The Monsoon Returns (Cough-Cough)

The subdivided sky: Saturday 8/23/08, approx. 4 PM

The time has come to admit that I'm a little concerned about this cough.

Back in late June, I had a cold. As usually happens with me, especially in recent years, the cough has hung on long after the cold itself was gone - not constantly and horribly, but a nagging cough set off by little things like lying down, or trying to take a deep breath. As I say, this has happened before, a number of times. I've even been to my doctor on past occasions of it. As I recall, she listened to my chest, heard very little, wrote down the word "bronchitis" and gave me a prescription for an albuterol inhaler. Which didn't help.

Two things are different this time:

1. The cough is getting worse. I drive John crazy, coughing in the car, coughing into my pillow, coughing pretty much anywhere. I'm not going to try your patience with gross details, but I feel an asthmatic tightness in my chest pretty much all the time now. A good cough helps a little, briefly, but it's clearly not going away on its own. I'm coughing more and more, not less and less.

2. I have no health insurance. I'm a temp. If I temp for long enough on a continual basis, I'll have health insurance through the temp agency. I should check the envelopes they keep sending me, to see whether I've reached that point - but I doubt it.

I have a history of asthma, going all the way back to infancy; but normally as an adult it's only hit me when I was around certain allergens (e.g. cats), attempting aerobic exercise, or exerting myself in the summer heat (100+ degrees). But now I'm having problems just sitting in an air conditioned room, typing. I've been taking the common expectorant Guaifenesin, which is found in basically all cough medicine. So far it doesn't seem to help me clear things out much. John thinks I should be taking fish oil capsules at mealtimes, and maybe he's right.

Our old friend, the ribbon of clouds on the Catalinas

I think the return of the monsoon, much as I love it, is exacerbating things slightly. Even John can smell the mold as we approach the river on the way to work. But I do love this time of year. That photo at the top of this entry comes from late Saturday afternoon, as I drove back from photographing Glenn Stone and the wine bottle. The sky was dark with rain or impending rain to the northeast and southeast. But dead east, there was a patch of brightness and fluffy white clouds. As I arrived at El Taco Tote on Wilmot, it started to rain.

Odd thing about El Taco Tote, a regional chain of Mexican restaurants: that location closed months ago. It was replaced by a restaurant with a rather strange menu, Hawaiian plate meals I think they were called. This was basically Polynesian barbecue plus macaroni salad. Apparently this polyglot cuisine is common in Hawaii, but I'd never heard of it. It was okay, but I could have told them it wouldn't go over well in Tucson. And now El Taco Tote is back, in the same location they left early this year. So why did they shut down, and what brought them back? Not that I'm complaining! They're rather good.


One last shot before I go back to bed. John spotted this on Speedway Blvd tonight, and turned around so I could take a picture to go with the ones from the weekend. What can I say? The man loves me.

Karen