I wouldn't put a night out on a dog like this!

I was pretty sick for a long time until yesterday. I had lungs full of rice crispies, head full of snot, couldn’t breathe except to squeak a little. Salivated on my pillow at night, coughed into the bed sheets. Being that sick for that long is like living in a tunnel. You wake up in the morning and you’re still there. Daylight is out in some other world. I find it almost impossible to entertain positive thoughts when I’m that ill. Three nights ago I decided to make a try at being more positive. I watched part of OPPENHEIMER on PBS but turned it off right after they blew up Hiroshima because all the excitement was gone. Picked up Introduction to Biological and Chemical Warfare. Which was exciting. Experimental mice and dogs and lemmings flying off cliffs, doing spastic dances, breathing anthrax fumes, blowing smoke out their ears. A laugh a minute. Well…you make do with what you’ve got. I would have called my Mom but I couldn’t talk either. She hates it when people call and whisper over the phone. She calls the police. I had a little legal dope every day after lunch so I wouldn’t cough my way through my afternoon nap and I had some more at bedtime every night so I wouldn’t hack my way through the night. Then I got better a couple days ago and it snowed. A lot. You know the story of Persephone and Hades? Hades gets Seph to jump into his chariot saying he’s going to take her to Red Lobster for seafood but instead carries her to the Underworld where he shows her his etchings and asks her to marry him. She refuses so he doesn’t show her the way out. Meanwhile Mom (Demeter) who is frantic to find her daughter asks Zeus (the Top Dog of the Gods) where the hell she is and to get her the hell back here. Winds up Seph comes back and winds up spending six months with Mom above ground and six months with Hades and his etchings underground. I think a lot of us, except for residents of St. Paul, Minnesota and Izhevsk, Russia, do some kind of an underworld thing every year starting about a month after Christmas when we call to the sun and don’t see any daylight. Well I do and I haven’t seen many etchings this winter. But Saturday is the first of February and Bridget’s Day. For those of us who believe in nascence we pray for clean water, good wells and the end of the winter tunnel we know is coming. Ta!