Column: Missing Farmington

Talk about it

Here it is, almost the end of August, and I’ve hardly spent any of it in Farmington.

It’s not that I’ve meant to. It just kind of happened.

I apparently inhaled some funky spores while digging through a box of old papers and awards before the end of July. I developed a cough and tight chest. After 10 days, four boxes of lotion tissue, and two bottles of Nyquil, I went to the doctor, only to find out I had full-blown bronchitis and sinusitis.

That landed me on the couch in our basement for one week, doped up on antibiotics and a steroid. I haven’t had bronchitis since college, and I haven’t been down and out for that long since I had chicken pox when I was 10.

Not to mention, I tend to be an on-the-go kind of gal. It’s hard for me to lie around and stay put. But I was supposed to do just that. On my way home from the doctor, I thought about all of the projects I could do – read a few of those books I haven’t gotten to, work on that afghan I haven’t touched since last fall. Stuff like that. Stuff that didn’t require any of my energy.

It turns out, though, some of those things I had in mind did require me to be upright, and that was a problem because I kept falling asleep.

I had another doctor’s appointment the following week. I was still sick, though the bronchitis was getting better. I wound up back on the couch, not at my desk.

I did get permission to come back to work last week, but now I’m off, again, so I can work at the Minnesota Newspaper Museum at the Minnesota State Fair.

There are some pros to spending most of the month in St. Paul. For one thing, I’ve only had to fill up my gas tank twice. My puppy loves all of the extra attention she’s getting, although I think she’s feeling a little cooped up because we haven’t been out for a walk or to the dog park in weeks. And I didn’t go through a whole lot of laundry, either.

This much I have figured out, though: having fun goes a long way to helping me recuperate. And so does fresh air. I’m still working my way through antibiotics and such, and I come home from the fair exhausted most nights. But seeing friends from the museum definitely helps me feel better.

I made an impromptu run to Farmington on Monday to get a tire fixed – seems I ran over a big piece of something, most likely in the days before the fair opened – and a quick run through the drive-in at the bank. Other than that, I’ve had to rely on the Independent’s website and my Facebook friends to keep me updated on what’s happening around town. It’s a weird feeling for someone who is used to being right in the middle of everything Farmington.

I’ll come back to Farmington after Labor Day. In the meantime, I’ve kind of taken on the role as “state fair correspondent.” That, at least to me, is a fancy way of saying I’ve been out and about on the fairgrounds, looking for stories of Farmington folks at the Minnesota State Fair.

I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things next week. Not so sure I’m looking forward to things like the city’s budget workshops, but I do miss my home away from home.

Tags: opinion, farmington, commentaries