That pretty much sums up the last few days.
Friday afternoon, I wasn’t feeling too good so I bundled up under some blankets near the fireplace and read my book. It was called Scarlet Feather, by Maeve Binchy. It wasn’t very good. I’ve liked a lot of her stuff but this one just didn’t gel. Still, it was okay and I did want to know how it turned out, so I finished it. I give it a big “Meh.”
Saturday morning, I woke at the crack of 11 with the unmistakable signs of a fever; light headed, achy muscles, a temperature of 101.3…so I reeled into the bathroom for some Tylenol, then back into bed, where I felt like I just might be dying.
Jay brought me some vitamin C and a glass of orange juice, which was the most delicious thing I’ve ever had in my life. Midafternoon, my fever broke. I could hardly believe how much better I felt! I got myself a cup of hot coffee, a glass of ice water and a book and I stayed in bed for several more hours. Then, I took a long, hot shower (Heaven), stripped all the sweaty, fever-germy sheets off the bed and threw them in the wash. I remade the bed and went looking for something to eat.
No one else was home. After getting me the juice and making sure I would die comfortably, Jay and Zack both took off with Tyler and Babalouie to watch basketball. They were gone all afternoon and so did not witness my miraculous retreat from the brink of death.
Yeah, I’m hardly ever sick. I don’t do well with a fever. The only remnant of what nearly was my undoing is a post-nasal-drip cough. I can go hours without coughing at all but when one does grip me, I can’t stop and it feels like I’ll cough up my kidneys. My entire back aches from the coughing.
Yesterday, I read a book of short stories by Rosamunde Pilcher, in a volume titled The Blue Bedroom. My favorites were An Evening to Remember, in which a young couple is planning to entertain the Boss and his wife and they show up the night before they’re expected. It’s very funny! And one called Gilbert, in which a newly married man plans the funeral for his step daughters’ goldfish. The two little girls are distraught when their fish appears to be dead so he sends them off to plan a fishy funeral. Then it turns out the fish is not dead, just weird. Happily, he shows the girls the healthy fish and their reaction is not what he expected. They are not delighted that the fish’s continued good health just ruined all their plans. “Let’s kill him.” They say.
I laughed until I cried.
Of course, that could be because I’m so sore from coughing that laughing was actually quite painful.
I am very grateful that Jay hadn’t tasked Babalouie with plans for my funeral on Saturday.
The (cue scary music) polar vortex took a few days off this weekend. While I was too sick to enjoy it, the temps soared up into the high 30s! All that beautiful, glittery snow we got a week ago melted. The ground is still frozen, so the snow melt had nowhere to go and when night came, it just froze. The world is now covered in a layer of treacherous rime. I had to go to the grocery store today and despite the grit Jay covered the driveway with, was unable to get the van back up the driveway when I returned. I parked on the street and crawled up the drive with my groceries on my back, like a turtle.
I know I could spread more grit and get the van up into the garage but that would mean going back outside and quite frankly, I don’t care.
I’ve got work to do. Oh, that reminds me of something creepy! In my job, I look up tons of images. My clients want all sorts of things and research online is super easy. So, I’ve got an order right now for someone who wants to stitch colorful roosters for a bench. Easy: I googled images of roosters and put together a composition. Some of the images I looked at were photos, some paintings, all helpful.
Two days later, I get an email from Amazon, offering to sell me a print of one of the paintings I looked at.
Hey Amazon, go f**ky’self.
I can’t be the only one who’s creeped out by the idea that Google, or Bing or whatever search engine I used to research roosters then turned around and told my Amazon account what I’m ‘interested’ in.
So now, I’m going to go look at pictures of yachts with helipads, pink diamonds and Max Busser’s MB&F HM9 Flow. That’s a watch that looks like an airplane and costs $182,000.00. It’s featured in The Good Life Guide in this month’s Cigar Aficionado.
I can’t wait to see what Amazon will try to sell me next week.