March 8, 2008
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The Beast heads for Florida and the bout with the Flu….
This update took a bit longer than usual due to the fact that I was deathly ill with the flu or whatever it is that is going around. I actually could NOT get out of bed for almost 48 hours. I had gotten up that first morning but within about 15 minutes was nauseous and vomiting. I barely made it back to bed and crawled under the covers while I fought off waves and waves of nausea and a body that started to ache all over.
It has been my habit since I was very young to go to sleep when I am ill. I once remember coming home from school on a Wednesday and feeling awful. I went to lay down for a while since I always helped my mother make dinner for our large family. That’s what oldest kids do, right? Well, I woke up to the sounds and smells of people eating and was hungry (and feeling guilty because I obviously had slept through the preparations and thought I was *in for it*). I got up and was greeted warmly with *well, sleepyhead, we were really worried about you. How are you feeling?* I said *hungry* and everyone laughed and I noticed one of my aunts and her hubby were there. I was very surprised since I hadn’t remembered hearing they were coming over. When I sat down to eat, something was said that made me stop and ask what day it was and I was shocked to hear that it was Saturday evening. I couldn’t believe I had slept from Wednesday until Saturday. My folks had even had our doctor stop by to check me out when they couldn’t wake me up on Wednesday evening. Yes, doctors used to do that back when I was a kid. He told my parents to just *let me sleep it off* since I was sick but not so sick that I required anything other than some water by the bedside. He assured them that it wasn’t a bad thing to let me sleep off whatever virus it was that my body was fighting.
I found out that this was something I did automatically when I was very ill. It was never a cold that made me shut down and hibernate but I easily would lose two or three days to awake feeling much better than when I had laid down. This virus was no exception to the rule. The only thing that really pissed me off was the fact that, although the Beast did come in once or twice to see if I was breathing, he never once asked me if there was anything he could do for me or get for me. I would have killed for some ice water at one point. I made it out of bed only once or twice that first day to go to the bathroom and was exhausted and fighting nausea by the time I made it back to bed. Of course, if the Beast had bothered me all the time asking if he could do something for me, I probably would have been just as pissed at him. As it was, I tried to drink some water during one of these *outings* and immediately vomited so I gave that up for a lost cause early on. But it would have been nice if he had even asked.
For two complete days, I only left my bed when absolutely necessary to relieve my bladder. By day three, the bathroom journey was managed easier and I finally felt like I really, really NEEDED some water. When the Beast came in to check on me (by this time he was VERY worried), he breathed a sigh of relief (or regret, who knows?) when I asked him to bring me some water. I slept a little after drinking down a wonderful cold glass of water and then discovered I was hungry so I wobbled out of the bedroom and out into the kitchen to make myself some soup. The Beast and Baron were both gone so I figured he had taken Baron out for either a walk or a run. It was nice having a quiet house to get up to and I sipped my soup (I put it in a mug since my hands were so shaky from hunger I wasn’t sure I could manage a spoon) and nibbled on some crackers. I knew I was over the hump. I think it was at this point that my sister *D* called to check up on me since she hadn’t seen me on the Internet for three days. One day, not totally unusual since our schedules sometimes just don’t mesh but two complete days? She knew I had to be sick. She didn’t keep me on the phone but she was reassured that I was alive, if not well. Love ya for that, Sis.
