March Was Harsh

March lived up to its reputation as a windy, blustery month. I think it began to blow like heck by the third and didn't stop till today, a month later.

And I have this theory that the weather is somehow made to order for the events that happen in our lives, like a well-scripted movie. So in keeping with the storms, we have had situation after situation for a month, each challenging us to handle it.

I hurt my left ankle working on ladders. First painting the front trim, then installing an attic access ladder in the garage and flooring in the area above. I thought I was up to it. I wasn't. I twisted my foot badly and it hurt for a month like hell. Today, finally, after wearing a brace for most activites and trying to stay off it as much as possible, and taking a mountain's worth of painkillers, I can do without both the brace and the painkillers for the first.

In the meantime, however, I picked up a really nasty head and chest cold from the March winds. Normally I don't pay a lot of attention to such occasional colds, which come every year or two and bring on a few days' worth of discomfort then get sweated out and are gone. This one, though, brought on at various stages chills, fever, hypothermia, dizziness, and other symptoms, and it didn't seem destined to go away by just letting it spend its course. By Tuesday I heeded Barb's advice and went to the doctor without an appointment, waited two hours to be seen by the nurse practicioner, and went on antibiotics, decongestants and an inhaler.

As I pulled out of the drive Monday morning in another gale force tempest, I thought I heard and felt the sickening thump-flop, thump-flop of a flat tire, and sure enough, the passengers' rear tire was resting on its rim. That was one of my more fevered mornings, so changing it wasn't easy, I sweated mightily and feared my cold would turn to pneumonia without much more March weather. Later that afternoon at school I had to walk to my car parked in the back lot, and the sky emptied on me. I drove home wet and cold.

Barb, meanwhile, came down with my cold as well. So we're going through the Kleenex boxes like crazy and hoping to get in good shape for our trip Thursday to New York to see Mark's new apartment over Easter. Scott's coming up from Orlando as well, so we're hoping to have a good time. But at this point I think we'd settle for just being well, being over injuries and other maladies, and above all having this insidious flu-like cold way past being contagious to the others.