Last week I flew up to Hastings for a Wednesday evening meeting 1/25 and the regular hospital board meeting 1/31. One of the things I hate about flying is the germs and one (or more likely a billion) of them got me. I always wash my hands before I get on the plane and wash my hands immediately after I get off. So where did they come from?

Tuesday I had a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 to go over some annual blood tests and I felt fine. I started feeling tired at the board meeting and, by the time I got to the airport, I knew I was in for a cold. By the time the plane took off, I was miserable. It’s in my sinuses and has gone down into my chest and I feel like crap, hence the title of this e-mail.

It couldn’t be from running last Sunday in the rain. It’s a virus and you can’t get a cold from being out in the rain. You can’t get polio from running through a mud puddle. And you don’t go blind or grow hair on the palm of your hand from “pleasuring yourself” (the old joke is “I’ll just keep going until I need glasses”). Now, granted, being cold and wet may lower your resistance but, and it’s a big but (not to be confused with a big butt), the germ has to be there.

So, being the information geek that I am, I looked to the web for advice on whether I should run today or not. Almost all of the articles say that if the cold is in your chest, don’t run. So, today I didn’t. Now I have this fear that I’ll lose so much fitness that I’ll have to start all over again at 3 miles. I don’t mean to whine, but I am. I think it’s because when you don’t feel good, you are looking for sympathy. Just be thankful I haven’t described what I’m hacking up when I get in one of my coughing jags.

I’m not sure why I always seem to be involved when the conversation deteriorates. Last Sunday was no exception. We were at Bill and Nancy Bradley’s, unwinding from the run in the rain, and Erin Bradley was talking about her ceramics class projects. Somehow the conversation turned to coffee. Out of the blue, Becky commented that in some countries they feed coffee beans to Civets, a small mammal that resembles a weasel and is related to the Mongoose. Anyway, the Civet Cats eat the ripest coffee beans, and an enzyme in their body processes the outer fruit leaving the coffee bean. The beans are then gathered (what a crappy job that must be), dried, and ground into coffee.

Of course that brought about a horde of jokes with one theme like “Pardon me waitress but this coffee tastes like s%&*!”. While searching the web to see if Becky’s story was real, I saw a quote by humor author Dave Barry that says “It’s not really coffee…it’s poopacino”. The articles say it has a strong, distinctive taste (duh!!) and some people (me, for sure) don’t like it.

Somehow that conversation turned to camels, and Larry related how some camel herders (are they herders or tenders or camel jockeys?) keep their camels from eating and drinking water for a long period of time and then feed them marijuana. When the droppings come out, they are used much the same as hashish. It’s not the traditional way of making hashish, but the camels are probably very happy to be the middle man. Of course, the jokes started again about lighting up a bowl of s%&* and getting high from it.

I’ll have to admit (just kidding, Mom) that I’ve not been an angel growing up (that’s assuming that I have grown up), but lighting up a camel turd never crossed my mind.

As soon as Jean gets back from running, we’ll head for Pinellas Park (in the heart of metropolitan St. Petersburg) to pick up some beer bottles. Hopefully they’re empty…I need around 54 to bottle the beer we brewed a couple of weeks ago and I don’t think Jean and I can drink that many, even on Super Bowl Sunday. Hopefully I won’t bottle any of these cold germs and save them for later.

Jane. Sorry to hear about your Mother. You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers.

Ta Ta,

Just (Feeling As Bad As Road Kill Looks) Jack

b/t/w/  Any admission of wrongdoing while growing up should be ignored…I’m delirious from the cold!