Monthly Archives: December 2021

What you can’t see

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Here is a photo looking west just after sunset a few days ago. Here are a few things you cannot see:

It had just snowed. There were a few inches on the ground–not fluffy or soft but malleable enough to walk through. No crust, no ice. It had fallen off the trees but the fields were covered.

It was cold. A breeze blew. The line of short trees, oaks and ashes and buckthorn, blocked the wind coming from the south. On the south side of that hedge, pull your collar up and your hat down.

Jupiter hung in the sky. When I took this photo I intended to capture it between the lower layers of clouds. The bright dot contrasted with the dark clouds. I called it stunning.

I was smacking a lollipop, a strawberry Dum-Dum. That thing was tasty. That thing did me right. Flavors are powerful and we do not always have them to help remember a scene. I had one for this scene.

I was walking the dogs. Usually my wife does this. I go with her at times, and of course if she is not around the task falls to me. I took them out solo on this day. But just after I captured this image, she came around the row of spruces and joined us. Even after many years of marriage it makes me smile to see her. Every time.

I was wearing boots. I love the basic boots I can slip on and wander outside. The condition of the fields is so varied that I often am reminded how great they are. Whether there is snow or standing water or mud or rain or burrs or ticks, they protect and serve.

I headed back to the house after this. It got dark. We settled in for the night. The solstice was about to arrive. Now it has. We are headed to longer days. These are the days of hope in the year. I find it harder to cling to that hope these days. An afternoon like this, however, certainly helps.

Rediscovering Lollipops

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Over a month ago I got a cold. It was the worst cold I have ever had. I was down and out for two full days, sitting on the couch and watching crap on the screen. And I was feeling like yuck for a couple weeks. Stuffy, weak, runny nose, cough. That cough, that was what did me in. It lasted and lasted. Even after all my other symptoms were gone the cough persisted.

It kept me awake at night, which didn’t help with getting ridding of the cold. I mean, sleep matters, right? My nephew suggested NyQuil. I have resisted this medicine, not because I have anything against it, but because it works so well. Aside from it tasting nasty, that stuff knocks you out, but in this case this was just what I needed. I took it. It knocked me out.

During the day, however, I did not want to be knocked out. My son got me a bag of cough drops. What a good kid, eh? They did work well but they were not exactly full of joyful flavor. They weren’t terrible, but one or two a day was my limit. One day my wife, who is typically the one to walk the dogs, was away. Before I headed out into the cold with the beasts, I found a bag of leftover Halloween candy. I grabbed a mini Charms lollipop and walked out.

I have not really ever been a fan of lollipops, or any hard candy for that matter. You can’t hate hard candy. It is pretty much sugar after all. But this one, orange, was really good. Maybe it was the cold air. Maybe it was just how fun it was to swirl the thing around and to play with that paper stick. Maybe it was that it made my cough disappear during that walk. Every day going outside I would have a lollipop and even toss a second one in my pocket, just in case. Any flavor was good. I was loving them. And the habit has stuck, so to speak.

Luckily these particular treats were not the first ones that everyone else took from that Halloween stash. They were in a mixed bag of candy and they lasted a little while. But eventually I went through them all. Given my aversion to them in the past, I surprised even myself. For a couple of days I had to resort to these weird big flat lollipops, but they did not do at all.

Unfortunately, those Charms lollipops only came in a bag mixed with other candy, but in my perusal of the candy aisle I found a big bag of Dum-Dums. Those would do. And so I have been reducing my stock of these fun little candies every day. There are way more flavors of Dum-Dums than Charms and every bag contains several Mystery?? pops. Lollipops have been fun, no doubt.

My cough is still lingering, weeks later, but it is mostly gone. Sucking on lollipops may be a new thing for me for a while. I like the feeling of having one there to spin about. Maybe this is why babies like pacifiers so much. Am I reverting to infancy? Not sure that is the case, at least not yet. But until my cough is all gone I have an excuse to keep eating lollipops. And I’m doing it.