Of Naps and Netflix

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Bob I have just witnessed the biggest excitement of the evening. In the middle of a documentary about Garth Brooks, our long-haired black cat, cleverly named Mama Cat, came streaking through the family room with a green Whole Foods bag caught on her tail.

She apparently tangled with the bag in the kitchen, got caught in the handle, and was so spooked by it that she tore through the house and finally ditched it behind the sofa.

Then she disappeared.  

Bob and I looked at each other with “What was that???” expressions, then burst out laughing. Mama was nowhere to be found, hiding from trauma and embarrassment, but our other cat Bubble found her a few minutes ago. She was hiding under the bed in one of our guest rooms upstairs. I’m hoping Bubble coaxed her to come back downstairs before the evening is through, although she hasn’t shown up yet.

This, as I said, will be the most exciting thing to happen in the Engle house this New Year’s Eve. It meant juggling our two TV remotes to pause the Garth Brooks special, which took some mighty effort on our part.

This week between the holidays has been a bit different than we planned. Bob and I both came down with bad head colds a few days ago, so our lives have been filled with Netflix and naps. I have to say “Thank God” for both.

We’ve binge-watched multiple series, four holiday movies (I recommend The Noel Diary) and several documentaries about Shania Twain, Taylor Swift and Garth, tonight’s featured entertainer.

From our seats on the sofa and recliner, we’ve watched Hollywood Medium Tyler Henry heal the hearts of multiple celebrities. Celebrated the University of Iowa defeating Kentucky in today’s bowl game. Polished off all the soups we made for Christmas (was that just a week ago?). And gone through two boxes of Kleenex and 26 handkerchiefs (in a burst of energy, I managed to do a load of laundry today and counted those handkerchiefs as I folded them between sneezes).

We’re grateful, of course, that we don’t have Covid—just the old-fashioned kind of cold that neither of us have had since before the pandemic began. I’d forgotten how miserable coughs and congestion can be, and I feel for everyone who’s going through this particular contagion. From the sounds of it, that includes a lot of people right now.

The biggest change in our plans is that we’re not in southern Iowa for a wedding and family Christmas celebration this weekend. Instead, we’re figuring out whether we have enough stamina to make a breakfast casserole I was going to make five days ago. Bob did have to go to town yesterday because we were entirely out of cat food. Sometimes you just have to rise to the occasion, no matter how lousy you feel.

But, hey, we’re here, going through the hacking and sneezing together. It reminds me of meeting Bob 22 years ago. In the first week of dating, I came down with a doozy of a cold, much like this one, and Bob came over and took care of me. He brought pizza and roses, went to the video store to get a movie, and made sure my phone was next to me on the couch so he could call me from Blockbuster and make sure I approved his selection. As I said to him the other night before I reached for another Kleenex, it’s no wonder I fell in love with him.

Come to think about it, that cold back in the year 2000 signaled an important shift in my life. So maybe this cold will, too. It certainly marks a shift from one year to the next. And doesn’t every New Year hold the promise of new beginnings and unexpected blessings?

That’s what I’m hoping for—for all of us. But for tonight, we’ve had enough excitement, and when the clock strikes midnight, all you’ll hear around here is the sound of hacking and nose-blowing, with sinus spray bottles by our sides.

Colds come and go, but love persists.

Happy New Year!!

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