Well, it's not like I'm going to include a picture of myself. I've been attempting to capture the perfect Louise picture, when she's sitting in her bulldog Buddha pose. I'm getting closer.
I never dreamed that this would turn into a three-part saga. In fact, after a fairly routine Monday, I thought we were returning to our own version of normal. It might not resemble anyone else's normal, but it's ours and it's better than many alternatives...Like the reality that hit us.
Monday I puttered. I wrote; I did minor cleaning; I walked past projects that need attending to and lamented that today wasn't going to be the day. I eventually took the cats to the vet for a long-overdue appointment. Four o'clock is just too late in the day. It hung over me like some major project when it wasn't. If it had been the dogs--no big deal. Those idiots love going to the vet!
But the cats...one must be sly, secretive, sneaky. It's a good thing that the cats and dogs don't speak the same language or those curs would have ratted me out. I had to hose out one of the cat crates because it had been sitting on the porch, unused, since last August. If a cat sees a carrier, that's the last one will see of the cat. And those two somehow talk to each other without making a sound. Most of the time Hecate and Hedwig don't seem to even particularly like each other, but in matters of travel, they have an alliance.
So here's how it's supposed to work: I clean the carriers outside and then place them out of view on the porch. I discretely put clean towels in each one and leave the doors open. Then I signal Miranda. She finds Hecate; I find Hedwig. We nab them, stuff them, close the cage doors and I drive away to the vet.
Here's how it actually works: I clean the carriers and the dogs see me and go absolutely ape-shit because they think that they are going to get to go somewhere even though these carriers are so obviously the wrong size for them. They impede my every move, barking at me, banging my shins with their rock-hard heads causing me great pain. I yell at them which I know will do no good, but I do it anyway because it makes me feel better. I let the carriers dry out of sight and Zeus tries to crawl in one and looks like the ridiculous fool that he is. Sorry, no pictures, I was too annoyed. Finally, it is time and Miranda and I both successfully grab and stuff our cats--while the dogs jump and crash into us, trying to insert their heads in the crates while we try closing the doors. More unpleasant words are directed at the dogs with the same effect. In other words, none. Then I try to go out the front door to the car, a crate in each hand, and the dogs listen as well as ever, in other words, not at all, and they go running out the front door, trying to get in the car and Louise decides to hide outside in the front. Finally, the dogs are corralled and herded inside and I can leave. Hedwig, as is her norm, yowls unpleasantly for the entire drive. Luckily, the vet isn't far away. When we've traveled with her to Alaska, she has yowled for the entire hour and fifteen minutes to to airport, and then I've heard her yowling in the hold of the plane. So the five minute drive was nothing.
After that, everything was anti-climatic. Thank God! Compliments on the beautiful and healthy cats. Good to see a Persian that isn't all matted with gooey eyes [these two are actually Exotic Shorthairs, aka the lazy man's Persian which is why their coats are so nice and matt-free]. And they'd maintained their weights--12 pounds and 8 pounds, amazing for indoor cats. It might just have something to do with two bulldogs chasing them around the house.
I'm home a half-hour later. The dogs are insanely glad to be reunited with us as though the cats had been on some spectacular adventure and then Louise annoys me for the rest of the night by very firmly and persistently sniffing my legs. All those exciting doctor office smells. Actually, there'd been three huge rescue dogs in the office when we got there and one of the owners apologetically explained that they were cat-killers. Not that I would have taken our cats out for a visit. They barely tolerate our dogs, let alone strangers.
So all is fine and dandy and I get to finish my phone call with my friend Chris, which had been rudely and completely interrupted by a bodily explosion the night before. I had a couple of glasses of wine and a great visit.
Then I woke up Tuesday morning. This couldn't be a hang-over? Could it? Could it? When was the last time I had a hang-over? So long ago that I don't remember.
I get up, feed the pets, lie down on the couch to watch the Today Show, and it's the last thing I do. The last normal thing I do, I mean. Because it isn't long after that that I retrieve Miranda's barf bucket, but I'm having to sit on the toilet while I vomit painfully into her bucket, if you get my drift! Then the body aches really begin. And if I wasn't so miserable I'd feel smug because this wasn't any hang-over! Ha! I've got the flu!
