Another notch down

I spent all week in bed with a respiratory bug that's going around, the nastiest I've ever seen. I suppose it hit me harder because I was already weakened with asthma. I'm on my feet again, but a red light flashes in my chest, a warning that this bug isn't yet gone. My ribs hurt, from all the coughing. (With TV as my companion last week, I saw that emphysema commercial I mentioned in my last post about five times a day. Yikes.)

Today is a milestone, I'm now 55. No hoopla, or spending my day drinking $1.00 coffee at Denny's; I ask only for continued recovery.

- PJ

Breathing and Boheme

Last year at this time my asthma flared up; this year it’s worse. I wake in the middle of night, so tight that I have to tell myself to breathe, something that should come naturally. I get up, use my inhaler, and then… I’m awake. I lay in the dark, waiting to breathe easier. As the medication kicks in, music comes to my internal ear, soaring phrases from La Boheme. I think of Mimi coughing, and am reminded of that new emphysema commercial on TV, designed to stop people from smoking. It’s a disturbing image; I don’t smoke, but I think of my asthma. The soaring phrases of La Boheme win, and sleep returns.

- PJ

Another Half Italian

Yesterday afternoon, I watched the Super Bowl at a Chinese New Year party. The wife of the couple who threw the party is half Italian, like me. Unlike me, she's also Chinese/Malaysian and a British Immigrant.

With the others, I tossed salad and proclaimed "Lo Hei!" in the San Fernando Valley, while the Super Bowl (Super Blow, for those of us who aren't Giants fans) played out.

My Italian immigrant grandmother would have enjoyed yesterday's diversity, most likely offering one of her standard lines (with heavy rolled "r"): "They are all meex up!"

- PJ