I have been coughing since Friday. Not a nice genteel kaff-kaff, but great, deep Krakatoa East of Java coughs that have dislodged my kneecaps and started them moving up my legs. None of those over the counter nostrums are worth getting dressed and going out for. Utterly useless, the lot of 'em. Well, except maybe for "Cold Tea". That doesn't actually cure anything either. But it is really very comforting sipping something hot and sweet and minty. It puts me in a better frame of mind. Even though the coughs keep coming. And I've given up hope of ever having sinuses again.

(Sinuses. That reminds me of a story Robert Merrill told years ago on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast. It was regarding two feuding sopranos. If he mentioned their names, I've forgotten them. In any event, one of them was at a gathering and was heard to compliment her rival's voice. "I thought you didn't like her" someone remarked. She responsed, "Oh, no, I've never said anything bad about her voice. She has a wonderful voice; the timbre, the tone, there's nothing like it. She has that wonderful resonance here and here [touching her temples]. You know, where most people keep their brains." Zing. Maybe you had to be there. It's better the way Merrill tells it.]

Where was I? Oh, yes. Making excuses. I now possess sufficient flu or cold symptoms to enable me to surrender to constitutional laziness and give short shrift to The Inn. I have been alternating among tv (Turner Classic Movies, mostly), my breviary (some prayer is harder with a cold; the divine office is remarkably easy), and a new old book. I bought Lyn Nofziger's political memoir when it first came out in the '90s but never got around to reading it. With President Reagan's funeral so omni-present, I've pulled it off the shelf for a look. What a rollicking good read. Politics and good writing don't always go together but they do here.