Saturday, November 1, 2008

Autumnal beauty and the flu

I was thinking today as I look out the porch windows, how much I was missing my sister, because she really does love my sun porch, and the view this time of year is beautiful. I think the colors are more vivid this year than any of the seven previous years we've lived here. And, that's surprising.

We had so little rainfall this past summer, and while it wasn't excessively hot, it was dry. They tell us we'll have a very cold, not necessarily moist, winter. I'm really looking forward to that -- NOT!

My hands already hurt, and I told Alan today that I thought this was a foreboding of a bad winter. My hands haven't hurt this much since when I had the flu back in 1960. I know you want to know why I would remember that particular flu season.

Well, it was called the Hong Kong flu and it hit school kids the hardest. It took days to recuperate from it. And it was exam week when I was afflicted. Fortunately, so were over half the school kids and as many teachers, so exam week was postponed for two weeks. I was one of the first that got the flu that year, so I was one of the first back into school, doing nothing waiting for the rest of the students to return from their bouts with the HK Flu.

I saw something on line the other day that described the difference between a cold and the flu. First there is a high fever. Second, you feel like you just got run over by a Mack truck and all your bones feel like they're broken. And third, was the sore throat, boy was it sore, from the top of the mouth to about half-way down the esophagus.

Today, my hands hurt like someone hit them with a hammer in a mean-spirited attempt to break all the bones. So why am I typing? I'm a glutton for punishment I guess. And, I had to keep my faithful few readers informed. :)

ttfn

No comments: