This is my morning to shoot the Carnival Parade and I'm sitting here at the computer watching the start of the Indie 500. There is a god awful rash that started on my feet and ankles last night covering the area under my socks and this morning it had gone up my legs and over my stomach and up around my neck. Arms as well. I had chicken pox as a kid and all the rest of the standard spotted diseases, so I don't think I'm in for anything like that, but it itches and I'm sitting here wondering what will happen over the next 12 to 24 hours. Does it, ah, grow? Am I infested with little animals? Did my cat find a poison ivy thicket somewhere in the back yard and roll around in preparation for a good petting? I don't think so. It started on my ankles and feet and I've had an itching not quite rash like this in the past, but who knows?

The day is overcast, a good day to shoot the parade since the violent contrasts produced by the sun are muted. Shoot a film with a little punch and they look great. I could have gone. Well, I don't know. I'm looking down at the tops of my arms and they are a light salmon mottled red that is hard to recognize as a rash until you stand up and get your blood pumping. A light red mottled spider web that shows itself, then fades. The legs are darker and there's no fading about it.

OK. Three in the afternoon and I'm running a fever so I may finish this or I may not.

When I was (probably) four, I remember a fever I had in Seattle. We lived in the little yellow house next to my grandmother's in Ballard and this was the first time I remember really being sick. It may have been my bout with chicken pox, because I tossed and turned all night and dreamed impossible dreams of orange soda. I would have given life and soul for a large glass of ice cold orange soda. My mother would come down from upstairs and check me now and then and I must have told her about the soda, because once it was morning and the stores were open she went out and brought one back. I have remembered this all my life and whenever I've been ill with a fever, I will go out and buy a large bottle of orange soda and drink it. There is a bottle of Minute Maid in the refrigerator right now. And tuna fish. I don't stress this in rational company, but I believe a tuna fish sandwich will fight a cold better than any wonder drug. A tuna fish sandwich for lunch and a glass of orange soda when your head gets hot.

Later yet, it's actually Monday morning. The fever seems to have subsided. My mouth is acting up, perhaps because the glands in the neck are swollen. I have one pain pill left and I'll save it for tonight. I had been thinking about Tuesday and the things I had to get done at the office and the paperwork I had to push through for the rental agency. Now I'm a lot more confident about going in. I told you about the tuna fish sandwiches, right? Nature's perfect remedy for a cold? QED