (as opposed to, oh, building out wind, solar and efficient power storage) or RETVRN ideologues who figure they'll get to live in the big house while the rest of us till the fields (don't count on it, kiddo).  Threatening a highly-effective weather radar system as storms and similar events are getting worse (go argue causes over there in the corner where you won't annoy the grownups; it's happening no matter why) is another mud-hut move, right up there with eschewing vaccinations.  If you want you and yours to die early and often, go for it, but you don't get to inflict that stuff on the rest of us. 
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* Note that I do not make up or borrow amusing or dismissive nicknames for politicians, even the ones I heartily loathe.  Using silly monikers is foolish habit; you end up engaging with the caricature and not the person.  It's also symptomatic of a grade-school-level intellect, like chasing squeamish kids around with a booger stuck to the end of your finger.
 
† I have been through this before.  In fact, the peak power levels and operating frequencies of radar systems are scary -- but the reality is that they transmit in extremely short bursts, and the average power, roughly the heating power, is very low and falls off as the inverse square of distance.  Add in that the dish is moving and systems are interlocked such that when the dish stops, the transmitter is locked off, and.... Nope.  Radar is not now and has never been a death ray.  It won't even warm up your coffee unless you defeat the interlocks, stick the cup right in front of the dish and risk melting the transmitter.  The Brits would have liked to have a death ray, but when Watson-Watt went looking for one, all he found was a way to spot airplanes -- and clouds.  And all that did was help win the Battle of Britain for them.

Whining

     I woke up with a cataclysmic headache, grumped and stumbled my way through the dishes I put off last night, and, having taken an OTC analgesic, I'm sitting in anticipation of eventual relief.

     Why'd I put off the dishes?  There hangs a tale.  Last night, I heated up some Hoppin' John for supper;* I'd planned to add a little canned corn, but I'd used it up and not restocked.  A big can of fire-roasted chilis, simmered in beef broth, was awaiting the defrosted gallon-sized freezer bag of leftovers.  --A bag that slipped in my hands between microwave and stove, and spilled about a quarter of the contents on the stovetop, my legs, my sandals and the floor.  This mess became a short-term emergency, as I tried to clean it up without tracking the mess any further and Tam corralled the cats: bag contents into the big stewpot, bag in the sink, a long reach to the paper towel and a very slow process of cleaning up without stepping in it.  There were Words.  Dinner was delayed.

     We watched an episode of Murderbot (the bot in question is not murderous, per se, but...well, it's a long story and Martha Wells tells it better than I could hope to) and had little ice cream cups as a treat, after which Tam took out the kitchen trash and remarked, "It's about to pour down rain out there."

     It seemed to me that was important, but I couldn't remember why.  I cleaned up the dishes and put the leftover Hoppin' John into a marked freezer bag, to freeze now and discard later.  Outside, the skies broke and it started to rain.  Looking out the back window after putting the bag into the lowest drawer of the freezer, I noticed...the uncovered grill, left from roasting hot dogs and corn on the cob the previous night!

     Yeah, that would be why the rain mattered.  I dashed out and got the cover (a large heavy-duty trash bag) over the grill as the rain proceeded to come down in sheets and bucket-loads, soaking me to the skin.

     Despite the heat, I was thoroughly chilled.  And pretty well over my limit of excursions and alarums for the evening.  Back indoors, I dried off, changed into my nightgown and went to bed, leaving the dishes for later, a problem for Future Bobbi.
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* I typed "dinner," which was the big evening meal in my childhood home, then went back and changed it to "supper."  For many people, "dinner" is the midday meal.  And yes, we called it "Sunday dinner," the nice meal with rolls, salad, mashed potatoes, a side vegetable and some centerpiece meat enjoyed on the second-best china after church.  But the rest of the week, dinner was what you had before TV-watching and bedtime.  (If you were wondering, the best china -- and "the good silver" -- was only for Thanksgiving and Easter, possibly Christmas.  As an adult, I have one set of "china."  I was determined to not have any once-a-year frippery; so instead, I have what's left of the square pink Melmac everyday dinnerware of my childhood, stacked in a cabinet and never used.)  

Under The Heat Dome

     Call it climate, call it weather: either way, there's broad agreement that this extremely hot weather is unpleasant.  So far, the central air-conditioning at Roseholme Cottage has kept up; I keep the dehumidifier going in the basement and manage the temperature setting on the main floor by how much condensation appears on the longest and most convoluted duct in the basement.  73° to 75°F keeps everything manageable and comfortable.

