Thanks for all the warm fuzzies, people. Warkitty's warm fuzzy picture made me smile out loud, so that helped.

Thanks also for the get-well wishes, Succubus. I too wish I might get well soon ... and stay that way. This is the third time this year I have cancelled travel plans at the last minute due to illness. I know exactly why I keep getting sick: I work with kids in a swimming pool. I knew when I accepted this job that it would take a while for my immune system to adjust ....but it seems harder than it has been in the past. Is that because I am older, and more vulnerable? Is it because working in a swimming pool makes a whole new soupy environment for infection? Or some other reason? Or some combination? At any rate, I have been thinking of looking for new work, in spite of enjoying this job, which also pays well and allows me a huge amount of time for working on my writing.

My writing also suffers when I get sick. I do my best to keep up with the schedule I have imposed on myself (six hours a day, plus two of intensive reading) but when one is blowing her nose or coughing her head off, it is hard to do.

Blackfox, thanks for the good advice about ice. What is funny is I knew that trick: in fact, I've used it in the past when I had a frail, elderly pet in an unairconditioned house during a heat wave. He was a very old bunny, and I filled empty plastic soda bottles (the big liter-sized one) with water and froze 'em, then put Old Bunny and the bottles together in the bathroom, along with an electric fan. He was the happiest person in the house that week!

I wish there was someone who could take care of me the way I take care of my pets.

The electricity here came on in the afternoon, then went off again for no appearant reason, then just now came back on. Perhaps it has PMS. Who knows? So I was not without power all day, and probably won't have to throw the entire contents of the freezer away. (Although I did eat about a pint of tropical fruit sorbet this morning ... one of the perks of an outage, I guess.)

I did take myself out this morning, to try to find coffee and to get a connection on my cell phone, and that was when I made my first post. The local caffè had no power, but the intrepid owner set up a camp stove, ground coffee beans with a rolling pin, and served coffee from the hand press. Good stuff. It was nice to sit in the shade, with a breeze, and enjoy the "postapocalyptic bonhomie" of a neighborhood that's had an inconvenient (but not disabling or deadly) brush with an angry Mother Nature. But I did have to go home, and the day has been a bit lonely ... especially when I think about my cousins at the family reunion (happening right now). I try not to think about that.

[/whining] Thanks for letting me get it off my chest, people.

-Monkey






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