Wrong Day to be Ill

I took the day off today because yesterday around two in the afternoon, my body started aching all over and my brain started pounding and my throat started hurting and it dawned on me that I'd been spending the last few days in the company of people who weren't exactly feeling up to par, hacking and coughing all over the place, and it was very likely that some microbial substance was, at that very moment, mounting an invasion on my home turf. And it occurred to me that it would be advantageous to the war effort that the majority of my time over the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours be spent in a relatively motionless position, allowing my immune system to utilize the available energy reserves so that, in due time, I could return to work.

For this reason, I did not arise from my bed until nearly noon today.

Naturally, today was the warmest day in the past week. Seventy degrees. With little breezes to keep the warmth from becoming too excessive (for those of us expecting forties and fifties).

When Adam came home from school, he told me how warm it was and he had to take me out to the back porch to prove to me that it was, indeed, warm; and we stood on the back deck enjoying the breeze while the Japanese beetes (masquerading as Ladybugs) and wasps and bees (looking very puzzled, because they'd already packed up their things for winter vacation, and what was all this warm weather stuff going on?) buzzed around hour heads in total, joyous abandon (and confusion).

It's one of those days that is just perfect for skipping school or skipping work or skipping some other important responsibility, knowing that this will be the last warm day for a millenia and soon the rain and snow will be falling and we'll all be huddled around the heater in the living room trying to remember what it felt like to have the sun on our faces without a blistering wind to peel the skin off.

It's a lousy day to be sick in bed.

So to make up for all the gloom of feeling lousy, let's take a look at a few cheery pictures, shall we?

Mary is growing up way too quickly, and I was reminded of this again a few weeks ago when Grandma and Grandpa Green came to visit, and Grandma Green was helping Mary with a sewing project, and in the course of an afternoon (or thereabouts), Mary was able to create her very own pajamas.


Mary is also noticing that, if she borrows Daddy's glasses, she can see things better in the far-off distance. Congratulations, Mary! You've inherited your Daddy's astigmatism! (But you look much cuter in glasses than he does...)


A couple weeks ago, Mary and her class went down to the Museum to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, and one of the activity areas they had set up for kids was Drawing a Self-Portrait. I was chaperoning, which means standing around with great anxiety, trying to keep the children from breaking things when their main objective seemed to be trying to break things. At one point, I detected an unfamiliar silence; looking around, I noticed a large clump of children gathered around the Self-Portrait area. Like any dictator worth his salt, I immediately surmised that some underground rebellion was stewing, and marched over to break it up. To my surprise, all the children were gathered around my child, who was sitting on the stool in front of the easel and mirror, doing a fantastic self-portrait of herself, while her classmates stood with open mouths.


It is these precious, scary moments that bring to parents the realization that their little fledglings will soon be all grown up with lots of places to go, very soon. Much sooner than we are ready to accept.

This composite shot sorta reminds me of the The Brady Bunch.