Rachael

I can say unequivocally that today I’m feeling a little better. Yesterday I felt so badly that I just couldn’t tell if I was getting any better. Today I am. I still feel green and weak and jelly-limbed, but I’m coughing SO much less this morning, and the fever has finally broken, I think. I’ve spent the last three days constantly bathed in sweat and freezing at the same time. I have mountains of laundry to do, mostly sweated-through tee-shirts. Ew. But today I’ve got the same tee on that I slept in, and my Must-Have over it, worn with my favorite sweatpants. I swore, when I wasn’t happy with the miniscule size of my Must-Have, that I would wear it as comfort clothing, knockin’ around the house being a slob clothing. That’s today, for sure.

And god help me, I keep looking into the garden, making plans. I really want to get out there into the dirt. I won’t, I SWEAR I won’t. I’m not strong enough, and I know the danger of a relapse. But I’m getting mightily bored of reading and watching TV. Haven’t knit a stitch. Maybe today, although my arms feel too heavy to hold anything. Oh! I did buy some flash yarn when dear Greta was here, some Crystal Palace Splash in orange, meaning to make a scarf. I never buy novelty yarns, but this stuff is too much fun to resist. I may make that scarf now. Never been a better time to do row after row of garter stitch, right?

I swear I WON’T run right out and get the new Vogue Knitting, even though I believe I’m quoted in it. Hee. Giggle. Too exciting, non? Go, Leslie! But I believe it’s a true illustration of how tired I am that I know I won’t go buy it. Damn it.

And Lisa in Oregon is right, again. Y’all make me feel loved and so blessed and thought of and watched over. (Hum it with me, There’s a somebody I’m longing to see…..) I won’t work in the garden anytime soon, because I know you would be almost as mad as my little mama would be at me. Here’s to another coupla days, at least, of lying around being pale and uninteresting. Lotsa juice and tea, I promise. Yup.

Because you deserve it, here’s a snap from last year. I’m sitting on the Grand Canal with my glass of prosecco, watching the traffic. But look at the Madonna who came to visit me in my glass! I love this one.

Like hell. In my comments, Lisa in Oregon said pneumonia is a big wipe-out. That’s about it. This morning, so far, I’ve managed to feed myself a bowl of cereal, feed the cats, and I’ve steamed my head twice. That’s it. And I’m worn out. I feel five times worse than I did when diagnosed on Friday. But I think I feel a wee bit better than I did yesterday (Saturday). I can’t really tell. It’s hard to grade feeling this poorly.

I don’t mean to be such a baby. Whinge. I’m annoying myself.

Just a couple more sentences, ‘cause I’m ready to retreat to the couch again, but I have to quote Nakachi’s comment which made me laugh (bark) out loud:

“goddamn, rachael. new moan ee ah? you run your lungs like you do your tires or what? you and those close calls of yours. i swear. well, i do swear, obviously, but that’s beside the point.”

Hee. I guess it’s not that funny, because it runs right on the edge of Truth I Should Pay Attention To, but the thought of running both my lungs and tires right down to the metal cracks me up. And makes me wonder what else in my life I should have looked at by a professional….

Y’all rock. Thank you.

You want the good news first or the bad? Okay. The good news is I don’t have bronchitis. Yay! The bad news is I have pneumonia.

For god’s SAKE. I don’t even know how I got it! I wasn’t even feeling badly till Wednesday, remember? And even then, I didn’t feel that badly. Yesterday I napped a lot but felt well enough to go out (but thank GOD I came home early and didn’t party like the rock star I wanted to be).

Today I felt pretty darn bad, but I’m training someone at work, so I got up and went. But my lungs hurt so awfully that by nine o’clock, I actually decided to get not only an appointment, but also the head honcho’s approval to use my trainee as a real 911-answerin’ body so I could go to said appointment. I was 99% sure I had bronchitis and she’d give me a scrip, and I’d get back to work. Nope. Not allowed to work until Monday. And she said I’d had a narrow miss, that if I hadn’t come in and waited till next Tuesday after my work week, as was my original plan, I’d be in the hospital. Apparently we’ve caught this early and it’s only infected one part of my lungs. Damn. I’d hate to see late. This hurts like an em-effer. Only when I cough, though, and the antibiotics should knock that out in a few days.

Pneumonia. Sheesh. I am SUCH a lucky girl. Lucky that I live now, when the right medicine is available that will make me better. Lucky that I live in a region of the world where I can obtain that medicine. Think about it. We have to count our blessings, ‘cause there’re so damn many of ‘em. Yeah?

My doctor (gotta love this) gave me eucalyptus oil as I left the office, so I’ve already steamed my lungs once. And I hit the grocery store on my way home, so I have juice and nilla wafers and tea. I have TiVo. What the heck more could I want? Usually wracked with guilt over missing work (especially in the midst of training), for once I have none. And with no guilt comes the ability to enjoy sitting on the couch watching Queer as Folk and lying in bed reading Ms. Montgomery. Too bad no one’s allowed to come and play, but maybe I’ll blog-cruise later. If I don’t, though, or if I fall (further) behind in email-answering, forgive me. My eyes feel hot and I’m off to rest.

Oh, and Bethany is stunning today. If I do say so meself.

We went to an oyster/cajun place in the Richmond district of San Francisco. Tonight was Boys’ Night Out. Okay, it’s all girls, technically, but we like to play like we’re the swingin’ bachelors, living it up, beer and curse words flowing freely. When we sang Happy Birthday to Brooke, we were astonished how loud we were.