     My car's climate control barely copes.  The system is low on working fluid and I should get it into the shop, but it's not too bad, yet.

     The kicker is the building at what I call the North Campus.  The equipment up there is happiest between 60° and 65°F and it moves a lot of air.  A zip-up hoodie over a T-shirt is barely enough, and by the time my day ends, the oppressive heat outside is something of a relief for at least the first half-hour.  Going from one extreme to the other plays merry hell with my sinuses, and while it's definitely a "first world problem," it's a problem nevertheless.

     By the weekend, the prediction is that the worst will have passed, for now.  But if it's getting this hot in June, what's August going to be like?

     Call it weather; call it climate.  Either way, it's as real as a sledge hammer.  And there's no dodging the blow.

In The Dark

      A string of bad thunderstorms rolled across Indiana late yesterday afternoon, catching me on a break at a bookstore near work.  About five o'clock, the power went out.

     Work has a generator and an automatic transfer switch.  The bookstore, not so much.  The traffic lights, not so much.

     I was near the North Campus, where various street projects have snarled the already-busy traffic.  From the bookstore, I could see the intersection I'd need to cross to get back, a six-crossing-six (counting left turn lanes) with a two-block backup in at least two directions.  The intersection kept jamming up, minor fender-benders and gridlocks as drivers tried to sort out how to accommodate the left-turn lanes when a dead stoplight defaults for a four-way stop.  In theory, right-of-way precesses around the intersection counterclockwise, a system the works well enough when a pair of two-lane roads meet.  If no one is turning left, it often devolves into taking turns, alternating the north-south and east-west (etc.) streets.  The multi-lane version with left-turn lanes can work that way, too, but it's complicated and all it takes is one driver getting out of sync or in a hurry to bollix the whole thing.

     So I waited, texting Tam at home, nearly seven miles away: "STAYING SAFE?"
Tam: "OK.  POWER IS OUT HERE."  That was about 5:15.  I checked the power and light company's outage map, and they showed small outages everywhere, with a few bigger ones indicated.

     By six o'clock, power was still out and the bookstore decided to close.  They let the remaining customers put our selections on hold and gently shooed us out.  The big intersection was still a mess.  The store is in a large strip center and I scouted around the parking lot in my car: the way to the south, where the street narrows to a lane each direction, was moving pretty well, so I took it, aiming home.  A mile down the road, the traffic light was out, and churning through it was slow.  Two miles on, the light was working, and I was able to turn.  Next stoplight was out, but with lighter traffic, going smoothly.  From there on, including crossing Meridian Street, a major north-south artery, all the traffic lights were okay, businesses open, houses lit up -- until I got to my neighborhood.

     I drove down in front of my house.  The porch light was out: no power.  That meant the garage door opener would be out, so I parked in front and went in.  I had leftovers in the freezer, and with a gas range, that meant it was time to use them up.  Not too long after I arrived, there was an ugly gazonking noise from the direction of the substation a few block away, surely a sign of progress.  I made dinner and Tam and I watched the little battery TV in the kitchen while we ate, thinking the lights would come back on at any moment.  Nope.

     We cleared away the TV trays and dishes as best we could; by then it was getting dark enough we broke out flashlights.  I plugged my phone into the fat backup battery I keep charged up just in case, and went to bed with a book on my iPad.

     It wasn't a good night for sleep.  I kept waking up in the dark, wondering where I was and remembering, lighting the iPad back up and reading until I dozed off.  Eleven p.m., midnight, two a.m., three....  At four-thirty, I was startled awake by eye-searing brightness through closed eyelids!  I'd apparently flipped the switch for the overhead light at some point, and, the power being out, left it on.  That sixty-Watt light might as well have been a flashbulb.  I got up, turned it off, wandered out to the kitchen in time to see the light in the garage go out, went out and checked that the garage door was down, and went back to bed.

     Almost twelve hours without power.  Everything in the fridge is inedible except for Tam's soft drinks. my peanut butter cups, the UHT milk I keep in there because it's better cold and maybe the oranges.  I don't know about the contents of the freezer but I don't feel like trusting to luck.  Trash day is tomorrow and it's all going.

     We have had worse.  I think the power was out for nearly three days after the flooding Spring storms shortly after I moved in, but it hasn't been that bad since.

