A little office music

The guy in the next office, I have unofficially nicknamed “the cougher.” He coughs in his office all the time. I’ve made a mental note to myself to

1. take the vacuum into the office if I ever start coughing, and
   
2. leave a packet of cough drops outside his door
   

I know I won’t do the latter because that seems mean. But anytime I settle into my office and he’s there, the cough distracts me. Like the dog barking next door. (not the dog at the office, XlB, who is a fluffy black chow who never barks, but will occasionaly “whuff” like a bear. more like the dog in my neighborhood who sort of bawls all day long. drives me nuts)

So I play a little office music. I have to pick the right something, since obviously, i don’t want the music to distract me in place of the coughing, but rather to provide a filter. My regular choices are the Virgin of Guadalupe albums from the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (indigenous-mestizo music from the early colonial period in Mexico, played with period instruments or a capella). When I was in NM, I copied a disk of my mom’s, Chopin and Champagne, which also works. Yo-Yo Ma is often too intense--I’m more likely to play that when I want to get my mind off something else.

But today I remembered a gift from my soon-to-be-sister *u*u, a 3-disk set of music of the Seven Stringed Harp (which is women’s instrument) by Ming Qn-Zhang Zqan. So I’m loading it onto my computer for protection from coughs. (or, at least I’m loading the first two disks. Number three is unaccountably being rejected.