It’s nice to be around people who have fun. It’s nice to be out and about, especially in the evening of a day that wasn’t too great (I spent most of my time in bed, napping fitfully, reading more L.M. Montgomery journals). It’s good to have people laugh with you, to laugh until you hurt.

I swear that my lungs actually feel BETTER for all of this. I didn’t overdo it. I was very careful. Two beers, some nice snapper (I’m not thinking about the two jello shots. What? Isn’t that cajun?), and back on the Bay Bridge before ten. And now, to continue my Being Good, I’m off to bed. Up early – my week starts tomorrow (Friday). So g’night. And happy weekend to you!

https://rachaelherron.com/we_went_to_an_o/

I like knowing myself. I really do. Yesterday I was so off, so out of it, that I knew there was something wrong. I don’t normally get so blah feeling. I don’t normally feel like my words don’t matter – usually I know as long as they matter to me, that’s enough. And it was odd, as soon as I closed the computer and pouted around the apartment, it hit me. I didn’t feel so hot.

Yep, getting sick. Not your typical cold/flu sick, but bronchial sick. All of a sudden (and I do mean just like that, out of the blue), my lungs started to ache and I started to wheeze. I have to tell you, I was almost relieved to have something upon which to pin my case of the mean-reds. THAT was why I was in such a horrible mood. Oh, okay.

So I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t go to the nursery, I just crawled onto the couch with a blanket and my mindless Noro knitting and watched TiVo all morning and into the early afternoon. Know what I watched? Oh, man. Can I really admit this? I watched like four episodes of The Real World, San Diego. I know. But it was perfect.

Then, of course, I had to get up and go to work. Not only was there political drama at the department, but I got stuck working a ten hour shift instead of the 4-6 hours I was originally scheduled for. But it was fine, it got done, and the political storm turned into a mild breeze. I felt sick, but hung in there. I found the DayQuil I always keep in my locker, and I was grateful to the gods that be that I’m so well stocked. Three hours later, I was complaining that they just don’t make DayQuil like they used to. “I don’t feel any better. I think that stuff might have expired or something. Damn.” *cough cough* About an hour later I found the two gelcaps still in my pocket. Yep. Drugs often work when you REMEMBER to take them. Uh-huh.

Got poor sleep (Rachel-with-no-a, that’s partially your fault – you SO owe me a beer the next time you see me – so glad you’re okay, darlin’), but today I have NOTHING to do until this evening when I have a splendid night out in the City planned with splendid people. I had toyed with the idea of doing all that backyard-planting curtain-making white-light-stringing stuff today, but screw it. I have hours more Queer as Folk captured on TiVo, and I’m staving off bronchitis. Just the ticket, don’tcha think?

Thanks for the wonderful, adorable, loving comments yesterday. I appreciate each and every single one. Man, I’m in a better mood today. Whew.

Feeling rather blah today. I hate feeling blah. I keep asking myself why I feel this way, since it’s the middle of the weekend, and it’s going to be a gorgeous day, and then I keep remembering: I have to work this afternoon/evening. Overtime. WHY did I agree to that? Ugh. I don’t have to go in until 3pm, but it’s going to shadow my whole morning.

I’m just feeling a little off. My brain isn’t working right. A moment ago I just had a bright thought – I’ll take myself out to breakfast and then to the nursery! Yeah! Then I remembered I just ate breakfast. Dang, damn, dang. I traded a potential bacon and eggs breakfast for a bowl of Cheerios because I’m thinking backwards.

I bought fabric for curtains yesterday. But I don’t feel like sewing. I also worked on the garden a bit and hung my FOUNTAIN! Did I tell you about that? (Just the thought of it cheers me up.) Mom and I went to a funky nursery last week, with odd bits of statuary and old fountains everywhere. This particular guy had a price of $217 written on the back, but he’d been hanging around the nursery for a long time, it was obvious. His basin was kinda sludgy and he had been turned off. So the guy working the counter called the boss and then said, “Is thirty-nine okay?” Shrug. Yeah, I guess. Inside I was twirling with delight. I had been going to make an Italian-like fountain, but that would have taken time and even more money than this cost. And this guy, oh, he’s Italian all right. Just look:

I need to get some rocks for the basin, since right now, he LOOKS good, but he runs so smoothly that there’s no splashing sound, thus defeating the whole Fountain Idea.

I bought some plants for the garden, too, but I really need to talk to my front-unit neighbors, and soon. When I was thinking about moving in, they mentioned that they’d like to use my backyard to store a shed for their bikes. I was waiting for the landlord out front, hadn’t even seen the backyard, and agreed that of course, if I moved here, it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve been here a month and no shed has appeared, making me wonder if they’ve come up with an alternate solution. That would be fabulous, because I’ve in the meantime become very jealous with my garden. It’s mine. I don’t want to share. And I didn’t know about the sliding glass door then, either, and didn’t understand that if they did put an ugly ole shed there, they’d be looking right into my home every time they went back there.

Looking up at this entry, I’m a little grumpy again. I feel like I just ramble and babble on about things that don’t have any earthly interest for another human soul. Who CARES about a bike shed in my backyard, ‘cept for me.

I think I’m dehydrated. Must. Drink. Water. Wish I didn’t have to work. Bleah. I think I’ll go buy a few more plants.

And a shot of Adah. She’d cheer anyone up, I think.