Yes, my kids gave me their crud, and lucky me, I get both versions. Poor Miranda had to take care of just about everything. I was too achy to lie on the couch for long, so she got out an air mattress and made a bed for me. Because, of course Sam had kicked me out of my own room for the day. Which was fine because there was still a lingering scent of her poop hanging in the air. And I was completely nauseated. And limp. Occasionally moaning in misery which I tried to control because that kind of freaks Miranda out. But it's kind of like giving birth (well, not really, of course), in that the intermittent verbalization, the animalistic groan, brings the slightest bit of relief.
I don't know how Miranda did it, but the dogs spent the entire day outside. Miranda had traded places with me and hung out watching TV with me all day. Except that I did sleep through a great deal of it. This is the only time I nap, folks. My mom would tell you, I didn't even nap as an infant. I made every car trip a complete misery for my family because I was the only kid in the world who couldn't fall asleep in the car. That's still me. If I'm exhausted, which honestly is a lot of the time, I might blink too long and fall asleep while watching TV for a total of ten minutes, tops. But not when I'm that sick. I slept. I woke up stiff and sore, rolled over, and I slept some more. The sleep came after turning my stomach inside out three times, examining last night's dinner (hey, I thought I chewed better than that) and then observing that I was now placing bile in the bucket and my throat was burning. Luckily the diarrhea stopped even a little before that. Then sleep and more sleep. I heard Mick call once and I didn't talk to him. I just lay there and listened to Miranda tell him that Mom was sleeping and couldn't be disturbed. If I hadn't been experiencing fever, chills, and horrible body pains, all this sleep would have been a pleasant dream. Remember, I'd been sleep-deprived for about three nights ( or 14 years).
What made this situation difficult is that 1) Sam was getting better and a little more restless and 2) Sam had started her period--which was a relief for me because she hadn't had it since maybe February or March. Definitely not a relief for Miranda. And not for me either because I was in no condition to help Sam deal with it.
There was an incredible amount of washing to be done. Normally this wouldn't phase me. It doesn't phase me. I can tell you True Tales of Horror about doing laundry, literally, around the clock. Two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning...six o'clock...you get the idea. But Miranda has never had to do this. For her, and maybe most people, one or two loads and they think they've done a lot of laundry. For some people I know that would be a week's worth--but I sure wouldn't want to see their sheets or towels. I have to laugh when my mother mentions something about it being laundry day because here EVERY DAY IS LAUNDRY DAY! And some days, and some weeks, are worse than others. We've been having one of those weeks.
Another problem we have is Miranda's concern about Sam's weight. This isn't normally a "concern" because I will mostly pay attention to what Sam eats and try to ensure that she eats as healthy as she will allow me without causing bodily harm to me or causing her to run away and attempt to forage in stranger's refrigerators--true story. And we're ALL concerned with Sam's weight for obvious reasons. But Miranda is so concerned that she just doesn't like to see any food going into Sam's mouth, and of course, that isn't healthy either. Fat or not, a person needs to eat.
So Sam did get to eat, although it was much later than it should have been and Miranda was getting pretty worn out playing nursemaid, house keeper, and sister's keeper. I know, it's a tough, but rewarding job.
I finally wanted to eat, too. I wouldn't say I was hungry, but I was feeling that other kind of shakiness, the kind that is your body telling you it needs fuel.
There was no good sick food in the house. Since Mick doesn't have the internet I'll tell you why there is no good sick food in this house. Because come winter, an afternoon or evening will come when he doesn't want to eat healthy, he doesn't want to go to the store because the weather is crappy, and then he will spy my cream of chicken or my frozen chicken pot pies. They are the only things I ever feel like eating when I'm sick and that's the only time I do eat those foods because they've got a million fat calories in them. Comfort food. He will deny this, but don't believe it for a minute.
I was grateful to get two short cans of Sprite to help me through the day. Once Sam discovered there was pop in the house again she started her sneak attacks on the refrigerator and I later found little cans stuffed here and there.
I'm running out of steam again just thinking about all this. The day finally came to an end. I was able to help Miranda a little and was amazed that she would rather change the bedding on my bed and Sam's rather than help her sister with her shower. No problem, I did it. However, the chi qong session I requested she give her sister must have been too much for her because it was the shortest session ever. But that's ok. I walk in those shoes.
Lights out at 9:30. Almost unheard of for me. I only woke up to roll over. No one else puked. No phones rang in the night. No dogs barked to go out and make friends with skunks. And Sam let me sleep until 6:30! You do the math. I almost felt like a normal person when I woke up.
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