MUST BE LOVE ...

I had to laugh -- and take a photo -- on the back roads of Warren County on Sunday. Potholes, roads, and Indiana. Turns out the road is named for a natural formation, however, not for road conditions.

Maybe you've known the feeling. Eight days ago came the first sign of a cold: a thick throat. I figured it would take a few days of annoyance but wouldn't slow me down too much.

Ha!

That Friday I had a full day at Warm Glow Candle’s book signing and got home around 5, wiped out. I rested as much as I could Saturday because Sunday meant 225 miles round-trip to and from a Warren County speaking engagement, home for bedtime.

Thanks to a good sound system where I didn’t have to raise my voice at all, and an even better dose of prayers, I got through the program with only one cough.

Oh, but the coughing kicked up its heels Monday and Tuesday and by Wednesday, I was a mess. I had to travel to Shelbyville to give a luncheon program. This had been on the books for months but I couldn't bail on them.

While speaking, I had multiple coughing fits! It was downright embarrassing. I kept apologizing to my audience, which was kind enough to stay put and see me through.
But wouldn’t you know, of all days to cover a speech of mine, a reporter from The Shelbyville News arrived to take photos and notes, and I presume there will be a story.

When my talk mercifully ended, I thought maybe they would all book it out of there quickly to get away from me and my potential germs that the over-the-counter stuff wasn’t hacking. No, I was the only one doing that.

But they stayed for door prizes and then, several even bought copies of my books. Some told me not to worry a bit about the coughing, and that it happens or they have been there. The wisdom of age. Few things rattle folks who have been around awhile.

I appreciate their sentiment and their slack.

As I loaded my car, their most gracious Shelby County Senior Center Director Kathy Nolting thanked me repeatedly, and asked a question that anyone who knows me could tell you how I would answer.

“Would you like a cup of iced tea to take on the road with you?”

Of course, my answer was yes. In fact, the weather had turned hot, sunny, and after my previous hour, I would love nothing more than the quench of cold tea on my throat and a quiet drive north up Indiana 9.

I put the tea on top of the car roof while I finished loading my props, said my goodbyes, and off I rolled. I made it a block or so when I reached for the tea and found it wasn't there. Oh no, I had left it on top of the car! In the same instant, I tapped the brakes, or maybe sort of slammed them, and then watched as the plastic tumbler, the ice, and the tea splattered all over the busy roadway, and by the time I could turn around in an effort to collect my trashed cup, it had been crunched on the roadway.

Yeah, it was one of those days.

Bad as I felt, I made an appointment to see the doctor for Thursday, called off work sick, canceled not one but three work appointments I had made, and steeped in a bath.

When Brian got home, I was in my jammies and he insisted that I take a dose of the dreaded nighttime cough-cold medicine that I despise. I couldn’t argue.

And then it happened.

Here I am, sporting a terrible frowny face from the nasty medicine, no makeup, my hair a wreck, coughing like a crazy woman. For a moment I contemplate where I’ll go. It’s early evening but my destiny is either the sofa or bed. So I ask Brian where I should go.

“Stay out here and keep me company,” he says, seated in his living room chair.

Really? I think. He wants me around in the state I'm in?

So I hit the couch, and for the next few hours, I alternate between super-snoring, and super-coughing. Part of the time, I pull off both in a kind of sad harmony. But he doesn’t complain once.

Must be love. That’s all I can say.

I went to the doctor and it’s not strep and he didn’t see evidence of infection. He said it’s allergies. Go home, drink fluids, rest, and take the allergy meds he sent me home with. And then he wanted to talk about self-publishing …

I think I’ll make it after all. But this too is one of life's many humbling moments. How many times have I said, no bragged, that I don't get allergies. Ha!

So for your midweek, how about a few Sunday-drive photos from beautiful Warren County, with the Wabash bordering it on the east and Illinois on the west.

The GPS sent me down some gravel roads to get to the Hickman Heights Christian Church for the All Daughters Banquet. I was taken by the views, and as always when I go somewhere from my past (I used to cover Fountain and Warren counties for the now-Fountain County Neighbor, based in Attica) I just wish I could have stayed longer to look around.

But I did take some photos of this county's tranquil, rural landscape.

In Attica as I prepare to cross the Wabash River Bridge headed into Warren County from Fountain County. The water you see isn't supposed to be there. It's overflow into a park-like area if it isn't flooded.

Very quickly, GPS put me on a gravel road, and I continued for several miles. Gravel roads remind me of my Union County childhood, although my old road is now blacktopped. I loved the colors in this scene.

Such an interesting drive through the park-like countryside of Warren County.

Cattle grazing in a field.

It seems that cooks and bakers bring their best efforts to church pitch-ins, and this was surely true at Hickman Heights Christian Church.

I would have loved to have stayed and chatted longer with the ladies, including Carol Winegardner, who invited me, but I knew that the beautiful 7:30 p.m. hour would soon give way to dusk, then dark, and my bed would be calling me by the time I got home. As I pulled away, I saw both daylight and the moon taunting me with nightfall. It was lovely.