may wrap-up

so may was a decidedly weird month. besides passing much too fast it was split in halves, into a good and a bad half, by my birthday.

the first two weeks of may brought along the most beautiful weather we had in a very, very long time. it was sunny and warm, yet not stuffy and smoggy as it likes to get in cologne as soon as the temperature starts to climb. there was a constant blue sky and a pleasant breeze from the northeast. thus i learned what an omega block is. i think i spent more time outside than i did the entire summer last year, or what was supposed to be summer at least. after last year’s bad experience — a few beautiful weeks in april and then blah the rest of the year — this time we made it a habit to walk or ride our bikes down to the rhine every day we were here to catch as much of the good weather as we could. plus i’ve established a 3.5 mile walking route along the rhine that i took as often as i could.
and i swam my longest distance ever — 3500 meters, that’s 2.18 miles — on may 7th. however, my scale seems to be stuck and the second half of may didn’t exactly help that fact.
i turned 40 on the last day of this summer streak, it was warm enough to eat in a restaurant garden and to take a stroll by the river after dark, i was reasonably happy and didn’t feel a day older than 26.

the day after that the weather turned cold and rainy and i instantly got sick. there followed — in that order — an UTI, an exceptionally gooey head cold and a bad cough. wow, if this is what forty feels like i’d have loved to die young (did i ever mention my lover owns a button that says “too old to die young”? well, never mind).
to make things worse we had to go to berlin to attend a workshop last weekend, smack in the middle of that cold, and i think the habit of the german rail to cool their compartments down to resemble refrigerator cars was what finished me off completely. the workshop and the stay in berlin were nice by the way. the cold wasn’t.
then a few days ago the weather turned again and believe me, i have never experienced weather like this in germany before. it was very warm, cloudy and incredibly humid. really, it felt like living in a tropical rainforest. not that i’ve ever been to one, but i imagine that that’s what it feels like. walking outside you would be covered by a sticky film within minutes. my hair curled like crazy. my blood pressure decided to take a week off without presenting an authorized substitute.

so i’ve been hacking and coughing and rattling through the last days of may , mostly in bed, wondering where may has gone. i want another one.

~ by bine on May 31, 2008.