What I write when I can't write

I wanted to write about taking my granddaughter to the zoo for the first time, her delight at the big kitties and the bear impersonating a stuffed ottoman and her attempt to make monkey noises at the spider monkeys, with digressions about the many hours I spent at the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo when my kids were little, where we would go walkabout amongst the wallabies and visit the colorful and active lorikeets and listen to the gibbons bellow when storm clouds moved overhead, and how sometimes we would take along a neighbor whose dark-haired kids looked like they belonged with me while my two little blondies looked like they must be hers, and how frequent visits to a pretty decent zoo went a long way toward keeping me sane during those demanding toddler years, and maybe I'd mingle in a few references to missionary antelopes and reactionary zebras and see if anyone caught the allusion, and the whole thing would have created a delightful ramble through the things that matter to children and their parents, but instead I got sick.

I blame the tree pollen. Since Friday I've been fighting a nasty allergy attack that feels like someone stuck my head in a vise and started squeezing. I can't lie down without coughing, so I try to sleep sitting on the sofa, which hurts. Thinking and writing? Impossible. I experienced my granddaughter's first birthday party from a distance, observing from the sidelines and occasionally retreating to the sofa for a brief sitting-up nap. Woo-hoo great times! Maybe someday I'll be able to write about it, but for now, all my energy is committed to coughing. And sometimes humming about skeptical orangutans and kindly elephants. Which would make me smile if I had any energy for smiling.