Christmas Day was lovely. But by the end of the next day, I was coughing, and it only got worse. I crawled under the covers, piling more and more blankets on top. I persuaded Henry, my pup, to join me on top of the covers. He doesn’t snuggle, but it was nice to know I had company. I wrote and read and fell asleep, even while wearing my glasses, and got a bruise on my nose! While almost comatose, I found myself thinking of the poet Robert Louis Stevenson and his poem The Land of Counterpane I was sick and had two pillows at my head, but instead of leaden soldiers, I had books and Henry. Then I thought of Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island and his difficulty getting a room for the night. It was his first visit to England in 1973. He wasn’t used to the different rules in this strange new world from those in America. The landlady of the establishment tells him what she expects from him and then says, ‘…do be so good, would you, as to remove your counterpane at night. We’ve had some unfortunate occurrences with stains.’ The landlady stomps away, and Bryson is left wondering, ‘…just what the fuck is a counterpane?’ When I first read this book. I was at my friend’s bed and breakfast place in Wales. I laughed so loud that my friends could hear me three floors down in the kitchen. Those two things made me smile, I dared not laugh; it hurt too much, and then I turned over and went to sleep.

The New Year has come and gone. The sky is gray with perpetual rain. I am still spending time in bed; it is the only place I feel fully comfortable. Supported by my big pillow, I cough less and stray warm from neck to toe. A spray keeps my nasal passages from drying up, Alka-Seltzer keeps my head from throbbing, and chicken soup keeps my body fed. I have finished reading two books, although I did not start them in 2025. Neither was my easiest or most comfortable reading: Daniel James Brown’s book Facing the Mountain, The Story of the Japanese American Patriots in World War II. And Ilyon Woo’s book, Master Slave Husband Wife. The story of an enslaved couple’s escape and epic journey of self-emancipation in the 19th century. Both books make our problems today seem trivial.