'Tis the Times' Plague, When Madmen Lead the Blind

Ridiculous things I feel guilty about today:

I called in sick for work yesterday, even though

I've been sick for four days, flat on my back with fever, laryngitis and sore throat

I haven't cooked dinner for four days

I haven't done the ironing.

I'm still not terrific today, but I doubt I'll get in to see my doctor. I can't have more than one night off without a medical certificate, which is a great way to encourage Dudley Doo-rights to come in, even when they feel like death, and are going to infect the rest of the staff. Colour me collapsing if I am as sick as I feel.

I tried to have a shower yesterday, but it was too hard to stand in one place while I washed, so I had the quickest bath ever. Baths, in my opinion, should be bubbled, candle-scented and furnished with a good book. Therefore they are always an hour long. Not yesterday, and I was toying with the idea of hacking all my hair off so I could stop the sweaty-haired lout feeling every time I turned my head on the pillow. I've worked my way through nearly all of the drugs in my drug bowl. I have a fruit bowl on top the microwave full of drug packets. Something in druggy literature must have dripped through, but it's not as fun as it sounds. No party packs of 'ludes, coke or tabs of questionable origin yet delirious effects in our household. Dammit.

Small lad scored this one on Friday and the poor mite simply slept for two days. He still has moments of looking peaky, but is otherwise fine, lucky for me, because staggering around yesterday to get his lunch and even conversation (such as it was) was getting a bit much. Today small one (for whom I am going to have to find a new soubriquet, since he's not so little anymore) is off to vacation care with the Y! M! C! A! (do the arm movements for me, would you? my joints still hurt), while I sleep off the day. And hopefully the last of the illness.

I'll try my doctor shortly, but given my luck last time, I think it's time for a new doctor. It's still early in the season yet.

I had plans for this five days off, which weren't terribly ambitious. Strangely none of those happened, what with me in bed all the time. As much as I'd like to be all upbeat and attempting poetical, really, I feel like dogshit and all over having a whinge. Plus even laughing hurts, or induces really painful coughing. I have hayfever at the moment too (say hey! to hayfever) and when I sneezed yesterday, I thought I'd blown out the back of my nose. You know, the bit where your nasal passages meet the roof of your mouth? That bit. Ouch.

I keep reading things weirdly too, so I couldn't escape into a good book. Or any book. I tried starting Sewer, Gas and Electric: the Public Works Trilogy but couldn't get past page four because my eyes were sliding all over the page. I looked up at this entry and though I had planes for this five days off, which makes no sense at all: our driveway is too steep and small for that sort of thing, though it might have shut up the screaming neighbours for five seconds. Not the same lot as previously reported (although they still feature), another lot.

I had an extravaganza of a long dream last night involving the show Medium, poisoned food that Joe Dubois kept eating and some kind of barbed-wire made of cooch grass. And there was unlabelled tinned food. It must have been delirium, because I'm pretty sure I surfaced a few times in there to roll over and tug my sweaty hair out from my neck. Or from my earring. Or off my face.

Cue this morning and the boys ran around getting ready to go to the Y! M! C! A! (ditto re arm movements please) while I slobbed out in bed wondering if I could manage getting up today. I'll need a cup of tea soon, so there's an incentive. I'd like to make mozzarella-filled meatballs with a tomato and bocconcini salad for dinner tonight (plus the makings will go off soon if I don't get to them), another incentive, of a doubtful nature, since it involves lying in bed all day in hopes of being well enough to get up later.

I think I'll go back to watching Castle and drifting off. Sound good? I thought so too.

Spread My Dreams Under Your Feet

There were wasps flying outside the garage, in formation, orange and black. The garage and side doors were open and small lad was running down the driveway towards me. I put my hand up to stop him, my voice frozen, circuits jammed. Husbandly was standing behind me. The wasps flew past the open side door, diverted by something outside. Small lad came into the garage to look at what Dad was holding - a friendly duck wrapped in a towel. The duck was happy to be with us, a smile sensed (since ducks can't smile, can they?), nice and warm inside the towel. As I looked at him I saw the wasp-maggots on his feathers. He was a diversion. I turned to look out the side door again and the wall in front of me disappeared; the walls behind me changed to a deep golden cream colour with a white trim, the wasps outside, four, five, six of them flying straight for me. As the walls changed behind me, the wasps veered away, unable to attack in the reflected golden light; husbandly woke me up to offer me a cup of tea.

We have wasp issues. There is a nest somewhere near the bathroom window and every now and then (okay, it's only twice so far), I've found a wasp in the bath after I've cleaned. Bees don't bother me at all, I'll happily stand still if a bee is crawling on me. I've scored plenty of bee stings, particularly when I was a kid and went barefoot just about everywhere. Wasps, ick. For some reason we keep getting nest attempts on the front door as well - quickly killed off but after ten years of it, it's annoying. I've never been stung by a wasp, which is why I'm creeped out by the whole notion of wasps.

Back to the dreaming, I don't always get the wake up call from husbandly or small lad; if I'm deep enough I go back to sleep and barely remember dreams unless they are somehow important.

