BeanStalk of Flourish

This morning I came across a George Eliot quote: "Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns!" I felt that way when I saw the clear autumnal morning light slanting through the still-green leaves. And yet I didn't go out, because the hot weather has come back, and it was 85+ out there. I feel that I am way too finicky these days. Always too hot, too cold, too wet--something! I determine to spend more time outside, and then let weather or my achy bones deter me. The seating inside is so much more luxurious. But that's how they get ya! You have to resist the blandishments of comfort! The Sparrowhawk says we should get an old couch and put it on the front porch. I point out that we don't have a front porch. It's one of the few deficiencies of this old house. We could put an old couch on the screen porch out back, but he says that doesn't have the same effect. It's true--it doesn't. You have to sit out there and smoke, with one of those stamped tin ashtrays that look like an oversized bottle cap, while sucking down your PBR or whatever (in my youth, it would have been Tudor Ale, which you could get cheap in a 24-can cardboard flat from the A&P) in your oldest clothes and your sneakers with holes in them. When neighbors come along you call out to them, and they shade their eyes with one hand and peer into the depths of the porch to see who's talking. You can't do that in the back yard.

I must point out here that I never personally did this. My parents' house was not like that at all. The front porch was small and painted white, with white benches on either side that people seldom sat on, because my father appreciated enhanced decorum and preferred neither to smoke, drink, nor holler at the neighbors, but rather to sit in the cool of his living room like a civilized person, reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine and listening to the classical music station. I never smoked and I didn't like beer, but I knew people who did.

It was another random-ish night last night, but I felt a lot closer to normal today. I changed the sheets and ran a load of laundry, pursuant to my plan to declare myself covid-free and take up the threads of life tomorrow. The Sparrowhawk has been working his fingers to the bone out in the kitchen. He made us a delicious brunch of toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs and mushrooms, followed in the evening by his patented convalescent stir-fry, which provides all essential nutrients in a comforting form. I really am a lot better, except for sporadic coughing fits. This is normal for me after a viral infection. My whole respiratory system remains agitated and super sensitive for an unknown period--one that I hope will be very short on this go-around, because I'm so fed up with it. I wonder how many TONS of Ricola throat lozenges I have consumed in my life. I should move to Basel and work in their factory. They're made with pure sugar and a dozen herbs that are tenderly nurtured far from industrial sites and main roads. If I worked for them, I could be sure I was devoting my life to the betterment of humanity.