The Good, The Bad and The Funny

Christopher's party was excellent. The weather was perfect - sunny and clear, warm enough to be comfortable but not so hot that we couldn't enjoy being outside. Our friends and family came, we snacked on fruits, veggies and cheese, Alan grilled, the birthday boy got an impressive haul of swag. It was a wonderful time. I way overbought on the food and booze, but then I knew I was even while I was doing it. I'd still rather have leftovers than run short of anything, though.

Sunday was nice too - a late lunch and a trip to the bookstore. Y'all know I love the bookstore. Monday was a typical workday, not too good or bad. Monday night, Alan cooked dinner because he's off on Mondays. Now, he's feeling a lot of misplaced guilt about this, utterly misplaced because we'd chosen together what to have for dinner (pork chops, butterflied and baked with stuffing and gravy) and if I'd been cooking, I'd have cooked the exact same stuff in the exact same way but he's feeling badly because it was he who poisoned us.

In the dark hours Monday night/Tuesday morning, Alan started to have severe digestive distress. When I got up for work, he asked if I was okay. I reported that I felt fine - my only symptom was that I couldn't seem to take even a sip of my Diet Coke without getting the hiccups, weird because I always have a Diet Coke in the morning. Still, I said I'd be fine and hopped in the car to head for the office, merely the latest in the series of VERY BAD DECISIONS that add sparkle to my life.

I'd almost made it to my exit when I got that feeling - I'm sure you know that feeling - and I knew that I was about to be extremely, violently ill. But cars were whizzing by me in every lane and I couldn't pull over without causing an accident, so I was sick all over myself, in my car. When I called The Boss to say I wouldn't be in, despite being within 2 miles of my office at this point, I was practically hysterical because I was not only sick and kinda dizzy, but vomit was all over me and dripping off my clothes. I have an almost pathological thing about being dirty, I HATE being dirty and now I was sick, dirty and covered with a smelly disgusting mess.

I made it home, showered, got sick twice more and hit the bed. Alan had never made it out of bed, in terrible shape himself (although the vomiting seemed to be totally my department). So we spent all day yesterday in bed together, but not in a good way. I think we had low-grade fevers because we were both alternating being too hot/too cold. He said he could not remember the last time he felt so badly.

We were in such bad shape that even my cat noticed, and y'know, by virtue of being a cat, there's not a sympathetic bone in his entire body. Still, he crept up beside me and patted my arm a bit with his paw. "Alas, my poor hoomin. [pat pat] Bleakly do I recall the time that I got hold of a bad piece of salmon [pat pat pat]. Now get your lazy behind up out of that bed and distribute treats!" (Hey, from him, that's practically devotion!)

Dozing off and on in a sick, possibly fevered haze, I had a silly dream. In the dream, we were in this exact situation, both ill with food poisoning, and I was in the kitchen searching for something to feed Alan that his stomach wouldn't reject. I made him postage sandwiches. No, I have no idea how that got into my head, but a postage sandwich is exactly what it sounds like. Carefully I sorted all our mail into two stacks, put them between hamburger buns and added condiments. Postage sandwiches for my sweetie. The next time we were both awake and semi-coherent, I related this to him. "Thank you for taking care of me, sweetheart," was all he said. Today we've each managed a peanut butter sandwich (with jelly for him) but no postage sandwiches because neither of us has felt up to walking to the mailbox.