Don't Peak Too Soon

Timing matters.  

I got my flu shot on November 20, which turned out to be three or four days after a flu bug worked its way into my unsuspecting system. So, while my upper arm was still sore at the injection site, I felt the first stirrings - the unmistakeable sore throat - of a flu that would ultimately lay me low for two weeks.

I ruminated on the irony of a flu shot taken a week too late and whiled away time on my sick bed watching some not-very-recent movies.

One was Spellbound, a 2002 movie about eight young people competing in the 1999 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. That was such a long time ago, and the group of young contestants so interesting, that there are a few "where are they now" sites, the most recent from 2010. That site notes that one of the contestants died young, in 2007, although you can still read his blog here. 

Sad. And creepy.

The other movie I watched was Grizzly Man, a 2005 documentary by Werner Herzog built around footage shot by Timothy Treadwell, the forty-something Californian who got himself eaten by a grizzly bear after several years of hanging around with them for a few months each year, taking amazing videos. 

You don't need to watch the footage Timothy shot of himself for very long before your mind strays to the hard-to-shake notion that he was a bit crazy. Or at least delusional. He said he was there on his wilderness sojourns to "protect" the bears, in the same way, I suppose, that a barnyard chicken "protects" the farmer - and the farmer weighs 800 pounds, stands seven feet high on his hind legs and has four-inch-long claws. 

I wondered how Treadwell could be both so accomplished and so like a little kid. He camped alone (except for the last year) in the wilderness of an Alaskan wildlife refuge with bear-proof canisters of meagre provisions, an astonishing high tech tent that may have collapsed during a torrential downpour but did not leak a bit, sophisticated video equipment that he used with great skill and... his teddy bear from when he was a little boy. 

Sad. And creepy.

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While I was sick, I also read a book sent to me by my dear friend Kate about a thirty-six-year-old woman who had also perhaps peaked too soon, but who got the chance after she'd lost her job to pursue her dream of learning to cook at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

The author, Kathleen Flinn, made me think about the fine points of preparing a meal. Her story also cured me of any notion that I might want to go to Cordon Bleu one day.

The way I see it, my chopping technique may not be all that accomplished, but it gets the job done.

Have a great week!

Karen