Still Life With RSV

It’s day 21 of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), better known as a cold that can have upper and lower respiratory implications. According to  the Department of Health in Minnesota, 23% of Minnesotans are suffering with me today. I know this is true  because a trip to Target Pharmacy shows huge gaps on the shelves  in the “cold” medications section. Mucinex is on sale too. The Mayo Clinic website says I should be over this in two weeks. Not true! Day 21!

In an attempt to recreate de Soto’s famous expedition into the Americas, and the resulting epidemics that hit the the indigenous people, we were visited by our Georgian grandchildren and family who had the southern version of RSV. Maybe we should call it RSV 2.0 as there were two visiting Georgians suffering from this malady.  My husband and I played the role of the natives, and true to form, we acquired RSV. Amazingly, RSV 2.0 has morphed into RSV 8.0, striking all immediate grandparents from New York to Florida to Minnesota. Family gatherings just seem to spread the love around, and other things too. But how can one resist a gorgeous, blonde, wide-eyed three year old girl standing at your feet with Mr. Teddy. Sniffles or not, grandchildren are irresistible.

The past two weeks I’ve been humming, “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz. It seems so appropriate when infused with mucus galore and plied with OTC cold medications. Luckily, my husband is suffering with me in this ethereal medicated world as our stuffed ears make conversations muffled. “Huh?” seems to be a standard line...or “I didn’t hear you,” or “Say that again!”

By now we’ve thoroughly researched the pros and cons of being a couch potato. Drinking gallons of orange juice, water, and tea does not accomplish anything other than many trips to the powder room. Paper towels work just as well as kleenex. Forget about doctors saying don’t share your prescription as my husband’s codeine cough syrup did help. All cough drops work the same. Grand Marnier can relieve a cough and make you sleepy. Netti pots can be used five times a day or more with marvelous results. The Afrin directions say don’t use it for more than three days or you’ll permanently cement your nose together. That’s not true. If you only use Afrin in one nostril for three nights, you have another nostril  all lined up for the next three nights.

Although I’m not a painter, I decided to create a collage which I’m calling, “Still Life With RSV”.

What Will the Wood Ducks Say?

      The planners of our neighborhood cul de sac mistakenly configured the hydrology of two marshes and two retaining ponds resulting in a 45 inch bounce in the marsh behind our house. That means our marsh water level can reach my waist during those times. How apropos that Silverstein’s song should pop into my head as I’m writing this blog...   

                        

                                                      Oh gee, it’s up to my knee.
                                                      Oh my, it’s up to my thigh.
                                                      Oh, fiddle,  it’s up to my middle.
                                                      Oh, heck,  it’s up to my neck.
                                                      Oh, dread, it’s upmmmmmmmmfffffff..

   

      A few years ago I put on my rubber boots, grabbed a long walking stick and attempted to wade into the boggy wetland to retrieve a plastic bag, only to get stuck a few feet from shore. Sweat poured off my face as I was wondering if I were going to be permanently cemented Jimmy Hoffa style into the peat-like, gooey blackish muck. Panicking would only make matters worse and yelling seemed like such a silly option.   Instead, I opted to slowly work at pulling each encased rubber boot out of the tendrils of the swallowing muck, while leaning on the walking stick. I’m here telling the story, so I obviously recovered.  But that was the last time I attempted to wade into the duckweed covered marsh, preferring to leave it to the wood ducks, frogs and turtles.

       In the spring, our flooded marsh becomes a veritable nursery for waterfowl and amphibians. Although I’ve never seen the wood ducks pop out of their nesting holes, I’ve heard Mama repeatedly calling to her chicks to “break a leg”. These chicks have faith in their Mom. Would I jump 30 feet out of a hole in a tree just because Mom is calling me? I suppose they don’t understand gravity, which is a good thing. Sometimes it’s best to  be ignorant of what’s ahead in our timeline.

     As a consequence of the hydrology goof, we’ve lost a lot of trees around the marsh, including a 250 year old oak tree, a mere babe when our country was declaring it’s independence. Other trees have fallen into the marsh like matchsticks in a game of pick up sticks. This week I hired a tree removal company to chain saw and stack the fallen timber in half the marsh. The other half will be left wild so smaller birds and rodents can hide from the red tailed hawks. Plus, turtles need something to sit on, right? I’m hoping the wood ducks will arrive this Spring and approve of the furniture rearranging. They’ll see this woodpile as evidence their home was getting too cluttered.

A Tactical Matter

This is the dead of winter, I am told by the meteorologists in Minnesota. To counteract this "deadness", my mind drifted to May with thoughts of purple coneflowers, budding alders and  lots of dirt and mud. Truth be told, I love mud and dirt. It's gratifying digging in the luscious, earthy, loamy soil (albeit with gloves). Transplanting  blue flag iris, adding a new sidewalk, removing old stumps, dumping rock mulch next to the house....these are all fun gardening activities for me.