In another, I was sprawled on the lounge reading a book while small lad was playing in his room with a friend. For some reason my hackles were up - I didn't know who the other child was - when both boys came out of small lad's room. The unknown boy came first and my stomach went cold and creepy; there was something wrong about him being in our house. He had blue eyes and blonde hair and a gorgeous smile; but he wasn't supposed to be here. Then someone knocked on the door four times (the heartbeat of a Time Lord?) and I was relieved. Thank God, that will be the police, I thought, so I opened the door, ready to welcome them in when the words died and my mouth hung open. At the door was a lady with a scarf over her head, wrapped completely around her head so I couldn't see her face, facing away from me and turning slowly in my direction - I woke up, heart pounding, since I don't want to be anybody's blue-eyed girl, Mrs Death.

While I'm freaked out about the door knocking - it was so clear, so concise somehow, even if Death was shorter than me - no, I'm freaked about that dream. I think I know that child from somewhere, so whatever freaky thing I'm processing in that one, it's freaky. Unlike the last time I dreamed knocking on my door, this one has me unsettled. The vivid patterning on the scarf, the slow turn of her face toward me, ponderous and unstoppable, until I woke up.

I'm at work at the minute and it has been a very quiet night (yes! I said the Q word!). I'm too scared to move near the stock fridge since it keeps hitting 5.5 degrees and therefore setting off nearly every alarm in the place. Or rather, two alarms, and nowhere near as loud as the oxygen depletion alarm from the BMT lab (that's a horror).

I've had a very full five days off. There was housework. There was shopping for birthday presents. There was an appointment with a hairdresser. There was a christening and birthday party. There was more shopping, this time at Ikea. There was building of furniture. Okay I'm going to stop this half-arsed list.

I went home and crashed out completely last Wednesday, having had the wasp dream on Sunday and meaning to put it in here. Ha! After spending Saturday night reading a book, Sunday through to Wednesday morning was amazingly busy. If it wasn't a bleeding patient, it was an antibody, or just volume of work. Come to think of it, the only thing I didn't have was a transfusion reaction.

So! On Wednesday morning I crawl into my bed, thinking of nothing more than picking up small lad from school, then coming straight home to catch some more z's; oops, I'd forgotten his haircut appointment. I manage to stagger around for the afternoon. I think I made it to about seven in the evening and out like a light. I slept until about two, then surprisingly (surprising to me anyway) went back to sleep until six. Oh bliss.

On Thursday there was housework. Enough said. Small lad and I went to get some veggies for dinner after school and, standing in the "food court" (no it isn't), I talked myself into a hair appointment for Friday, because this going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home is getting a bit dull. With some trepidation, because I have never come out of a hairdressers utterly pleased with my haircut. Until last Friday. Talk about awesome. Three hours later, I have a marvellous colour (not blue, maybe next time) and when we got to the end (because I did so much, sitting there, watching everyone else's haircuts, reading my book and blissed out on the head massage), R. (the BEST hairdresser in the WORLD) says "I could straighten it out, or I could do...what I want to do, and give it some body." "Go on," I say, "I'll let you." Am I glad I did? Or rather, he did? You couldn't have wiped the smile off my face with a sandblaster. Or a grinder. What an awful mental image that is. Particularly compared to how wonderful my hair looked. It still does. Although it's not quite so fancy, I find I'm wearing it out rather than tied back and hidden away. Marvellous.

I was so excited by the Amazing Impromptu Haircut, I had to ring an old friend and burble at her about how truly wondrous it was; which was nice for me, but not much chop for her since she was at work and I could hear people wanting to talk to her in the background, but oh well.

For some reason I thought I was shopping some more on Saturday what with the birthday presents and the christening thing (supposedly) on Sunday. Oops again, because all of that was on Saturday, so emergency shopping and run around later we're all enjoying the splashing of Holy Water (well I might find it a hoot, Catholics may differ and I probably have to avoid any of those people if they read this blog) then on to a two-year old's party (the sister of the christen-ee). Small lad had the joys of trampolining, husbandly reconnected with some seldom-seen friends and I did the helping out, the sitting around chatting, the running after kids. The latter might have been a mistake since I wound up under a pile of kids on the trampoline; it did give a couple of adults a chance to have a lend when they told me I had to get back in as minder. Har dee har har.

Again I have the good intentions and intend to start on the blog entry because the wasp-maggot-duck has caught my imagination, but I crash out again Saturday night, waking up again at two. That night I didn't go back to sleep, but read a book instead (Deep Water, Pamela Freeman, book two in the Castings Trilogy, very good).

Confronted with a now-empty Sunday, instead of a day of family fun, I decide to betake myself off to Ikea. Again. I seem to do that a lot. I spent an hour fiddling with the kitchen planning software and harassing the Ikea "coworker". I'd already picked out the furniture I wanted from the net, only to reverse myself midstream and get completely different furniture. And a soap dish. Coming home at midday, I spent the rest of the afternoon building furniture and emptying the fucking ugly hand-me-down-glad-we-had-something-but-yuck-how-awful we've been putting up with for fourteen years. I can finally open my wardrobe door fully without having it clunk against the bedside. Downer note (to wit: fucking ugly etc.) aside, it does look much nicer than it did.

