Sick 2: It's COVID. Plus more on Don "Sugarcane" Harris

So today is day three of definitive symptoms - it was clear I had *something* by late Monday night. Tuesday I was pretty sure it was COVID. Wednesday morning I tested - the kits have a level of stupidity to them, with directions that have too much medical-speak, but are actually easy enough to use: you pour a little liquid in a phial, swab your nostrils, stick the swab in the liquid and swirl it around, then put a cap in the phial and put three drops in the little circle at the bottom of the, uh, thingy. If you have one line - no COVID. If you have two lines - COVID. It takes a few minutes to show. 

The above is my actual test.

So now I've been meandering around singing "So this is COVID" to the tune of that John and Yoko Christmas tune. Mostly I feel weak and achey. There's a bit of a shivery feeling that sets in if I move around. My throat is a little sore - hurts to swallow - and occasionally, but only occasionally, I am wracked by shallow, rapid-fire coughs. My left nostril is a bit runny but the coughing and nose-blowing I do is not particularly productive, are dry. The most notable symptom for me that people do NOT seem to talk about is frequent and voluminous urination; I get the signal to pee and have to race to the toilet, lest it start before I'm ready, and pee huge quantities of nearly clear fluid. I'm assuming this is my immune system's way of fighting the disease, trying to clear it out. The advice to stay hydrated is pretty darn important, then, because I'm losing a lot of liquid this way. 

I have no gastric symptoms (yet). I have no loss of smell or taste (yet). I have no more or less "brain fog" than usual. I've heard people talk about serious lower back pain, but that's not a feature of it for me yet, either. I tend not to sleep very long - I was up at 3 to pee last night - but no doubt I will have no problem with taking a nap later. 

And of course, Erika - who was away for the weekend, which is probably when I caught it, but who has been in close quarters with me since Sunday night, when I really didn't believe I had anything --is now starting to feel like she's not totally well, either, though she tested negative yesterday. I'm guessing if we wait one more day, she will test positive; I'm being told by a friend in healthcare that you need to wait a couple of days before symptoms manifest (the kits are free at pharmacies, btw). 

Ah well. If it doesn't get much worse than this, I'm not going to have many complaints - it's all pretty mild and manageable, considering the hubbub and the potential for serious sickness - but who knows what the next few days hold.

In other news: found something delightful the other day, something which was already in my record collection, but which I had entirely forgotten or at least failed to appreciate when I acquired it. 

I was a big fan, back in the 1980's, of a California band called Tupelo Chain Sex, a jazzy ska-punk unit that had a rep for a great live show, which I consistently missed out on, due to living in Maple Ridge - this was back when there was no transit yoking the 'burbs with the city - as well as my being underage and having no friends who were keen to see them (Maple Ridge was not known for musical adventurousness). I read about them in Discorder, had their albums Ja-Jazz and Spot the Difference, and knew that NO FUN opened for them once, so - as you can find on my blog if you go back a bit - I've been mining David M. for stories, mostly around "Oh To Be on Heroin," a song on Snivel that namechecks fiddler Don "Sugarcane" Harris' prior doo-wop duo, Don and Dewey, because he needed a rhyme for "Louie Louie," "kablooey," "phooey," and so forth. Apparently, David called Harris' attention to the song when Harris and Stumuk - Zappa's carpenter, as I recall - came up front at the Luv-A-Fair (or was it the Arts Club?) to check NO FUN out. I HAD realized, back in the 1980's, from articles I read about them that Harris also had had a history with Zappa, but I didn't really pay great attention to that in my teens and 20's, when I was most enthusiastic about Tupelo Chain Sex. I wasn't in a period of deep Zappa fandom at that point; I had maybe five Zappa albums, including Hot Rats, and may have even registered that the hot electric fiddle on "Willie the Pimp" and "The Gumbo Variations" was Don Harris, but I never really paid attention to his ripping fiddle on those tunes, and never heard Weasels Ripped My Flesh until recently, nor had a clue that Harris sang a song on it. He's also on Burnt Weeny Sandwich, but I didn't ever own that album, either, until recently, or know "Little House I Used to Live In." So while I thought it was cool, even as a teenager, that there was this overlap between Tupelo Chain Sex and Zappa, I wasn't really primed to appreciate it, which changed, sort of, in talking with David, mostly because I thought it was pretty funny that he innocently called Don's attention to a song about heroin, not realizing that Don actually had a problem with that drug.

Anyhow, was gonna spin their best album, Spot the Difference - a ubiquitous item in used record stores, note, one of those great but undersung records that you can usually get for fifteen bucks or less - for Erika the other day. (Kids looking to build vinyl collections are seriously encouraged to check it out!). I don't think I've played in in ten or more years, maybe not since I bought my current copy very early in rebuilding my vinyl collection (I'd long ago sold the copy I bought when it was new back in 1984). I think my current copy was bought at Scratch Records, circa 2007, when the store was on Richards Street, and since I knew it by heart, was simply shelved, unspun. 

And here's the thing that I discovered on taking it out: it's signed. I vaguely remember noticing this back in 2007, but not making much of it, especially since it's not signed by, for example, the frontman Limey Dave, who was kind of the "star" of the band for me back in the 1980s. But there on the back, we see Tupelo Joe, Willie Dredd, and... yep, the neat penmanship of Sugarcane Harris, up at the top. I had no idea I had something signed by him - had completely forgotten. He died over 20 years ago, so this is now a treasured possession, one which I didn't even know I owned.

David tells me I should look through my records more often.