Life in the Left-Hand Lane

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Saturday, June 21, 2014

Summer Solstice

So today's the first day of summer, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. As if we could really forget it. Anyone with a TV has heard the local news babbling for the past week that today would be the summer solstice. According to the local news (here on the west coast of Florida), the event took place at 6:51 AM, EDT. I slept through it, or, at least, tried to. Not that the earth shook, or anything loud happened to announce the occurrence...But I'd gone back to bed to try to catch a couple of extra minutes of sleep.

My son, M., had to work today. His schedule is such that he has a one-day-weekend every other week; the up side is that the other weekend is a five-day-weekend. He works Wednesday through Saturday, has Sunday off, then works Monday through Thursday, while another guy at work works the opposite of M. So, this weekend, while M. has a one-day-weekend, the other guy has a five-day-weekend.

M. has to get up at 5:00 AM to get ready, so I frequently set my alarm as back-up, just in case he conveniently sleeps through his, then I'll go back to bed until 6-ish. This is mainly to run interception at the front door, so that Karma, our resident Houdini, masquerading as a black cat, doesn't try escaping. I think he does this just to keep us on our toes; he'll go for a few weeks without incident, then, when our guard is down, Zooooom! Out the door! This morning, after M. left, I went back to and tried to sleep until 7:00. Never quite happened, what with Karma and Drexie wanting breakfast...

Good thing M.'s not into celebrating the Summer Solstice. Also, I guess to do it up right, we really should live near Stonehenge. But we don't. However, The Old Farmer's Almanac has suggestions for celebrating the solstice, some of which are do-able. Because of local laws, lighting a bonfire is out. And I seriously doubt that I'll be fishing or camping. But cooking outside is a possibility; so is planting a tree (we have plenty of them in our yard, most of which my sons and daughter and I planted), letting the light in (Florida is the sunshine state, after all!), reading a book, listening to songbirds, or watching the night sky.

Anyway, once I was up, I had my first couple of cups of coffee (does that count as celebrating the solstice? Probably not.), then got ready to go out for a walk. I'd wanted to walk and/or run for an hour, but got a late-ish start. I figure that with the heat and humidity, half-an-hour was not bad. I'll probably go back out this afternoon for another walk.

In the meantime, I guess I'd better get started on another Saturday. One of the neighbors is already out mowing the lawn. I kid him that he's obsessed with his yard, and he gladly admits that he is, although he's eased up a little on it over the last year or two. But when the worst you can say about a neighbor is that his lawn is perfect, I guess one can't complain. (We'll leave politics out; the neighbor and I generally do.)

Whether you tend to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes or simply are aware of when they happen, I hope you have a decent day. And if nothing else, maybe read a book while in a park, listening to the nearby birds. If nothing else, it'll at least break up your day a little.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Caution: Whiny When Sick...

I'm not sure why, but I get whiny when I'm sick. Throw an occasional ache or pain my way, the normal I-just-mowed-the-lawn ache, the twisted ankle during a morning run, and I can usually shrug it off. But give me a bad cold, the flu, or anything like that, I jump full-force into whiny-little-kid mode. I fully expect my mom to fix me hot cups of tea and toast or soup, with the knowledge that that evening, my dad'll get home from work, bring me a class of Canada Dry Ginger Ale (the only kind he bought when one of us kids were sick) and sit and me the funny pages or some really cool book.

I've been sick the past week. (You kind-of suspected something was up, right?) My mom, who's in her 80s lives several states away, and my dad, the Ginger Ale king, died almost seven years ago just short of his 80th birthday, which meant I was sort-of on my own.

Actually, I sort-of was given the cold (which morphed into bronchitis) from my younger two sons. Growing up, all four of my offspring were told repeatedly to share. There are times when I wish they didn't take that sharing thing to heart. Usually, my son M. gets whatever first, then passes it to his younger brother, J., who then hands it off to me. This time, however, my friend Kevin is go blame. He started the whole thing, then gave it to M.

For a while, it looked like I wasn't going to get it, but when I did, it hung on, gradually getting worse. Finally, I broke down and had Kev drop me off at a walk-in clinic. I didn't feel bad enough to go to the ER, but I also didn't want to wait a day or so to get an appointment with my primary doctor.

At the clinic (one of Bayfront's many walk-ins), I had less than a 15-minute wait. (Note: No, I'm not getting any form of compensation for the plug, but I do figure that if someone or some place provides a decent service, I'll let people know. Flip side is that if that service treats people like crap, that gets a write-up, too. One area hospital - unnamed here - knows that.) Once in the exam room, Dr. Sunshine (obviously not his real name) checked out the lungs, etc. and told me it was definitely more than the cold that Kev, M. or J. had: it had morphed into bronchitis.

"On the bright side, it's not pneumonia!" he exclaimed. I wanted to ask who had died and made him Dr. Sunshine...In this case, I'm not trying to be mean or snarky, just realizing he was trying to put a positive spin on it (I hope!). Off I went with a prescription for antibiotics and cough medicine.

There are two pluses to this all. First is that I'm doing a lot better. (Everyone else healed before I did; I made 'em bring me hot tea and soup and Canada Dry Ginger Ale.) The second is that, unlike one bout of the flu (partial description in January, 2013), no one sounded like Harvey Fierstein.

When looking for something positive, ya gotta go with what works.