Today started out lovely and turned surreal. First, there was in the AM (first thing for me) a semi-surprise visit from an online acquaintance and her child (this was a great visit; I ended up saying so long to a lovely Singer 15-91 this woman fell in love with at first sight – more than anything I love gifting someone with the thing that is perfect for them). Next, another visit from friends – a young family we ended up passing our well-loved and often-used Burley bike trailer too (yes! Another thing we do not have to haul in our upcoming move).
Company gone, it was time to work. I’d spent some time sewing and resting lately so I was determined to cook and clean more today; emptying and scrubbing the fridge entirely (with Ralph’s help), then making a Nicoise salad of sorts with lettuce, purple potatoes, orange cherry tomatoes, green beans, our chicken eggs, harboiled, and roasted garbanzo beans (the lettuce, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes were from the farm share I picked up last Wednesday). While cooking my mother and her boyfriend David dropped by; it was David’s 68th birthday today and they were carrying, inexplicably, an empty robins’ nest as a gift for my children.
At five PM we were due for a photo shoot with a budding photography business – with me as model. This was a lot of fun, although I was starting to feel achy and strange – the sore throat I’d had the last two nights becoming a more serious, all-body problem. In fact, I was feeling too ill to watch the new Harry Potter movie – very sad, sad times. By the time we met back at the Aberdeen taco truck and picked up some delicious ice cream I was dizzy, sore, and beginning to have chills. A hot bath later, my condition has only worsened as I pathetically muddle through a blog entry before crawling into bed with my eldest – she clothed only in panties, ready to twine her arms around me and watch a B-movie.
When sick, having a loving child is like the perfect, autonomous hot-water bottle – who will also fetch you cold water and tell you they love you. It’s just what the doctor ordered.