Not A Navigator

     While I have a little bit of a sense of direction -- I usually know which direction is north -- my memory of maps and routes has a tendency to become mirror-imaged, flipping east and west or, less often, north and south.  And once I'm off my mental map, I tend to fret.

     So the ability to get directions from Google Maps, and then smartphones that do the same thing only out loud and on the fly, has been a real help.  Software, however, is only as good as the questions we ask of it, and when I left for my in-factory class on Monday, I slipped up: I told my phone to take me to the destination city, and not the specific hotel where I had reservations.

     I left late, and drove mostly in a clear patch with storm clouds all around, perhaps one of the best ways to travel wide-open agricultural spaces: the sky was spectacular, anvil-shaped thunderheads lit from below, cream-colored against deep blue, ragged purple scarves flowing across turquoise; distant lighting flashing from slate-colored clouds or illuminating them from within, and as sunset approached, a thin spot in the storm allowed a pinkish-orange streak across the western sky.  It was stunning.

     It was also distracting.  The sun set while I was still on the road and my poor night vision combined with intermittent oncoming traffic meant 65 mph was about as fast as I could go without feeling like I was overrunning my headlights.  I still had fifteen miles or more to travel.  A mile away from an exit to a state highway, my phone told me to take it, and reminded me again as I got closer.  "EXIT NOW!"  So I did.  Clever phone, it knows all the shortcuts, right?

     The highway angled off and downhill, in what felt like the right direction.  The city I was headed for is along a large river, with hills and bluffs to the east.  With plenty of curves and a 45 mph limit, the two-lane highway led me through the dark, past a few small businesses, through intersections with a house or store, and up the river valley.  I sensed more than felt an increasing bulk off to my right, and as I rounded a long curve, bright streetlights illuminated what looked like a castle wall with a pair of gates on that side of the highway: the huge entrance and exit of an underground quarry!

     Various industrial areas got thicker on either side and I started to worry.  I was well behind schedule, and this didn't look like hotel territory!  Factories and refineries gave way to warehouses, gas stations and corner stores; my phone directed me to turn among larger and newer buildings.  A couple of blocks more put me in downtown, about the time restaurants were closing.  "YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION," my phone announced.

     The hell I had.  I found a parking spot, fished my phone out of the cup holder and had a look, realizing for the first time that I had told it to take me to the city, not my hotel.  I corrected that and, a mere six and a half miles, ten stoplights and an increasingly protesting bladder later, reached my hotel.

     Check-in was refreshingly brisk, my luggage had somehow become unreasonably heavy along the way, and my room was comfortable, cool and inviting.  Especially the modern plumbing.  While I don't sleep well in hotel rooms -- the beds are too big, too soft and too high -- that night, I claimed every hour of the eight I had earned, entirely zonked out.

An Organization Not Known For Surprise; Numbers That Will Remain Officially Unknown

     So the new Pope is an American by birth, though he most recently spent many years serving in Peru.  Like his predecessor, the first Pope from the New World, he is likely to bring a different perspective to his Church.  Nevertheless, and despite wild talk of the political leanings of the man, bear in mind that his Church has lasted longer than even the most generous read of the lifespan of the Roman Empire, and that as a result, it is institutionally conservative in a way few (if any) other organizations even come close to.

     Don't get pulled into the speculation.  This was a routine (if major) event, one that has happened many times before.
---
     Elsewhere, the Trump Administration has announced they will no longer be determining, sharing or tracking the price tag of damage done by large-scale natural disasters.  Combined with an ongoing push to diminish the the role and functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this might have the effect of minimizing the impact of news about such disasters, and possibly reducing voluntary contributions -- except, of course, that insurance companies (and many state governments) gather such data, share it with one another and often release it publicly; also "if it bleeds, it leads" in news coverage, and nothing bleeds headline ink and newscast opening video like a big disaster.

     Hurricane season, tornado season and wildfire season will be interesting this year.  Pretending a thing isn't there doesn't make it go away.  Never has, never will.

Centipede!

     They've got knees, you know, moving in a forest of long, scissoring legs like a busy assembly line of robots.  This one went zooming across the kitchen floor from sink to stove.  Tamara and both cats alerted on it, with Holden Wu expressing considerable interest in hunting the wriggly insect: a long-legged centipede, almost certainly the House Centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, and probably lured by our small springtime invasion of "crazy ants."

     They are slightly venomous, with a bite that  can inflict bee-sting levels of pain.  So while Tam herded the cats to safety, I did what was necessary.  While I hate getting rid of a small creature that hunts ants, they're not safe toys for the the cats.

