Monument Scaffolding Comes Down

It took about all I had to convince myself to venture out into the unseasonably cool, windy but sunny day. Minus last Friday and Saturday the furthest I’d ventured out over the last ten days has been laps around the immediate neighborhood and park with Sam. See, ten days ago I was mercilessly thrust headfirst into my triennial sick-time. Days of fever, nights of sweats. Chills, headaches, dizzyness and near voicelessness. Miserable as an understatement. About everything went into shutdown mode. Everything except daily park trips for Samantha~~surely she shouldn’t suffer because of me!

Nearly three and 1/2 years. That’s how long it’s been since my last illness. I remember because I was still living with Ben. Even for me that was a pretty good stretch; I’m usually on the every other year schedule. Once again I went on the hunt to find out why and this time I’ve found as near a perfect match as can be found: lots of reasons! Unfortunately I cannot claim membership in the super-healthy club but I’ll proudly stand with the group one step below.  Flu shots. Nope. Allergies and related seasonal drags. Nothing requiring treatment. Stomach bends and related. Not as far back as I can ever remember. Healthy-Plus. That’s me, I’ll take it. 

Fortunately now that I’m past the low point and managed to eek out a pathetic hobble to a nearby park; one that permits fantastic nearly unobstructed views of many of the larger monuments including Washington. Sure enough the top rings of scaffolding are off; it was just several days ago the lights went dark. Repairs to the structure are infrequent, lighting it even less frequent. Ironically the only previous time I visited the area it was also surrounded by scaffolding. From ’98-2000 it underwent its last round of repairs and I made the trip up from Florida with a friend in September of ’98. 

It’ll be a few more days before I can again claim a decent run. Between a heart rate 20% higher than it should have been to a twenty minute period of shivers and shakes after finishing it’s clear I’ve got some work to do. No matter; we made it to the park to see the beginning of the de-scaffolding so the march to  getting back to normal has begun.