Down and OUT

When last we spoke, I had a head cold I was hoping to kick forthwith, so that my weekend would not be ruined. Yeah, no such luck. That thing kept coming back at me like the virus version of Rasputin, I swear it. I'd feel better, decide to weed the front yard, almost pass out, and stagger back inside. Then I'd feel better, make a vat of potato salad, and require a 2-hour nap to recover from the exertion.

There are a LOT of people living here right now. I HAVE to keep cooking. David flew in on Saturday, so now we have 5. Brian comes home from his truly excellent vacation on Tuesday night, to make it an even 6. He and his friend got to see corgi races today, he reports. Tell me, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COMPETE WITH CORGI RACES? Brian's gonna hate coming back here.

Also, did you even know there was such a thing?

Yup, they're real. I like the one who turned a little somersault, myself.

I had the temerity to act like a healthy person Saturday morning: I went to the Farmers Market to pick up tomatoes; then I stood in the kitchen for an hour making a fresh, uncooked tomato sauce (fresh basil, too!) to greet David with. I paid dearly for that expenditure of energy, ending up taking another 2-hour nap (see virus version of Rasputin, above).

I was woken by Larry standing in the bedroom and saying, cheerily, "The neighbors are organizing an impromptu BBQ, so I said we'd be there." The poor man - I flipped out. "I CAN'T be there. I CAN'T. I'd have to get food ready. I CAN'T. I CAN'T EVEN GET OUT OF THIS BED."

Larry left to buy hamburger meat and beer anyway, mumbling something about how he'd take care of it.

So I dragged my sick, martyred self downstairs, pulled chicken out of the freezer, marinated it, threw together a chickpea/black bean/parsley salad for my vegetarians, asked Theo to pick up buns and potato chips, and then went back to bed, feeling very sorry for myself.

The BBQ went off without a hitch and without me - I got to lie in my house with the windows open (it was an incredibly beautiful day) and listen to all my neighbors having fun on the grassy lawn behind the tot lot next door to our house. The only good part (for me) was their deciding to do a bonfire, which meant Larry was able to get rid of the stack of wood he's been hoarding on our backyard patio and that I had been planning to advertise as FREE on Craigslist this week, once he went back to work.

That sentence is too long, but I'm too tired to fix it. That woodpile was a sore point, is what I'm trying to say.

Today? I feel the same, although the cold sores that were erupting all over the inside of my mouth yesterday seem to have died down, which improvement makes me feel a lot less desperate and panicked. Still, I had to use my hour's allotment of energy to make homemade salsa (still had a lot of tomatoes left which were threatening to rot if I didn't use them) and also a fresh peach crisp. I spent the rest of the day watching the Dick Van Dyke Show with Susie, who seems to have woken up with the same horrid cold this morning.

Oh, and I did this:

It GLEAMS.

That's right - I cleaned the instrument panel on my stove. Every single time I go to use the stove or turn on the oven, I think, "What a mess!" But I never get around to cleaning it, because, well, I'm busy cooking at the time. So today was the day - I took the knobs off, scrubbed them, and then scrubbed the entire background and the display panel.

And then I lay down on the couch again. Rasputin doesn't like me to get too much done.