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Nope, I didn’t even notice that Mary-In-My-Wine below until I came home from Italy and printed out my pictures. And I have to admit that I didn’t even notice her. Bethany, who has a scary-good eye for the Strange, pointed it out to me. Love her. Hello, Madonna.

Feeling: Tired. Cough-ey. More tired. Feeling not much like writing, so I’ll give you some photos.

These little cats have been my saving grace this week. Did you read the new Atwood, Oryx and Crake? Where, in the future, the cat’s purr is found to be healing? She had something there. Today was the day, in my plans, that Digit and perhaps Adah went outside for the first time. Two factors are holding me back. One, I’m just too tired to deal with worrying about their first foray and when/whether they’ll come back. Two, Digit really hasn’t seemed to mind it much yet. I’m considering keeping him inside! I don’t think it’ll last – he’s the kind of cat that usually gets desperately depressed when not allowed to go outside, but he hasn’t started his frantic behavior yet. He howls, but only for a moment and it seems to be more for show than anything else. I’m enjoying so much the camaraderie that they’ve found being stuck together in a foreign place. Used to be that Digit couldn’t be closer than three feet to Adah or he’d hiss and whine. Now look:

Those are the flowers Christy gave me, aren’t they lovely? I’m passionate about anything orange right now, and I love tulips.

In fact, let’s frame those gorgeous kits against them:

And this one below kills me. I got up from the couch last night to make yet another cup of tea. When I walked past this composition I had to slap my hand over my mouth from laughing out loud in delight. Oh, I WISH I could have seen it happen. Digit would never have got up on the chair if Adah were there, so he must have been there first. And I can just imagine his long-suffering look when Adah jumped up. But he stayed!

All right, for not feeling like typing, I’ve typed enough. On the mend, truly. I promise. And I’m not overdoing it. Too tired to overdo it…..

Off to rest again. Mwah (I’m not contagious anymore….).

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.

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!

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