We were supposed to be flying into Nashville for the last weekend of October for the annual Rally for the Lane, where we get to drive museum cars. This year was particularly exciting because the destination was an airplane museum! But the weather forecast didn’t look good. Seems there was a hurricane heading straight for Tennessee.

Then we each woke up on the morning of Monday, September 23 with a sore throat. Monday night was pretty terrible. Berck took a test Tuesday morning, while I took out the garbage to the street. Wednesday is our trash day, but apparently, my brain fog was hitting pretty hard. Berck didn’t even have to wait 15 minutes; the line popped up immediately. Then he tried to go to his 10 a.m. Zoom meeting, lasted about five minutes, and then crawled back into bed, where he stayed for four days.

Tuesday night was really bad. Symptoms were congestion and body aches, hips for Berck and low back for me. Berck had a cough, but I didn’t.

We slept in separate bedrooms, so we wouldn’t wake the other up coughing or tossing and turning. Normally, one of us would have moved into the downstairs bedroom, but a mouse died down there, and we haven’t been able to find it, and it smelled bad.

Wednesday night was better. I propped myself up on a pile of pillows so the phlegm in my lungs would have a harder time making it to my head.

I kept working (I did lie down for a couple of hours on Tuesday). Sitting in a reclining chair with my laptop doing tasks was a good way to distract myself from not being able to breath through my nose.

The morning of Thursday, September 26, I offered to make Berck some decaf PG Tips tea. When I brought him his cuppa, he asked, “Why does it taste better when I make it than when you do?” He’s not wrong.

“It doesn’t taste like much of anything to me either,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said, “Is that what’s going on?”

So one of us could move to the downstairs bedroom, if we wanted to.

At least we were surrounded by some beautiful aspens we wouldn’t get to enjoy otherwise that weekend.

Both of us are feeling better Friday, September 27. Berck actually got out of bed and dressed and sat outside in the sun for a while. I actually walked to the mailbox (0.2 of a mile one way) and back, so I got to see more beautiful aspens.

As I was getting close to the mailbox, a pick-up pulled up to it and someone climbed out to get their mail. That’s OK, I thought, I’ll just walk a little slower. Then an SUV pulled up behind the pick-up truck and waited for their turn! Fortunately, both of them finished before I got to the mailbox, though I did slow my pace quite a bit. We all did the obligatory wave neighbors must do to each other when we pass by.

I lost 4 lbs in a week. Our appetite came back, though our sense of smell was gone. I took advantage of this by making popcorn and tuna fish salad, two things Berck hates when I make because he doesn’t like the smell, but he didn’t notice.

Berck’s mom had some Grandma’s Soup ™ and challah bread delivered by UPS, which came just in time, because we’d nearly finished my stock of Progresso in the cupboard (Berck declared one can was dated 12/18/16).

I did do a grocery pick up Sunday, and then made some chicken broth to make chicken noodle soup. The roads, even the road to our place, were clogged with leaf peepers. The leaves were looking good. My sense of smell was kinda glitchy but seemed to be returning. When I released the steam of the pressure cooker, I was overwhelmed with the smell of the aromatics. I asked Berck if he could smell it too, and he said, “Maybe?”

The spot on my thigh that I got in Arkansas in April, that looked like a bug bite and got infected and I had to take oral antibiotics, got red and swollen and itchy again. My hypothesis is that a tick left its head in there (apparently, they actually leave mouth parts, not the whole head) and it can take months before the body gets rid of it. I’m guessing the state of my immune system has something to do with that. Fortunately, it has since stopped itching and gone back to its normal appearance as a round scar.

Sunday Berck had enough energy to work on the rally car so that I could race it at Pueblo. He returned to work Monday. We spent most of that week after work working on the rally car so I could fit in it and reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel. I took a test Tuesday, October 1 and tested negative, so we drove into town to go to the hardware store to get some hardware to adjust the steering wheel.

I always try to have a cooler full of cold beer at the track. After a hot day of driving and wearing a ridiculously insulating fireproof suit, you can’ t wait until the last car comes off the track at the end of the day and someone says, “Track’s cold!” But when we each cracked open a can of our favorite Mexican lager, Victoria, we had the same reaction. Tasted worse than Rolling Rock. The ciders tasted better, maybe because the tongue can still taste sweet. I don’t know how long it will be before a beer tastes as good as it usually does.

It’s now been more than a week since my negative test. I still have some congestion and thick yellow phlegm. I got an e-mail AND a phone call from HR saying I can’t return to the office until I’ve been symptom free for at least 24 hours, so who knows when I’ll be able to go to the office again. Berck has been feeling fatigued and has to cough occasionally.

The rabbis say the sense of smell is the most spiritual of the senses. I keep having episodes where I think the house smells like soup. Apparently, anosmia can cause one’s sense of smell can get stuck on one scent. I have to say the smell of soup is way better than burning or dirty diapers.

I have played every Connections game since it started, until I got Covid. I tried staring at the words, but I just couldn’t figure it out. I’m back to being able to solve them, so I can set my phone calendar back to play the last couple weeks of the ones I’ve skipped.