Petri Dish

I feel like I'm a time-lapse film of a petri dish trying go grow some sort of bacteria today.

It started with "the tickle." You know--that little rough patch waaaay back in the back of your throat that's hardly noticeable except every now and then.

Then while you're sitting there thinking "gee--I think there's a little rough patch waaay back in the back of my throat," you become aware that waaaay down in a far corner of a lobe of your lung there is this hint of a burning. Not so much a burn so much as perhaps a warming.

You give a cough and it relieves the tickle. And then it comes back.

Then your nose starts itching. By then the tickle is more pronounced and the warming is more definite.

Gradually you realize that your eyes really are kind of burning and you just want to sit down and close them. You doze off a bit.

But you are awakened by the sneeze. The sneeze followed by the drippy nose.

Then the cough becomes deeper and it passes beyond the rough patch waaaay back in the back of your throat and it plunges down to the warming in the far corner of a lobe of your lung.

You are aware that you are slouched down in your chair, staring off into space and moaning softly.

Now it is entirely possible that all these growing viruses slowly expanding to become noticeable enough that you are starting to think about them mostof the time will all just decide to disappear. But as I sit here, the rough patch and the warm spot are more pronounced and seem, now, to be connected. And then there's the sore throat and the headache. And the cough.

I'm not going to get sick. You heard it here. I am not going to get sick.

Where is Mary Baker Eddy when you need her?

---

While I was busy sneezing and snoozing the puppies were having a wonderful time. Well, Freddie was having a wonderful time. He leaped from one recliner to the other, across my stomach, apparently found a container of cottage cheese that had been my lunch and cleaned that out, and he again found my cell phone. This time he removed the battery, which I found and it still works. Now I am carrying the phone around with me because I don't know where to leave it that is safe.

They all race outside en masse and start barking at ghosts in the yard. Freddie and Scrappy will come in when I call them, but Scooby won't come in the house if I call him in because he remembers that he was put on a leash and he won't come near me at all, which means he stays outside and barks.

I had to wait until the bigger dogs found something interesting to bark at in front and raced into the living room, with the 3 puppies in hot pursuit. I leaped out of my bed of pain and ran to the sliding glass door and shut it, then blocked off the dog door, so they are all in for the night.

I expect to be cleaning up Freddie pee.

All I really want to do is sit somewhere soft, with a nice box of kleenex and a gallon of water, watch the Olympics and moan softly.