A Pocket Full of Posies

It's been an eventful week.

My friend Michelle has been housesitting an amazing mansion style house with a big pool. On Thursday (the day the weather finally turned cold, naturally) I went over there and swam. My first and probably only swimming of the year. It was fun, but freezing. There was a West Highland Terrier there who rode around the pool on a surfboard. If only I'd taken pictures.

On Wednesday, I contracted the Black Death (tm) from one of my six-year-olds. Swimming in the subzero temperatures did nothing to cure me. (I'd had high hopes for the sterilization effects of chlorine).

By Friday, I was in bad, bad shape.

Saturday, I was contemplating euthenasia.

But then I went to see a production of Lost Highway: The Hank Williams Story, which was beautifully sung and acted, and though I cried when we got there because I realized I had to pee after we'd been seated in a packed house and would not be able to pee for 2 and a half hours, I enjoyed it immensely. I then tried the sterilization effects of two glasses of wine and a fine conversation with my friend Steve at the bar. Perhaps as ill advised as swimming, but it worked.

I awoke today feeling weak but on the mend. Go wine! The wine in question, should it work for others, was a Pinot Gris called The Four Graces. It is made in a steel drum rather than an oak cask, giving it no wood flavor at all and a stronger taste of flowers than fruit. Very, very good. And medicinal to boot!

Page count: 336

Read: Marley and Me by John Grogan
Reading: Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy

Sick

It's about 1:15 in the morning, and I think my fever is breaking. I've spent the last two days in the fog of the sick person: unable to think beyond the next few steps, where are my tissues, why is it so hot in here, oh god it hurts.
Right now I'm thinking: Crap, I'm behind in my work. Which, I think, is a good sign. That and I'm sweating profusely, breathing through my nose and suddenly wide awake in the middle of the night.
It's weird, isn't it, how we can shut down the world until we're nothing but the basic functions: eat, pee, sleep.

Because of where I work, there can be no sick days; I teach in whatever condition I'm in, all year round. So I'm going to eat this sleeve of Ritz crackers, drink my 7 up and try to go back to sleep. But I think I'm on the mend.