I’ve been up for about an hour. The Beast woke me up when he was putting his shoes on so I got up to have a cup of coffee with him. He’s going to Titusville, Florida to spend a couple days fishing with his cousin. His cousin will be retiring soon and purchased a house there about a year ago. He works in South Florida during the week and comes home on weekends. His wife lives there full-time. The cousin stays with his son-in-law during the week, who has HIS house on the market before HE retires. His wife is living and teaching in Kentucky, along with their daughter, until the great day comes about. The two *roomies* are both retiring at the same time and the son-in-law says, come hell or high water, he’ll be going to Kentucky even if the house hasn’t sold by then. He’s a bit tired of seeing his wife and daughter so little since the school year started. Oh well….as I was saying…. His cousin has a few extra days coming to him that he is taking off. He apparantly bought some kind of fishing boat (one of the fresh water Bass-type boats I think) and invited the Beast down to spend a few days with him and they will do their Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn impressions again. That’s kind of a joke to the Beast’s family since the two of them used to take off in our boat for the Bahamas for three days or so at a time when the Beast could get away. All this was PRE-strokes, of course, but they lived on that boat for those days. They smelled to high heaven by the time they got home even if they DID swim and occasionally use the hoses at the boat dock to *clean up*. I packed a LOT of food for them and we had a cooler that kept things nice and cold for several days that was more like a storage locker than cooler. But it got the two of them out doing what they loved best and gave their wives (me and Lyn) a few days alone. Ahhhh…those were the days.
I really figured those days were long gone so this was a bit of a surprise to me. He knew I wouldn’t want to tag along because, as much as I love Lyn, she and I just have much different interests. Besides, now that we have Baron, we have to think about what to do with him. I had hoped that the Beast would take him with since his cousin informed us that he had a fenced yard but, sigh, no such luck. Baron and I will just have to manage the best we can. I was really hoping for better weather, though, so he could spend more time outdoors and I wouldn’t have to dress like an eskimo to take him for a walk. It won’t be happening today since we have winter warnings on Weatherbug for today and tomorrow, too, I think. It’s only 28 degrees right now and we have snow warnings out until noon today. I don’t think it’s going to warm up much at all.
My niece, Tara, called me all excited yesterday afternoon. She had been here earlier in the day to fax out more resume’s so I was surprised when she called. But she had exciting news. She had interviewed at a pharmaceutical company about two weeks ago. Well, she GOT the job!!!! Good pay, great benefits and she starts on the 25th. It works out perfectly for her since she will be finished with the end of the year accounting for the nursing home she’s been working for a few days before then. She said to me, *See? God had a plan all along. Now I have a job HERE and I really belong.* You have to smile at both her faith and her enthusiasm.
What I find so neat about this job is that they told her she has three weeks of paid time the first year. They don’t call it *vacation time* or *sick pay* time. They just call it paid time off. She also has some latitude on when she starts and finishes work so she can structure her work week/day as she needs to accommodate her family needs. She is an accountant, in case I didn’t mention it before, and she will have two months of mentoring with the man that is retiring from the position she now has. Since it’s a major corporation, she is excited about some of the things she will be learning from *the ground floor up* as she puts it. It also allows her to use more of what she learned and was trained to do before working for the nursing home in Ohio. She’s been training a gal via the Internet since last summer. The girl is actually just a bookkeeper trying to take over the job of an accountant (and there is a big difference) but she’s *family* in a family-owned business so it’s THEIR problem (as she says) once her end-of-year reports are completed.
I’m just happy that she is happy and now she doesn’t have to worry about the kids getting sick or any of her bills. She was worried about paying off her attorney for her divorce (can they take it back?) and if her car broke down. We can ALL relax now. I hope the job is all she expects and that she is happy with it.
Well, the Beast is well on his way now. I was a bit worried about whether or not he would leave today because his eye started bothering him last night. I don’t know if he scratched it or has a stye starting but I didn’t take any chances. When he left here, he had the drops for stye and some drops the opthalmologist gave me to protect my eyes while they were healing from cataract surgery. If he scratched his eye, that should protect it.
Me? I’m going to go back to bed and luxuriate for a bit. Baron will be up and antsy in an hour or so. I can stall him off by letting him out of his kennel (he loves to jump up on the bed and curl up next to me) for a bit before I kick his ass out the back door into the cold so he will *do his business*. With weather this cold, he will do it quickly. He’s such a wimp.
Have a great weekend. Stay warm. Remember to tell those you love that you do and be happy. Life it too short to walk around miserable. Smile at a stranger for no reason. It will start a *smile chain*, watch and see.
Love you.