Drat That Infection

     Tam and I both fought viral bronchitis and I have to say, too many more victories like this and we will be undone.  We're both struggling to get back to the lung capacity we had before it struck.  I can't speak for her but I tire easily at present and I get foggier when I am tired.

     I struggled to finish manuscript critiques for the writer's group I chair, and then I discovered I've run the black ink tank dry on my color printer.  I still have the big, fancy all-black laser printer, at least, so I got everything printed out.  The highlighting doesn't work quite as well, but it should do.

Ears

     As my hearing slowly goes wonky, I get delightfully surreal flashes: "Funding provided by Bakery Drinker, supporting the upcoming Ham and Egg Conference in Indianapolis."  I'd go to that one, but they're gonna have to promise to lay off the sauce.

     It's largely a phenomenon of listening to radio streams and podcasts on the tiny speaker of an Alexa "Dot" while washing dishes or cooking: lots of background noise and audio with a wider bandwidth than the transducer can handle.  With a better audio system and earphones or bigger speakers, I'm fine.  I probably won't always be fine -- and I remind myself, as I am reminding you, to take time to listen to music you like, at volume levels that are suitable but do not endanger your hearing.  Later replays will trigger memories, allowing you to "hear" even the parts your ears can no longer accommodate.

The Doctor Wasn't Kidding

     The write-up from the clinic said I'd be coughing after this thing had faded and they weren't kidding.  It comes and goes, sometimes just a productive hack, other times a lingering ache or a round of knives in the lungs.

     Not my idea of a thrill ride, but still better than pulling the emergency cord and climbing off.

Normalcy Bias

     This is not a post about current events.  It's not a post about politics.  It's about health.

     I have been ill for most of this month.  I started feeling better Sunday afternoon, but I was worn out.  Monday, I made an effort to get ready for work -- and ran out of energy.  As in laying on the bed, dizzy, panting for breath, heart rater high and oxygen level low.  After a rest and a nap, I managed a short expedition to the neighborhood grocer, which left me weak and shaking.

     Yesterday, I moved with a little more speed, and still had had a couple of near-faints that convinced me to stay off the roads.  I kept having night sweats, too, an experience I cannot recommend.  But I kept telling myself it was just a failure of willpower.

     Last night, no night sweats.  I slept most of the afternoon and all of the night.  I'm weak and clumsy, still coughing a little, but I can just about see normal from here.  And I know that for the last two days, I was unsuccessfully trying to pretend I felt normal.

     Maybe I can manage the trick today.  Here goes -- hey, presto!

Night Sweats/Day Heat

     Still?  Really?  Yes.  I suppose an advantage of a flannel nightgown is that it's highly absorbent: I went to sleep chilly -- the house is set at 67 F -- and woke up four hours later, coughing, damp every place one usually perspires, flannel soaked clean through.  The sheets were almost dry, so I turned the covers back, changed into a fresh nightgown and read for a little while before climbing back in.  Woke only to cough after that, so call it progress.

     Both the infection and one of the drugs I'm on for it can cause this, as can stress; I figure they're all interacting.  Fight it out, damn you, and leave me alone.

     Hungry this morning, and not much in the house in the way of fresh vegetables.  Bread, we've got; I picked up a meter-long fresh baguette when I was out getting my medication a couple of days ago.  I had a slice and a half of bacon, a pound of sweet Italian sausage, eggs, and...h'mm.  Tasty Bites microwavable Bombay Potatoes: "Potatoes and chickpeas with fresh tomatoes, onions, and spices."  I've had it before and it's good stuff.  Some kinds of Indian food are kissin' cousins to Tex-Mex, and this dish is one of them.  Perhaps a little strong and too high a sauce to vegetable ratio for what I was thinking. I found a small can of house-brand whole peeled potatoes that needed used up.

     In a 12" non-stick skillet, I fried the bacon, set it aside and drained the grease.  Followed with half of the sausage, saving the rest for later.  While that was going, I drained the canned potatoes, and diced them coarsely, setting a few aside that seemed overly soft. (Cheap canned potatoes are a diceroll, perfectly fine to bulk up a soup or stew, but textures vary.)  When the sausage was mostly done, I pushed it to the sides of the pan and added the potatoes to the center, with a dollop of bacon grease for luck.

