I’m hoping that this will be third time lucky, because I have attempted to write this blog on two previous occasions today but didn’t get the timings right.
The first time around I opened the notebook with my early morning musings, turned down the volume on the radio, plugged in the laptop even though the battery was showing 84% (I hope I am not the only person who charges an almost full battery just in case it runs flat), and took a sip of cold water. That last bit – the cold water is part of my latest experimentation because desperation means that I am willing to try just about anything. You see, I am trying to figure out if cold water can somehow reduce the intensity of hot flushes, but on this occasion, it had no effect.
No sooner do I hover my fingers over the keyboard in the style of a Pitman trained typist, that I get the dreaded tremble in my feet followed by what can only be described as a wave of hot lava rushing upwards through my body. That is immediately accompanied by sweat. The beads on the brow turn to a trickle meandering their way downwards, some take a pit stop on the eyelashes, others settle in the dip on my upper lip where a moustache is threatening to grow, and the rest continue downwards to the neck where they pick up speed, unite with their mates on the chest and create a wet squelchy patch under the bust. Some of their friends gallop down the spine and stop once they have created a soggy bottom, but the most annoying of all are the tiny droplets dripping off the palms and fingers threatening to land on the keyboard.
I have encountered too many (phony) technicians who use the excuse of water in the charging port as their diagnosis for any type of phone malfunction. So I defer the typing and replace it with a bout of vigorous fanning – who knew a 2” square notebook could produce so much breeze.
Fanning at a frenzy, I look over and see my copy of “Becoming Michelle Obama” and open it to the bookmarked page and soon get lost in her story, two chapters later something suddenly clicks in my brain – I was in the midst of doing something else before I got distracted, I was going to write a blog. My fingers resume the touch typist position and I start typing the heading, and immediately that oh so familiar foot tremble starts, followed by the rapid lava rush and the race between the beads of sweat. This time I start using “Becoming Michelle Obama” to fan, but it’s a bit awkward so I take off the sleeve and fan with that instead.
I finally cool down, pick back up the book and read two pages. I use the term ‘read’ loosely because what I really did was scan my eyes across some words. Then I notice that the sleeve is still separated from the book which jogged my memory and it dawned on me that I originally set out to write this blog.
Yet again, I poise the touch typist fingers over the keyboard, but this time the brain fog gets the better of me and I have no idea what aspect of the menopause I intended to write about. I stare at the computer for a minute and decide that maybe it’s not third time lucky after all.
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