Tea for Me

Tea for Me

I have a cold.  I and probably half of America.  So what’s the big deal?  This is the first time in my life that I welcome said cold with open arms, if not open sinuses.  Why would that be, you might ask?  I welcome my cold because I caught it from Annie.

I knew she had a cold when she came up to visit over the Thanksgiving Holidays.  I openly consorted with her, even though she warned me that she had been experiencing a sore throat, and that it had turned into a full-blown cold.  Did I care?  Emphatically not.  

Just as I used to joke that I loved going to breakfast with her, because it implied that we had spent the night together, I joked last week that I hoped I would catch her cold.  If she and I were not together, there is a fairly good chance I could have escaped the ravages of this pesky business.  However, we are together, so to be unhappy at the resulting cold, would be to imply that I was unhappy with Annie, and that is never going to happen.

I know I am sort of a goofy guy, but that is the way my world works.  Love Annie-love her cold.  I have shouted-repeatedly-that I would do anything on the planet for her, and now I have the opportunity to prove it.  I woke up at 1:25 this morning, and immediately decided a cup-or two-of Gypsy Cold Care Tea was in order.  

Dozer the dog was most perturbed to be disturbed out of his snoring slumber, but I tried to convince him that he did not have to accompany me to the kitchen to make said tea.  Maybe it was the howling of the wind outside, signaling the approach of the series of November storms that have been forecast to hit NorCal, or maybe the banging of the screen door.  Suffice to say, he was happy when I returned to the bed with my tea, and turned on the light so I could continue to read The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Yes, I am reading again, after a hiatus of almost two years.

I guess it was one of the many lifestyle changes that I underwent, over the course of the time since I emerged from panic attack syndrome, in October of 2010.  Little did I know that I would then proceed to exhibit the full-blown tendencies of a bipolar-ll mood disorder.  Big sigh.  But that is ancient history.

Now I am well on the way to mastering this illness, with the help of the same medication that I was so unwilling to indulge in.  Silly me.  I should have realized that millions of Americans, who also take medication for this malady, could not all have been off-course.  

Now I am aggressively fighting this cold with tea, rest and vitamin C.  Ever since an esteemed colleague at school convinced me that over-the-counter medicine is nonproductive, or even detrimental to a cold, I have taken this stance.  In the past I have found this type of medication has done nothing more than give me a fat head, and very weird dreams.  The worst side effect of the tea is that I have to get up every half hour and stumble into the bathroom to use the facilities.

So when I say I have a cold, I am not whining, I am celebrating.  Call me goofy, call me naive, but just make sure you call me happy, because that is the way I feel.