Well, it started like a normal day, and not even a bad one. I woke up gradually, stayed in bed until after 8:00, got up, weighed myself, wept, made a cup of coffee and sat down to read diaries, email, news, and ... the phone rang. It was 9:00.
R. "I'm sick!" in that incredulous child-whine, as in, "I can't be sick! I don' wanna be sick!"
She had mentioned yesterday that she had no appetite this week, which she says is most unusual for her, and didn't feel right. I asked for her symptoms this morning. Up all night leaning over the toilet (without results), still nauseous, room spinning for a few hours last night, no appetite, achy all over.
Achy, how? asks mommy.
Not like her muscles ache. Like all of her nerve endings ache.
Still pushing mommy's buttons after all these years? Her nerve endings ache? WTF? Call freaking 911!
I suggest she call the doctor, call me back, should I come right over, should I come over later with chicken soup? Bingo. She'll call me back after she calls the doctor, and later I can bring her some soup. And a corned beef sandwich, mustard on the side.
O.Kay.
Then it's 11:30 and is she dead or unconscious or what? Did she call you back? I call, there is no answer. Being who I am, I begin to grow ... concerned. At which point K wakes up, I give her the details, she is not particularly bothered. Five minutes later, I call R back and ask "Are you up? Did I wake you?" She tells me that she is, in fact, up because I woke her when I called five minutes ago. Ahem. Anyway, we agree that the delivery from the kosher deli should arrive at 12:30 ish, and I let her go.
At 11:30, I begin to gather the goods. I pack my own lunch, because heaven knows how long I will be there caring for the child. I call the Hubs and fill him in. I go to the pharmacy and buy her a thermometer because she doesn't own one, despite my having supplied her with one when she went to college and when she moved to Wales. I stop at the Nosh -- as our local deli is called -- and purchase the required items, and then into the convenience store next door for orange juice and diet Pepsi. I hit the road, listening to the The Byrds' Greatest Hits. It's a half-hour or so drive down the Parkway.
She answers the door. (Her roommate is at work.) She looks curiously ... functional. Alive. Not well, perhaps, but not, as her original phone call might have led me to believe, at death's door.
Okay, okay, she was feeling much better; no doubt her fever had gone down. She guzzled the soup, including the mandatory noodles and matzo balls, as if she had never eaten before. And a few crackers.
Are all kids like this, that if they are sick they believe they will never, ever again be well? For that matter, am I like that? Okay, I don't think I am, and R isn't a kid, but she has been this way as far back as she was able to be aware of being sick, which truthfully, she is not prone to.
We proceeded to have a lovely visit; she ate soup while I ate my salad, I admired her new shower curtain, we watched a couple of episodes of The Simpsons. I left when she started to fade away and needed to sleep some more. She is going to the doctor on Monday (although I'm sure it's just a passing virus), and is coming here tomorrow night to share the Emmy watching experience with K and me and then stay over, because her doctor is closer to us than it is to where she lives now.
She also had this cross-stitch, which she had done, framed and standing on top of her TV:
Sorry it's so big!
She had gotten the pattern from this book, which she lent me, and since I can't really see well enough to do real cross-stitch on cloth, I'm going to do some on perforated paper. I'm making this one for the Chum for Christmas:
and one for the Colleague that I thought I'd scanned but forgot to that says "I {Heart} My Job" with appropriate flourishes. (It's actually a heart in the design, but I don't know how to make that character come up on the Mac.)
So despite the goofy start to the day, I had a nice visit with my not-quite-deathly-ill kid in her apartment and picked up a nice little craft project.
Oh! And news about when the new library is supposed to open! More on that tomorrow.