It's in my genes and my jeans. Grandpa's paths in his vegetable garden were  meticulously and constantly rototilled. His habit of walking barefoot in his garden  extended into his eighties or until he died.  I'd sink  to my ankles into this aerated, soft brown stoneless dirt that made wiggling toes a must. This foot massaging sensation can be  compared to walking barefoot on a three inch foam mattress topper.   The dirt at my cabin does not compare with Grandpa's well composted vegetable garden. I can't walk barefoot and I don't own a rototiller.  My garden get-up consists of  a light colored T shirt(better to see the ticks on me), ragg wool socks, Asolo hiking boots and the ugliest pants in Minnesota.

That brings me to my jeans or ugly pants attire. I might have a genetic predisposition for gardening and that includes my pants. Grandpa would only wear blue jeans, oftentimes overalls. Back in the 60's, when hippies glommed on to jeans, I thought my Grandpa was the coolest, hippest guy. No one else had a Grandpa who wore jeans.  Today, I prefer light colored pants (again, to see the ticks). They're usually rejects from my husband, back when he had a smaller waist size.  After five years of gardening in his pants, I can say they are sufficiently broken in. The knees have been patched three times and the stains refuse to come out in the Clorox infused wash despite lengthy soakings. My neighbors must shudder at my lack of haute couture.

So I spent this dead of winter day surfing through the web for gardening pants. L.L. Bean instantly  answered my email. "No, we don't carry cargo pants anymore." Any hope of replacing my comfortable but stained and ripped cargo pants diminished at once. Then, out of the blue, the word "tactical" came into my google brain! For the next two hours I googled "women's tactical pants" and found the perfect online review of such pants, "The Tactical Pants Review"! I had a treasure trove of the best tactical pants companies. In spite of bookmarking the site twice, I had to print out the 15 page document, much to the consternation of my spouse who would have preferred saving a few trees instead of watching the paper flowing out of my printer.

I discovered in my googling that Lisa Robbins, who started the Royal Robbins clothing company in Colorado, designed the first tactical  pants and called them 5.11, which refers to a particularly difficult rock climb. I'm about to order the Women's Taclite Pro Pants "designed after the original 5.11, with a woman's fit, lightweight 65 % polyester/35%poly-cotton ripstop, an external pocket, HT teflon treatment, a clip loop, elastic waistband, seven pockets,  48 bar-tacks and a bronze YKK zipper."  Need I say more? Oh yeah, my husband has informed me he wants a pair too...in men's, of course.

Frozen Fingers

We've been on the lookout for more choices in our home movie watching. Installing an Apple TV helped as we can now stream from our ipad. When our cable provider is behaving, streaming works. When the data streaming gets jammed by the kid down the block gaming, the ubiquitous "loading" symbol appears.

Netflix lost its allure as sometimes we really didn't want to wait a few days for the mail to deliver flicks. Directv has current movies we can watch, but I have to set my watch and calendar to their time. It's 7:00pm and that movie will start whether you're ready or not!
...
Enter "Red Box" to our neighborhood. It seems like a great idea. Affordable? Yes. Two minutes away? Yes. And you can start/stop the movie anytime you want.

BUT...and this is a big but...did Red Box ever test market this idea in Minnesota when the wind chill is minus 20 degrees outside? There I was, standing next to the Red Box outside Holiday gas station instructing the person in front of me how to navigate the screen. My hat is over my ears and my hoodie is holding some of the wind at bay. Thank God for the longjohns and polarfleece gloves.

My instructions worked and the young, charming man left, movies in hand. We exchanged a few grumbles about the weather and commented about the people inside the WARM store. Do you think Red Box ever thought of having these contraptions inside a warm building?

As I was about to flip through the movie choices, an older man came up and asked if he could go ahead of me and punch the "return" button so he could get rid of his movie. No problem. BUT now I've been standing there in minus 20 degree wind chill for the past 12 minutes and I'm really wondering why I'm even there.

Clenching my teeth, I am determined to find a movie for us to watch. I soon discover gloves do not work on these sensitive TOUCH screens. Yep, I have to go gloveless so I can flip through all the movie titles. On a normal day that wouldn't be a problem. BUT, when it's this frigging cold it's finger numbing! I forget about reading the specs and who's in the movie. With a little ingenuity I figured out I could remove my glove, punch a button and put the glove back on, which I did again and again. Over the course of "forever", I managed to navigate through the payment choices, and too many "no thanks" punches to remember what they were.

I swear, I'm going to buy the cheapest gloves I can find and cut the tip off the right pointing finger of my right glove. I'll keep it in my glove compartment just for those frigid Minnesota days when I have to stand in front of the Red Box.