Distracted distractions

I got distracted this week, first by that sinister winter villain who lurks in dark shadows and preys upon the tired and weary: the common cold; and then while firmly wrapped in the cold's embrace, my attentions were captured and enamoured by the snowstorm late in the week.

I had managed to elude this winter's sickness outbreak that had many people away from work and school, and those who were afflicted were quick to share their cautionary tales of woe and misery and in-between hacking coughs and sniffling and nose wiping they'd tell you it was a killer, and they wouldn't wish it upon their worst enemy. But you knew secretly if it were that bad, they'd do almost anything to get rid of it themselves...

And so they share it with you, and everybody else within a germ's sneeze of reaching.

The boy succumbed first, after the hockey tournament in Fargo a few weeks back - but he was only minorly sidelined, his athletic metabolism and youthful immune system functioning like the fine-tuned machine it has become. He passed it on to mom, who battled the coughing and sore throat the way a nurse's brain will, with bags of throat lozenges, gallons of cough syrup, some OTC meeds for good measure, and boxes of tissue, but none of those have proven anymore effective than the other, and together they haven't really done anything but made her feel slightly less uncomfortable.

I was valiant in my fight, mostly by blind luck, when you consider three people living in one house, two of them sputtering and punctuating the air with sharp exhalations of viral war-fare, while the third pretends not to notice, offering up his sympathy and trying to help them feel better, hoping that maybe he'll be spared this time around.

Who am I kidding? It was only a matter of time. The sore raspy, scratchy, throat, the kind that makes swallowing a pitiful painful process; the runny nose and stuffy head that clouds your ability to think clearly and presses your concentration to the edge of its limits; and then that persistent cough, dry at first, then as the head drains later, morphing into the lovely chest congested, impossible to sleep peacefully, cough up a lung, green mucous, mess we all love.

Sorry, you weren't eating were you?

That was the story of my week - or so I thought, until Mother Nature decided we hadn't yet seen enough of her awesome powers, and with the media already in a tizzy over early spring flooding forecatsts, I suspect she figured it served us right for trying to predict conditions 3 months ahead of time, so she brought in an Alberta Clipper (I love how we name weather patterns so we can placate ourselves by blaming our meteorologic misfortunes on those who live in the region where the high or low pressure system originated - in this case Alberta - who while enjoying their balmy shinooks have affected our peaceful coexistence further east and must surely deserve our shaking fists and mumbled curses... you know who you are.)

6 to 8 inches of pouring snow later - depending of course on where you live, and how the winds swirled to drop it all on your back patio or front walk or drifted over the just-cleaned backyard rink, it was past, and the winds stopped, and you looked out to see your world covered under a deep white blanket of perfection, momentarily at least, everything still, everything silent, and you enjoyed it for a few minutes.

Then you called the boy who had a suspicious Friday off from school, and told him to get his boots on, and grab a shovel, and meet you in the backyard, where the snowblower required a bit more attention than it should in January, and together you tunnelled and trenched and dug your way through the yard, around the house, greeting your neighbour next door doing exactly the same thing - the silent greetings we do over the rumbles of 4 stroke Briggs and Stratton's - and you excavated your car from your side of the driveway; her car away at work, and in a few hours you, the boy, your next door neighbour, and the retired neighbours down the street who seemingly live for snowdays, have once again claimed mastery over Nature - at least as far as being able to navigate around our own homes and driveways is concerned - and you return inside, physically exhausted now, finally remembering you didn't have much strength to begin with today, and crash in front of the tv and watch afternoon cartoons with the boy over mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of chocolate chip cookies...

It's amazing what we can accomplish when we distract ourselves from our afflictions long enough to succeed.

Enjoy your week...