     We had fresh baby carrots; I chopped a handful and added them to the potatoes, stirring, and microwaved the Bombay Potatoes.  I kept an eye on the pan, watching for the potatoes to turn a little translucent.  Once they did, I added the contents of the microwave bag and mixed everything well.  After giving it a little while to get acquainted, I pushed it all to the sides and scrambled a couple of large eggs in the center.  Eggs done, I mixed it all back together and crumbled the bacon into it.

     The end result has more sauce to it than my usual breakfast skillet meals, but not excessively so; you can eat it with a fork.  And it's a good as anything I have made.  There's a recognizably "Indian"* edge to it, but the tomato, onion and spices in the sauce resonate well with breakfast expectations.
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* India is a huge place, with a huge population and vast sweep of cultures.  Most of what we enjoy as "Indian" food in the West are dishes heavily affected by palate of the British Raj.  Try whatever comes along; they cook a lot of excellent stuff, often in delightfully unexpected ways and combinations. And I don't get a dime for the links.

"Those Poor Boys"

     Last week, as this lung infection was getting started, I opened the front door and nearly stepped out on a dead mouse, neatly centered on the doormat.

     It was pretty good-sized, and appeared to have been bitten on the back of the neck.  I used a piece of scrap cardboard to scoop it up and deposit it in a trash can waiting at the curb for pickup.

     As near as I can guess, one of the local feral female cats has seen our two tomcats lounging in the front window, and decided they look a little peaked (they aren't), or perhaps too pampered to know how to hunt.  So she left them a treat and a hint, right there at the door.  I can just about guess which one, too: there's a munchkin calico who had litter after litter of kittens until she was finally caught and spayed a few years ago.  She's sweet as can be, but completely distrustful of people.  Our neighbor to the north, who fed her for years, could get close and that was all.   Every other well-meaning attempt to civilize the cat resulted in an unhappy cat and a sad would-be benefactor.  But she is a nice cat nevertheless, and leaving a spare mouse for the handsome gentlemen-cats of Roseholme Cottage would be just her style.

     In other news, I am still sick, and getting tired of it.  Last night was another series of dozing off and waking up damp and overheated, then just overheated after I got wise to the pattern, and then chilled, and then too hot, and -- you get the picture.  Time.  I've just got to keep taking the pills and give it time.

Whiplash! (Cough, Cough, Cough)

     We now know how long "Forever" is in the Trump Administration: less than twenty-four hours.  Day before yesterday, the recent tariffs were going to be in place forever.  The President said so himself, on video.  Yesterday, he tweeted (or Truthed, Tictocked or blarthled or whatever the kids are doing these days) that most of the tariffs were suspended for three months, right then.

     I supposed they're technically still in place during a "suspension."  There's a ten percent floor on nearly everybody and China's still high and rising, both directions.  It was amusing to watch the various department heads and mouthpieces doing their level best to pivot and get the new shade of lipstick on the same tired old pig, but I'm not really up for nearly four more years of this.

     I wasn't really up for a trip to the clinic yesterday, either, but after a couple of episodes in which I couldn't draw breath for a bit, expert advice was needed.  It took something of a wait to get in, and they weren't very impressed with my pulse rate (rapid) or blood pressure (surprise! Or not).  The doc ran the list of my symptoms, from coughing, panting, night sweats, chills, dizziness, screamin' tinnitus, sinus drip, scratchy throat and so on all the way to low blood oxygen levels, then did her listening, poking, peering and prodding.

     "Viral bronchitis," the ultimate paperwork says, adding, "Most...infections last for 2-3 weeks and a post-bronchitic cough can last for 1-2 months." Two to three weeks?  One to two months?  Yikes!

     The doctor told me to keep on with my expectorant pills and acetaminophen, and drink plenty of liquids.  The paperwork adds "...research shows...increased water intake is more effective than a mucolytic...." when it comes to thinning out the thick stuff.  Good to know!  (Hot lemonade or limeade is a good source of liquids when you get tired of tea, just don't make it too strong.  Coffee, well, I love it, but it's not ideal in this application.)

     Antiviral meds for this sort of infection are few to nonexistent, and you have to narrow down which bug.  Conservative treatment addresses symptoms and relies on the tincture of time.*  So I have a witch's brew of a steroid (to calm the inflammation that's keeping my lungs full), a non-narcotic drug that sings the stretch sensors in the lungs to sleep so I don't hurt and can cough intentionally rather than getting ambushed, and a rescue inhaler.  The drugstore had the first two ready in a trice but the inhaler had to wait.  I managed to arrange for delivery, but I have already needed it three times and not had it, between last night and this morning.  Should be here in the next few hours.  I'm already short-tempered and I am mustering awareness that the steroid can turn me into an utter jerk, in the hope of mitigating the effect.

