I have just had a Rip Van Winkle experience (or according to my mirror - a Liz Van Wrinkle experience). I may have not lost 20 years but to me a month was just as bad. At Thanksgiving my bragging about hardly ever getting a bad cold turned on me. That just a tickle in my throat proved not caused by the strange weeds that grow here in PA but the beginnings of a cold that was to toss me for a loop. The devious thing settled in my head, then traveled to my throat, did a job on my stomach, then moved into my lungs. I have never been one to bother a physician about a cold - I always believed that it would get better in 14 days with medicine - 2 weeks without. That didn't work and with the pushing of our children went to my doctor to start a couple weeks of treatment. When did they get so smart? Slowly I began to function but still not out of first gear. Then this morning I woke feeling a lot more like a human being and thought - looks like it's time to get on with life.
Good grief - it is just 6 days to Christmas. Last time I truly cared - I had a month to pull everything together. Where did that time go? Then I looked out the window. What? There was a good old New England snowstorm blowing out there and from the direction - a true Nor'easter. Had I not moved to PA? Was the past year just a dream. No that only happens in sappy TV shows or fairy tales in Sleepy Hollow.
Then I took a peek at my list of lists. Looks like between bouts of trying to cough my brains out and the fog of yuk, things had still come together. Perhaps in piles but at least in the house. Through the wonder of my laptop, all the Christmas presents had been ordered and with just a couple of worrisome internet searches to find the perfect item, all were delivered.
My how my grandmother would have loved it. Imagine, never leaving the house - typing on a machine on my lap and seeing the words on a lighted screen. Then with a press of a key bouncing that message to some other computer to figure what I wanted which in turn alerts another computer to pay for the order and then alerts another computer to have a real person to put it in a box and turn it over to another computer to ship to me at no cost. Actually cheaper than paying for gas to drive around looking for the hard to find present and in many cases the item costs less than in a brick and mortar store. How cool is that. I've always believed that Gramma would have a hard time believing that we would buy water. I think this would have truly boggled her mind.
The little tree is up, most gifts wrapped and Christmas cooking started. Hey, I have 6 days. That should be just enough to pull things together before one of our sons and family from Maine arrives to share the holiday with us and our daughter's family.
Now if only the major "unusual" snowstorm would just be a dream. But afraid it is a nightmare we'll just have to deal with along with my nagging cough. Hey, at least I'm now awake and functioning a lot better than old Rip did.
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