- Work at a frantic pace, seven-days-a-week since like Thanksgivingish.
- Say things like Sick? Why I haven't been really sick in five years!
Friday Night: Feel some sort of sore-throat-coldish-thing coming on, but pop a Zycam and go out for dinner with friends anyway.
Saturday: Take another Zycam before traveling to Philadelphia for dear aunt's second memorial service in two weeks and participate in family's effort to clean out her apartment. Know in your heart that all that Zycam isn't really working. Take to your bed once you get home.
Sunday: Head to church to lead the 150-or-so little darlings who have been entrusted to you to learn all about God's love while the rest of the congregation listens to the priest's sermon. Hand over all such responsibilities to sister (not a nun, silly, A Mom on Spin's sister!) because you can barely hold your head up. Go to office to tie up loose ends and prepare funeral program for Tuesday's funeral - knowing that you may never get out of bed again. Go to drugstore and get supplies for major skirmish with one's immune system. Come home and collapse while thanking the good Lord for Martin Luther King, Jr. presidents, veterans, and all others who are responsible for days off from work.
Monday: Shiver. Shake. Blow Nose Repeatedly. Subscribe to the old wive's tale of Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever and eat all remaining food in the house during the day. Wish that someone would go to the grocery store. Sleep. Lots. Order take-out when no one offers you anything better. Reprimand family for not taking better care of you and drinking all your diet ginger ale to boot.
Tuesday: Convince yourself that you are feeling better and arrive at work super early in order to set-up for funeral and hop on chartered bus which will bring you to the inauguration of New Jersey's new governor. Lose all semblance of feeling better by noon but realize that you're at the mercy of the length of new governor's speech, the perambulating skills of the Hank-the-Bus-Driver, and the over-all decibel level of 46 excited eighth graders who are sharing the bus with you. When at last you return home, record fever and send Drip Dry for take-out. Write questionable blog post with New Jersey limericks - knowing you can always claim that you were delirious from the fever when you wrote them.
Wednesday: Wake up with right eye swollen shut from all of the tearing that comes with the sneezing, sniffling, shaking, and shivering. Take one look in the mirror and quickly determine that there will be no reporting for work. Call priest boss, receive his blessings, and crawl back in bed for remainder of day . . . that is, until Drip Dry brings you take-out yet again.
Thursday: Get up. Run to mirror. Wince. Take temperature. Note absence of fever but decide to stay home another day anyway. Very quickly become discontented with the cleanliness of your house now that you can actually see again. Proceed to clean toilets, rearrange bedroom furniture, do five loads of laundry, and spend $169 on groceries before making a cup of tea and settling down to read a new 800-page novel. Realize after two pages that you have read the novel before. Shield dog's ears from the expletives that come from your mouth in case the pet-talking-psychic ever comes to your house again and A Mom on Spin's Best Friend decides to share more of the family secrets. Return to reading biography on Dickens that you had been pretending to enjoy ever since Drip Dry proudly gave it to you for Christmas. Realize that you have slept so much over the course of the last five days that not even a boring biography could lead you - the Master of All Nappers - down the road to sleepytown one final time. Hear yourself telling the dog that you are sick of tea and ginger ale and, in so doing, make the decision to complete the circle and keep date with friends to meet for dinner. . .
Oh. . . and I'm still writing Jersey poems. My latest one - although not quite ready for prime time - is entitled What Exit????
