Nows and Forevers

Been sick the past four days, and I haven’t been feeling too productive nor too interested in doing much of anything.

The illness is either a summer cold, which happens, or it’s a reaction to the smoke from the Canadian wildfires that has descended upon the city where I live. (I live in one of the smokiest cities over the past few days, even though we’re far away from the fires.)

Don’t know which it is, although I was feeling pretty healthy until the smoke led to Code Red readings on Wednesday. I woke up the next day with a sore throat and I ended up having to spend more time outside, which didn’t help. Nor did it help that I wore a mask outside the whole time. I am one of those people who could care less what anyone thinks about wearing a mask.

I’m prone to upper respiratory challenges, which was made worse by a near-fatal bout of pneumonia nearly 25 years ago. My lungs haven’t been the same since, which made it imperative that I stay as far away from Covid as I could. (And in that, at least, I have been successful so far.)

Yet I can take a lot of precautions and still, apparently, get tripped up. I don’t know whether it was a cold virus or the smoke from the fires. I would just as easily attribute it to a cold except for the timing, which is just right for it being smoke.