Beneath the Wraps

            Ever since they had moved into our house, Biff and Claire would sleep in until 10:00 or later.  Okay.  I get the exhaustion from traveling – but come on.  They did manage to make it up on time for the first Sunday meeting they were here.  That was the last time. Three weeks later Ally was enrolled in the local school and then the family started getting up at 8:10 and out the door half an hour later.   Still dragged.   Still delayed.   But after Biff started his job in Roseburg, the family was up and out by 7:30.   Such a waist of gas going back and forth so that Claire could have the car.   Theoretically they could put Ally on the bus but choose not to.   So for an entire week Biff would drive the family to his work in Roseburg and Claire would take the car to the school, walk Char around and return to the house to sort and clean – pick Ally up from school (with Char) return to Roseburg....

 I must have fallen asleep with the fan on last Friday night, for when I woke up on Saturday (this was the week when Richard was out of town) I could feel a sore throat coming on. I needed to go to Church on Sunday. There was a training scheduled for the Relief Society. Perhaps I could just go to that and skip the other two meetings. But Jaime wanted to go to her meetings – even though Young Women’s had been on the agenda and she is not as comfortable with it as she is with Sunday School. I had planned on asking the missionaries if they would be teaching but learned that the primary had been invited to the instructor’s class and asked the instructor if I could be in the class also. There were only three other students in attendance and so I was welcomed. I had not enjoyed church. By the third hour (training) my head was throbbing and I had wished I had just remained at home. I did not feel like I had been trained and that the meeting had not been worth the effort on my part to be t...

                 It seems that Roland has had a cold each year – usually as a way to start off the New Year.  Each cold seems to linger longer than the last.  This year could be different with all the COVID related illnesses going on.  We haven’t been checked.  According to the news the last batch of testing kits may not be providing correct results anyway.  I think it’s just a cold.            Every time he gets a cold he senses drafts that really aren’t there.   He is always wearing thermals and wrapped in blankets.   I, of course, am hotter than normal.   We are generally in two different rooms so that each of us can experience a temperature that is unlike that of the other.              I fortunately do not have his hacking cough – though I have had a dustball type cough on occasion – nothing as proficient as his.   I have started...

          There were several signs of spring before it the equinox made (or will make) it official.   So many trees in pink and white blossom and all the daffodils and allergies.    Though my eyes appreciate the view from a distance, I have a hard time with spring up close as my sinuses go ballistic.   My ears tear and my nose runs.   Allergies.   I’m not sick.   I’m annoyed.   I need more moisture than the air has been providing me with lately.   Time to bring out the humidifier – which always seemed like an oddity for this part of Oregon.   But with Roland always being cold at night, the electric heat is really not agreeing with me right now.             It’s the heat.   It’s not a virus.   I’m not sick.   Even if I do get sick, I won’t admit it.   I’m not going to the doctor’s or hospital.   Ther...

Our biggest reason for moving to Oregon was so that I could breathe.   I didn’t wish for my family members have to listen to me hack out my lungs or gasp for air – and yet this month has seemed to defeat the purpose.   Yesterday I spent the majority of the day in the emergency room – first the waiting room and then a small section in another room divided by curtains.   I thought Dial-up AOL was the slowest thing ever.   They are speed demons next to Urgent Care.   And Urgent was five times faster than Emergency.   Granted, it was Memorial Day and there was nowhere else to go.   Most of the patients there didn’t seem in bad enough shape to require emergency care.   I heard three or four of them just chatting away as if they were there to socialize.   I clung onto my head so that it wouldn’t roll off or explode.   I suspect I was dehydrated as I had left large evidences of my DNS at different Urgent cares that Google had said were open...