These
happy fishermen are two of my sons and one son-in-law. As you can tell from the
Celtic names, Colin and Jamie (picture 1 and 3) are mine. Brandon (second picture) is married to Megan. They were
fishing in Colorado with a guide, somewhere southwest of Denver—they were
pretty vague about exactly where they were (I got the feeling they didn’t know)
but I gather they were sort of near Fairplay. They were doing catch and release
so no fish over the campfire for them—I suspect they fixed steak for
themselves. Christian, who rounds out the adult males in the family, is not a
fisherman and was happily with us at the lake house that weekend.
I had
a sinking spell yesterday. During the night, Wednesday night, I would have told
you I was sure it was COVID-19 (you know those three a.m. thoughts which are
especially vivid these days). By morning, I decided it was a recurrence of a
kidney problem I’ve had occasionally—back pain and I could not bear the thought
of food. By afternoon it was clear it was a stomach problem. I did some work in
the morning but was back in bed by 11:00 a.m. Spent the rest of the day getting
up, puttering for an hour or so, and returning to bed. Jordan came out three
times to deliver groceries, and I was asleep each time.
Finally
she caught me up at about eight, took my temperature three times, and
announced, “We are not dealing with a COVID situation, but we have to document
for the doctor.” I assured her I wasn’t going to the doctor and would be fine
today. Got up again at ten, because my conscience wouldn’t let me sleep without
brushing my teeth and then again near midnight when Sophie wanted to go out.
And then slept a heavenly deep sleep, albeit with weird dreams (I dream a lot
anyway).
The
thing that struck me is that especially in these stressful days a little time
out is good for each of us. If it takes a stomach bug to do it, so be it.
Because I’m introspective and tend to overthink things, I grilled myself on whether
or not I was stressed by the country’s situation with pandemic and riots, the
never-ending feeling of quarantine, and the heavier than usual workload on my
desk. My answer to all that was, “Yes, but . . . .”: Still this morning I was
my usual sunny (?) self but hungry.
My
good friend Jean came for happy hour tonight. We try to get together once a
week to solve the problems of the world—boy, are we good at it. If the world
only listened to us! Tonight, though, I tactfully (I hope) kicked her out early
because I wanted to catch a 6:30 Zoom program on Scottish seafood sponsored by
Central Market. It turned out to be nothing more than a teaser for the cooking
class tomorrow, for which I am already registered. Hearty apologies to Jean.
But
tomorrow I’ll learn to make a smoked salmon salad with snap peas and a Hebridean
salmon with a sauce and a soft-boiled egg. I think I could sell it to the
family if I left off the soft-boiled egg. The dessert is a cranachan, a
Scottish dessert with raspberries, heavy cream, oatmeal or porridge, and a
touch of whisky. Sounds wonderful, but my family doesn’t eat desserts. I’m a bit
hamstrung by what they will and won’t eat.
Labor
Day weekend! Be careful, everyone—masks, social distancing, no drinking and
driving. I sound like an old mother hen, but I guess that’s what I am.
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