     Did the dishes just now -- three mugs, a glass, a bowl, a small skillet and some silverware -- and found I had to go sit down for awhile to catch my breath.  That's how annoying this is.
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* The doctor's secret is that many of the ills that affect us will run their due course in a healthy person, and the best way to address them is to ensure the symptoms don't beat the patient up while their body is fending off the aliment: the job of the physician is keeping the patient going while the tincture of time does the actual healing.  We've got cures for many diseases now, and time alone won't fix, say, a broken leg, but the best doctors I have known were keenly aware that time was the healer and they were there to help matters along.  --And that patients could be counted on to get in the way; but that's another story, about why Doc K envied veterinarians, whose patients couldn't talk back or scare themselves sicker looking up symptoms on WebMD. 

But About Me

     I can't fix the collapsing world economy, but after passing another lousy night complete with waking up panting, sweat-soaked, ears ringing a tune to the rhythm of my fast-hammering heart, I am going to try to get to the clinic today.  I think the deciding event was the breath I tried to draw that didn't work until I panicked, coughed and hacked my airway clear and beat my target pulse rate.

     Doctor stuff frustrates and annoys me.  I have very little dignity and they want to take away every scrap of it.  But there's a time to admit defeat.

     It is -- and you may read this as widely or as narrowly as you like -- it is never too late to realize you've been stubbornly sticking to a tactic or a plan that's not working, give up on it and try something else.

Wasted Day

     I was determined to get on the downhill side of this cold today.  Got up, had a sketchy breakfast, showered, took one of the twelve-hour OTC expectorant pills I had ordered and took Huck to the vet for his arthritis shot.

     Drove back home and had nothing left.  Nothing.  I called in sick, laid down and dozed off.  Woke a couple of hours later, made easy Eggs Pomodoro (a strip and a half of peppered bacon, fried and set aside; canned plain tomato sauce with the run of the spice cabinet: "Italian mix," basil, diced minced onion, garlic, chives, parsley, a little celery salt, a half-dozen wasabi peas for zing: crumble the bacon in, get it simmering, break three eggs into it, add a little diced cheese to the yolks -- I break 'em, YMMV -- and save the rest for serving), ate it and felt like a well-used washcloth again.  I laid down, dozed off while posting something silly on social media, and woke up twenty minutes later, panting like I'd tried to run a mile.  It took several minutes to catch my breath.  I felt chilled, and dozed off and on under the covers with a heating pad.

     That was six hours ago.  Tam woke me at dinner time (a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me, and that may have been too much).  I finally gathered enough wits to stick an oximeter on my finger: 92% with activity, flirting with the "maybe go see a doctor" level.  Which I will, if I still feel this lousy tomorrow.  Might be dancing around something ugly.  I'm still breathing like a bad imitation of Darth Vader in a housedress.  "Luke...I am your grandma!"
"No....!" [Lets go and falls away.]
Rats, and I had even baked cookies.  Ungrateful child.

Insightful Analysis

     It would be lovely to give you insightful analysis about what's going to happen to the economy next, but after the way this cold kicked me around yesterday, I don't have any.  I barely made it home from work, and crawled into bed as soon as I could change into a nightgown.

     And after fifty-some years of working for wages, mostly hourly, I'm about that optimistic about the economy.  Every time I have gotten a little bit ahead, either the politicians stagger into a war or they and/or their big-business friends get to tinkering, pull the wrong cord, and whatever gains I have made get mostly wiped out.  In 1980, I had a decent job and I was buying an older house in a kind of artsy neighborhood.  In 2025, I'm in the same position -- only the 1980 house was a duplex, and I could usually rent out one side of it for what I needed to make the house payments.

     Oh, time marches on; the big anchor stores a couple blocks away from that first house -- a local grocery chain (Ross), a pharmacy (maybe a Rexall?) and an oversized five-and-dime (Zayre) -- closed not long after the city took out the bridge that had connected that neighborhood to a nearby college, and spent multiple years replacing it.  I had long since moved away, and a good thing, too: the area hit the skids and has never recovered.

     Meanwhile, the fat-cats and pols who were in charge through wars and recessions, gas-price crunches and downturns are still there, or their kids are.  They'll be all right.  You and me?  It remains to be seen.