Category: Winter 2013

Melinda & I are both still recovering from the flu and are going a bit stir-crazy (maybe that’s a sign of recovery?). Part of my stir-craziness was some Internet-surfing involving hockey cards, a big part of my childhood. I got to thinking of this man I used to trade with who also was a gifted artist, a man named Carlton McDiarmid, who illustrated some pretty impressive postcards for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

So I Googled Carlton’s name and found an obituary for him. Of course, I was sad to learn that he had died, but I was also excited to learn that he had been a goal judge at the Montreal Forum! He had never told me that.

Carlton’s and my biggest trade came when I was a senior in high school in 1981 and home for a couple of weeks with bronchitis. I traded him a slew of hockey postcards for a set of 1951 junior hockey cards that were pretty darn cool. Of course, my cards are long gone, sold in 1992. The most sought after card in that set, a perfect one of Jacques Plante, photo here, sold in auction last summer for something like $4000.

Taking one last day to recover, I dropped Ella at school and made a quick stop at Safeway on my way back home. Wanting something easy to fix for lunch, I glanced through the frozen food section. My eyes found this particular item, reminding me of when we were in Italy and I cited as many food items as I could that had “ella” in their names.

I promise, I saw nothing like this product in Italy, which I did NOT buy (in case you were wondering).

That’s Ella in today’s photo, a picture from maybe 12-13 years ago. We were inside what she called “the ice cream store,” awaiting the making of her ice cream cone.

I chose the photo for a couple of reasons. One, I didn’t want to take a new photo tonight. And two, Ella’s thumbs-up is to indicate that I’m feeling better.

That’s right! My fever has broken and I’m starting to feel like my old self again. I’ll take one more day of recovery tomorrow, have the weekend, and plan to be good as new on Monday.

It’s a multi-part prescription: Rest, Plenty of fluids, Chicken soup, and an episode or two of The Rockford Files.

That’s what’s carrying me over tonight, Rockford. At 8pm I have a fever of 101 degrees and enough body aches to allow me to imagine I might have been in the ring with Ali. I’m tired yet about all I’ve done the last 4 days is lay in bed, mostly sleeping, sometimes drowsing.

Thank goodness I’ve got Jimbo for company.

On a side note, are you seeing ads on this blog? I paid to have them removed but they are showing up when I post. Seems I might have to re-up that ad-free payment…

I’ve not been this sick in a long time, acknowledging that one’s present illness often feels like the “worst” one. But this is tough stuff. This illness, combined with our Internet connection at home being out for over 24 hours and my streak of posting to the blog every day for 936 days has been broken. And, frankly, last night, when I knew it was happening, I didn’t even care. Melinda offered to figure a way to post on my behalf and I declined. One idea involved us parking near a Starbucks and logging on to their free Wifi from the backseat. I wasn’t up to that kind of an adventure but I credit Melinda for trying.

What does Melinda get for her thoughtful efforts? Now she is not feeling well, either.

Fever. Painful cough. Sneezing. Runny nose. Aches. So describes the last day plus for me. And we still don’t have our regular Internet connection back, although I give credit to a tech person who managed to figure out how to get my laptop online.

That doesn’t fully make sense to me, that my laptop can get online but not any other devices. It, apparently, has something to do with Domain Name Servers.

I had such high hopes for this three day weekend and it’s been nothing like I planned.

Melinda thinks we are being communicated to by some force in the universe today. She says she isn’t sure of the message, but it may have something to do with learning how dependent we’ve become on technology. You see, at 9:30 this morning, while she was away at a workout class and I was home online, the Internet went out. And after 2 hours of troubleshooting with our ISP, it’s still out and may not be back for a while. Given I had just posted some new ads on CraigsList and intended to get caught up on school email over the holiday weekend, I’m frustrated right now.

Perhaps that’s the lesson. To practice patience or to focus on setting better priorities.

Add in that the illness I hinted at in last night’s posting has now hit me harder and my crankiness is increasing.

Maybe I’m supposed to go to bed. Although if that’s the lesson, then what am I doing at Zoka’s, a coffeehouse not far from home with “free” Wifi?

Friday night, 7pm. Melinda & I have taken Ella to her friend’s house in West Seattle. We drop off a borrowed DVD at her sister’s house. We are looking for a place to grab a bite of dinner. Where to go?

Brenda suggests, even insists, we go to Dot’s Delicatessen. She says the magic words – duck confit. Away we go.

Melinda orders the BLT. I order the cassoulet with the duck confit. My nose starts to itch. My throat is scratchy. It’s been a long week. It takes a long time for the cassoulet to be served. It is very hot when it is served. I burn my tongue. Melinda calls me a crankopotamus.

What’s that I hear calling me? My bed?

Remember that great feeling you had when you were a little kid in elementary school and you were going on a field trip? It was always exciting to be somewhere other than at school on a weekday. You know, when you “should” be in school.

That’s me in this photo, taken along the beach in California in March, 2010. Melinda, the girls and I had taken a field trip to San Francisco from our home in Seattle, needing to visit the nearest French Consulate in order to get our visas for our year of living in France. We stayed with Melinda’s cousin’s family, who took us to the beach on a weekday when anyone under the age of 18 “should have” been in school.

Dan Gillmore attended PSCS last century. That’s him in today’s photo, taken back when you loaded your camera with something called “film.” Don’t ask me to explain it. It doesn’t make sense. You’d put something called “film” in your camera, take it out again, drive it (or mail it) to something called a “film processing center,” wait a week or so, then look at your pictures on paper.

It was crazy.

But I was talking about Dan. He’s working on his degree at the University of Washington and interviewed Melinda and me about stories in our lives. In fact, he made a little movie to illustrate part of my story. Take a look:

Film Making Amateur Hour with Dan Gillmore from Dan Gillmore on Vimeo.