Monday, August 11, 2008

Laid Low

We took my niece, whom I love, love, love, love, love, love, love, with us to NYC at the end of last week and we had a marvelous time - she is an absolutely delightful young lady and she proved to be wonderful company. We promised her a trip to Paris when she was a child, a promise she won't let us forget, so it's safe to say she'll be with us when we once again hop over to the Continent. I hope so.

She was just getting over a cold when we departed Thursday morning, one which she has now generously shared with both my wife and I. While I feel somewhat better today I spent yesterday on the couch, where I watched a movie (The Philadelphia Story, again), followed by the riveting final round of the PGA Championship (Padraig Harrington must now be considered the second best golfer on the planet), and finally a little bit of the Olympics. I tried to get up and at 'em a few times but was lying back down within minutes each time, defeated. Anyhow, now seems the appropriate time to quote a little Ogden Nash, who sums up perfectly the way I felt yesterday:

The Common Cold

Go hang yourself, you old M.D,!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

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