#3: Do you have a good place to sleep and rest until you recover?

Stanley's side

The question from Gracie back home implies that I'm sick. Which I am. On the downside I have a bad head cold, sinus and ear congestion, sore throat and pneumonia. On the upside I am not as sick as I was last summer here in Skagway. So to answer Grace's question, I do have a good place to sleep and rest until recovered.

My friends will remember that housing was a challenge last year, first in a place where I was told I was too old to fit in, second my boss's century-old cabin aka tool shed without facilities, third a converted meat locker. It was behind my very own freezer door, in a 9' x6' space that I lay in the dark for ten days, I think. My son at some point took time off work to just sit in that cave with me as I moaned and moaned some more, every breath a whine that I couldn't control. This year?

Hey, this  year I'm living in the Taj Mahal, better known here in Skagway as the Westmark Hotel. We like to make fun of the stinky smell in the hallways and the peuk-green of the kitchen, but the kitchen's got hot water. I can wash my dishes in hot water this year. And the rooms all have views of the mountains and hundred-year-old buildings, some restored, some on the waiting list. We have a bathroom to every room, with a tub, in which I'm able to immerse myself 2 times a day and sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't breathe, the searing heat and steam a delightful respite from the dry hacking cough and tightness.

My side: w/Mitty's arsenal for the sick

Not only that, I have an army of friends: people back home praying for my recovery; Shari getting me some OJ and Emergen-C; Ginny rescuing me at the library when I foolishly tried to walk down there yesterday and ran out of steam to get back on my own two feet (and pay the $5 for a new library card I couldn't talk Demitra into giving me); Mitty who this afternoon brought around salted nuts, cough syrup, cough drops, tissues, bag of oranges, and wit so funny I nearly coughed my lungs inside out at least a half dozen times; and Stanley, my roomie, who feeds me protein, warms up chicken noodle soup, and keeps me in the loop of how much fun everyone is having.

So to answer the question, yes I do have a good place to sleep and rest until I recover. A most excellent place.

Check out my room...and the view that kept me company all day while I read my library books.

What I see from my bed. The window opens to the north, onto Fourth Street and
the Hardware Store. Their motto? "If we don't have it, you don't need it."

Looking out to the right, to the eastern mountains that frame Skagway Valley

Our sunflower sprouts and buckwheat lettuce growing in
the window: We signed up for Jewell Garden's weekly
delivery of organic food.