From rain, to snow, to back inside

As I sit in my apartment in New Richland writing this column, it’s an hour before our winter storm warning hits at 3 p.m. I’m pretty sure we’ve already received a good inch of snow. The two NRHEG vs. St. Clair games I volunteered to go to aren't happening (the boys’ matchup is postponed to later this week and the girls’ matchup is canceled.)

So, we went from it being too warm to have snowmobile ice drags and a show on Clear Lake to too wintery and blustery to have school. Why do we live in this state? One minute, we have to plan on wearing three layers to peel off when the temperature goes from 10 to 40 degrees. The next minute, the air is hurting our face no matter what we wear.

There has been a bit of a flu bug going around. For some people, it’s one day of absolute agony and they’re better. For others, like Eli, it seems to last a week. I have somehow not gotten sick yet (knocking on every wooden thing I have in my apartment right now). And that has usually been the case the past few years.

When I was in school, I was sick a lot. I mean to the point where I was close to being accused of truancy. Sixth grade was probably the worst year for it. I remember missing out on a class field trip (where everyone got sick anyway) and I was also unable to play a football game at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome where the Vikings used to play. I’m still sad to this day I didn’t get to do that–and I literally won’t ever have another chance.

Then, I want to say in seventh grade, I had a bad case of bronchitis–to the point where I needed a nebulizer. And don’t even get me started on my horrible case of athlete’s foot.

Since then, I’ve only had some bad bouts of flu. I guess there was one time when I was a junior in college, I was sick for three days straight with the worst flu I ever had. I finally went to urgent care in St. Peter (I attended Gustavus at the time) and they told me I had a “mild” case of pneumonia. Oh, and this was two weeks before I went on a week-long tour as far west as Colorado with the symphony orchestra.

Getting sick is not fun, and though I do have a mild cough, I definitely don’t miss being bedridden a good chunk of the time. That nebulizer I needed as a kid flat-out sucked. I wouldn’t recommend getting bronchitis (not that anyone tries to catch it). It was probably the worst experience of my life.

I am glad my immune system has greatly improved since then. At least I think it has. Maybe my body just realizes that now that I’m working two jobs, I can’t afford to be sick. Or maybe it’s my proactiveness at stopping the symptoms from getting worse once I experience them. Even if I experience a stuffy nose and a bit of a cough, I take NyQuil and DayQuil Severe until I don’t feel those symptoms anymore; about 90 percent of the time, it works.

My mother also always preached to take ibuprofen, especially when I get the chills. It’s a great fever reducer. She also made sure I know the mantra, “ starve a fever, feed a cold.” I have stood by that creed as an independent adult.

This week in music:  

After a short absence, I am bringing this bit back to my column to wrap things up. I’ll call this edition of “This week in Music” a “weekly double.”

On February 21, 1981, Dolly Parton hit the top of the U.S. music charts with her single “9 to 5.” It was her first number one hit. On the same day in 1976, The Four Seasons hit the UK charts with “December ’63 (Oh What a Night).” It was the group’s only single to top the British charts.