Sorry for the Lull

Dear friends,

Bernice already reported on our two days in NYC last week and our visit to Mount Sinai and enjoying friends’ company at our Bryant Park pad. Unmentioned at the time was an event associated with our return to our apartment that may have more relevance now. Mount Sinai is at 100^th Street and 5^th Ave and our place is at 40^th Street and 5^th Avenue. That is quite a trek especially on December 30 when the central part of 5^th Avenue is packed with shoppers and with tourists wanting a glimpse of the tree at Rockefeller Center. Bernice wanted to brave the journey south by using our senior metro cards on the Fifth Avenue bus instead of hailing a cab that had to fight through the same traffic. We boarded the almost empty bus that conveniently approached the bus stop just as we did. We sat cozily together and were not too aware of the two women sitting just behind us, speaking a mix of English and some foreign tongue, until the bus began filling. A series of deep and noisy coughs issues repeatedly from the woman sitting directly behind me. I thought jealously of the custom in some countries such as China where people don facemasks when they suffer from any respiratory ailment and must appear in public. We changed seats when the first opportunity arose.

We will never know if that spate of unwelcome and ungracious coughing led to Bernice’s misery with a terrible cough and cold that started on Sunday but I, at least, have concentrated my ire on that woman and need not resort to railing against some unseen spiritual entity. The usual cough and cold remedies have not helped and only today has Bernice conceded that there may be the smallest improvement.

Many times, when colds visit us, we both succumb but I usually get the more severe case. Bernice was determined that she would not transfer this cold to me and has been adamant in keeping me from her room and away from any close contact. She has either yelled directions of all kinds or used email to give me specific instructions. She told me exactly where to go in the freezer to get frozen eggplant slices she had prepared and her email told me exactly how to prepare eggplant with a cover of tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. I pass coffee and food to her by placing it on an intermediate file cabinet and she has me exit the kitchen when she wants entry. So far I have avoided the cough and cold. Our last cold was in September 2010, an unusually short interval.

These nasty cold viruses have been coevolving with humans for millions of years. One of their strategies is to cause coughing so they may be efficiently dispersed from one victim to another. The strain causing the most virulent cough is the one that reproduces most successfully.

Our best wishes for the New Year and may you all avoid any contaminating coughers and have a healthy year.

Love from both, Merwin