It's too hot for a cold... or is it? (Saturday)

The rainy season has arrived with a vengeance!  At unpredictable hours of the night and the day, the skies open up and the rain is so torrential that it makes it almost impossible to drive.  There is always flooding in the same places.  And traffic always snarls almost the instant the first drops hit.  

Last night, the storm was spectacular.  Thunder booming an instant after lightening licked the nearby hills with its snaky tongue.  It rained torrentially for a very long time.  Even after the worst of the storm had rumbled off into the distant, the jolts of light and the flashes of light continued for hours.  Even using the mythical Panamanian scale of Thunderstorm Violence, this one was a doozy.  

I got my candle and lighter ready in case the electricity went, although luckily it did not.  

So I sat and watched the storm, nursing my glass of cold Mandarin Orange Spice tea (my new favorite beverage) and watched a rom-com, nursing my new cold symptoms.

That's right.  The departmental cold has struck.  It's hardly surprising, given that just about everyone is sick.  Some, like my next door neighbor in the office, Addys, are very sick.

There are a number of different theories as to why people seem to succumb to illness right after the rainy season arrives.

• It's just because the weather has changed.
• It's because there are viruses that are dormant during the dry season but which reappear with the rains.
• It's because it's a different bug each season.
• It's an illusion (this is definitely NOT true)

Unfortunately, today I was going to go take the subway with my friend Martha, and later, to meet my Fulbright friend who I've never met in person at a trendy tea shop.  But alas, neither was meant to be.  

Instead, I drank yet more tea and taken lots of Zicam - zinc and vitamin C - to try to combat the symptoms.  And I do feel marginally better, although I don't know how I'll feel if I try to do anything more energetic than sweeping the apartment (which caused me to break out in a sweat!) and doing the laundry.  Pitifully little.  

We'll see if I'm feeling well enough to go to Balboa Union Church tomorrow.  I sure hope so because it may be my last time to see Gracie and Gerry before they head up to Minnesota for 3 weeks.  Yes, you heard that right.  Minnesota.  As I mentioned in a previous posting, they are from St. Paul!  

But in the meantime, I'm keeping quiet and taking care of myself.  In fact, I think I might try a cup of hot Mandarin Orange Spice tea with honey to tackle my hacking cough.  Yes, that sounds great.

Stay tuned...

Under the weather (literally) (Monday)

Imagine if you will a series of very dramatic photos of a violent thunderstorm - rain pouring from the sky, huge muddy puddles that are challenging cars trying to wade through them, an angry black sky, sharp peals of thunder, and an ugly brown stream growing to a small river.  These are the photos that should be here - but for some unknown reason, despite the fact that they have been imported onto my laptop, Blogger can't find them to import them here.

So you must use your imagination.

Perhaps the images are even more dramatic in your mind actually - because its mighty hard to capture the grandeur of a tropical thunderstorm - bombast plus downpour - in any other way.

But besides the actual weather, I was not feeling great.  I'm not sure why - but the weather mirrored how I was feeling.

I thought about the course I am to give when we go to the satellite campuses of UTP.
I made a couple of necklaces.
I watched a couple of movies.

Not exactly productive but about all I could manage.

Eventually, the fever went down (if it was a real fever - I left my thermometer at home in CA) and I started to feel a bit better but not anywhere near 100%.

The most exciting thing was the thunderstorm!

Now that the rains have come though, there will be many more opportunities to post photos that you can compare to your brilliant imagination and think on how, even with the most up-to-date technology, there is nothing to compare to our minds and our senses.

Nothing at all.