BUMMER! I WENT THROUGH THIS COLD BUSINESS just this past Xmas and here it is February and I’m sounding like a seal barking at the waterfront.

It began last week. I worked in and out of the rain, got a little wet running between a customer’s house and my truck, put on my jacket, and then probably steamed myself between a wet T-shirt and the jacket. People say you don’t get a cold from being cold — but can you get one from being both wet and cold?

By the time the Poetry Out Loud event (Nice event! Congrats to all) finished at the library on Saturday, I was still OK, but by late Saturday night the sneezes started … Wow!

To keep quarantined from my wife Janice, I immediately grabbed the tissue papers and dealt with the growing symptoms. By Sunday morning we cancelled our reservations for breakfast at First Street Café, and Janice made some to-die-for scrambled eggs at home, complete with melted-in cheese, my favorite toasted Dave’s Killer Bread (PowerSeed variety) and Trader Joe’s Tomato Juice (a little too something for me, I prefer the more mellow V8). I don’t remember most of Sunday; maybe it rained. I got my seasonal flu shot at Kaiser in early January, so this was not a flu issue, but another stinking cold.

I eat well, not excessively, and take daily supplements, so I’m not a walking target for attracting viruses. But by Monday morning I sounded like a breeching whale, so I had to call customers and start the postponement process, for hopefully later in the week after a return to normal. Meanwhile the cell phone continued to ring from customers calling and I tried to communicate through Kleenex and a voice that sounded like a bear struggling in a sleeping bag.

Monday passed but a letter arrived from our home mortgage company totally in conflict with the earlier email from them downloaded from our legal, not-for-profit loan modification consultant. I emailed him and said that I would fax both letters to him by Tuesday morning, which meant a drive to the UPS store (near Pizza Pirate) and trying not to breathe on anyone, trying to look presentable, and trying to stay warm. Our loan modification process is in its 10th month, so foul language is of no real asset here anymore. We are so beyond that — but that’s another very long story …

More customers for late in the week seemed a possibility, but the earlier postponement to Wednesday from Monday was optimistic at best. Early Wednesday I made that painfull call admitting that I was still a sick mess. Tuesday night, I couldn’t sleep, went downstairs, slept in my recliner chair for a few hours, then returned to bed. Wednesday morning I felt like maybe 24 more hours of this stuff and then it’s over. Did some emailing, worked on some advertising graphics, fed the cats, let them into the garage and then back out, and still tried to be the BIG Quarantiner.

Janice arrived home Wednesday night from her daily workload and said she thought she was catching my cold. How is it we can get to the moon, wage war in a thousand places, but still have no avoidance of the common cold?

I watched “Cool Hand Luke” on Wednesday on a DVD. It was awesome! George Kennedy earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as “Dragline,” the early adversary to Paul Newman’s Luke but by film’s end his greatest apostle. Newman was stunning as always.

Am headed back to work tomorrow (Thursday); that’s the plan anyway. My middle name is “Grapefruit Quarters” (great medicinal stuff). By Friday this will be local news and by Saturday just another dry ink stain on newsprint.

A Period of No Songs/800mg of Motrin
I was wondering about this period of no songs —
Our two daughters died in 2007 and 2012,
cancer at age 40 and Crohn’s disease at age 44,
and that’s nothing to sing about, nothing to sing about —
It’s just a Hard River of Grief, and singing about it brings no relief.

Now I’m gonna take a Motrin and try to relieve
this cold in my head and then go to bed —
That’s something to sing about, maybe that’s as good
as it gets when ducks and wooden squirrels
occupy the waterfront and that’s something to sing about —
800 mg of Motrin, Oh Boy, that should carry a real tune.
That should carry a real knockout tune.
Maybe even make the Hit Parade.

Poetry Guy
Poetry guy is like
a barn painter,
it’s important to get
his graphic-ad stuff up
on the old rustic wood
with weathered cracks and knots
so the cows in the field
coming home will know
the barn is theirs
and not wander down the road
in a confused fashion.
Hardly serves
any other purpose.
“Louie’s Fishing Weights,”
imagine seeing that at dusk
in weathered white paint
while your cow bells jingle-jangle.
Works for me.

Peter Bray lives, works and writes in Benicia.

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