Concrete Pierogies

            On Monday morning my cold was still hanging on. My singing voice was worse than the day before and only sounded remotely like singing on the lowest notes. . It would have been appropriate to be that limited while singing Serge Gainsbourg songs in French if my voice wasn’t even worse than his after a million Gauloise cigarettes.

            I also had what felt like a lump of cement in my stomach. Two nights before I’d cooked some frozen pierogies and ate half. The next morning I’d felt no discomfort. That night though when I went to reheat the rest, since I remembered how bland they’d been, this time I’d melted havarti cheese over them. They tasted a lot better but for some reason they sat in my stomach undigested.

            That night I practiced playing “Dead Autumn Leaves” six times and my singing voice was much closer to normal, though I suspected that it would be limited again the next morning. I recall reading that Frank Sinatra refused to sing until the late afternoon because that’s when his voice was at its best. I think the vocal chords are not relaxed in the morning.

            We had our first big snowfall and I went to bed to the even thunder of a scraping snowplough.