Once again, I opened my fat mouth and fell in while at Ikea. A lady asked the Ikea coworker (*snort* going to run that into the ground? You bet) about parts missing, and muggins here pipes up with "not ever happened". Guess what I found when I got home. Go on, guess. Not only a couple of screws, but an entire side panel of a storage box missing. Bahahaha. The universe loves me. My first thought was "I hope that lady doesn't have any missing parts," before fixing it up. Ikea will post it so no dramas there.

Much nicer five days off than I've had since I started this noo improoved job. Today (meaning Monday, although it is Tuesday morning), I got it into my head to iron clothes. While I'm happy I only have some odd socks left to match, it probably wasn't the brightest choice given it's four in the morning and I need some toothpicks or matchsticks for my eyelids. Because then of course I did the floors. Colour me silly.

Today (meaning Tuesday, since I'm looking forward now and it is, indeed, Tuesday morning) I plan to crash out again so I'm on form to cook something nice for dinner. Or possibly some washing, because we just can't have enough of that in our house.

Are dreams better than newspaper to wipe the mud off your feet? Not really, ephemera leave smears.

The View May Be Dazzling: Oxygen Masks are Optional

A few weeks ago I got a delightful surprise in the mail. I subscribed to the Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and promptly forgot I had. Since all I get are bills in the mail, the marvellous package of issue 50 made my day. The stories were exceptional, which made all of that joy (and giggling) worthwhile.

For myself, I've turned into Gene Roddenberry: can't write for sour owl poop. (Thank you Harlan Ellison). I keep false starting on a short story that I think may have a novel in it somewhere, but, sucks budgies, it's just not coming.

I've discovered I'm overly fond of the semicolon; it seems the book on grammar wasn't entirely wasted.

Or perhaps it was, I'm undecided; just because I like punctuation marks doesn't mean the rest of the world will appreciate my use of them. Okay. Stopping on that now.

Umm. Err. Where is my constant stream of bullcrap from yesteryear? It seems I have lost my way in the verbosity stakes. How frightfully dull of me.

The Royal Wedding is, by now, done and dusted, or nearly so. I tuned in to see the dress (ahem, The Dress), but aside from the light moment of seeing Wills and Kate trying not to crack up at the altar (?), couldn't have cared less. And still don't.

I did some more ironing today, yip-yip-yippee, then transferred recipes to "my" recipe book. Does that sound profitable? I thought so, until I remembered all of the other things I intended to do today. Since I'm starting a run of five in a row, I'll be a bit pushed over the next few days, but I think I'll just have a go at a bit at a time. At least the new and improved bathroom only takes a little while to clean.

That's what I'm telling myself now, but of course I'll do less and beat myself up all over again. Never mind, it will all come out in the wash. Literally, since that's what I needed to get done today.

There was some excitement in our street this afternoon. I heard sirens start up and had that automatic thought of "is that coming to our place? Naaah, can't be", as you do. Then I realise that it is in front of our place. Cue looking out the front door, like the nosy neighbour that I am (in this context, anyway), since it turned out that one of the girls next door decided to dial triple-0, just for the hell of it, and ask the fireys to come out. Nice. Yes, she is old enough to know better. Young people today.

I was thinking about my last entry (blah, blah, nothing to say) - the fun stuff that happens at work I have to leave at work. The nerd stuff (gee-I-like-this-different-method-and-actual-work) I wouldn't even bother boring anybody with, but oh sigh, the hilarious clinical notes (explosive headache after hitting brick wall with face (you think?)), names and general silliness of some of the things we get (please test this clear fluid to see if it is anything) I can't say anything about. Patient confidentiality, anyone?

Disclaimer: I made up the examples above. Of course I did. And any resemblance to anything or anyone is a complete coincidence. Really, honest and for true.

Speaking of making stuff up, and I usually do, we have a running saga on our kitchen whiteboard about three frog brothers, Bob, Clob and Shlob. Although they may have to turn into butterflies - my audience of one (yes, that would be Alex), complained about them being frogs. I did include some butterflies in the last story. In terms of story we are talking two paragraphs at most, but I stand by it being a story. Even if one of the kids from the street poo-poohed it. Sucks budgies, I say. The particular kid is twelve and my target is seven. So nerts.

(Not the same kid who called the fireys today, that was a different one.)

(Children! Everywhere! It's frightening!)

More speaking of making stuff up, and I told you I usually do, although this is only barely in the same category, I want my patterns to arrive from the US. Hurry up, International Checkout! I went mad about a month ago and made bags left, right and centre (actually...no I won't do that joke to you). I have a new sewing machine and everything. Thank you, ebay. So now I want to make myself some stuff. HURRY. UP. This toying with my emotions is not fun.

Shh, it's a secret, I'm also waiting on a sonic screwdriver for small lad's birthday. Don't tell him, okay?