Slow Recovery

Early in the pre-dawn hours yesterday morning, I awoke with a BAD case of stomach flu. There was much "quality time" spent in the bathroom, and I was forced to miss out on Wyrdsmiths, as well as much of life. I've never had flu with such classic symptoms, either. I was chilled, had muscle aches, and I couldn't keep anything down. Any time I was able to lay down, I passed out, sound asleep for hours at a time. I had actual stomach cramps, too -- a horrible thing that I have never truly experienced before. Man, they suck!

Today, I've recovered from the chills and aches, but I'm still being very cautious about what I eat. I've bravely ingested coffee and some yogert. My stomach is rumbling unhappily, but that seems to be just noise -- a complaining song, if you will. Fingers crossed.

On a perhaps similar note, one of my white cloud mountain minnows is sick. I feel responsible, because, just the other day I was thinking, quite happily, about the fact that I have had no problems with my fish in a super long time. I've been doing daily water changes, but since all the other fish seem happy and healthy, I'm thinking it might be just that time for "Sunshine." I should look back through the archives to figure out how long ago I got these three. I feel like it's been at least three years. I recently read on Wikipedia that white cloud mountain minnows are carp, so they might actually be long-lived, but who knows?

It's dark and dismal outside. I'm planning on doing a few errands today that I was physically incapable of yesterday, but otherwise I'm going to hide under the blankets and recover.

Mason is going over to a friend's house tonight for a sleepover. This means Shawn and I get to have a "date" night. Hopefully, I'll feel well enough for whatever we decide to do, even if it's just having popcorn in front of the TV.

One last thing -- if you're local to Minnesota, the MN State Arts Board is doing an "Arts Count" to try to get a sense of how many artists are working in our state. The survey is super short, and if you have a few seconds, you should fill it out: MN Arts Count

I'd really like writers to represent this year. You don't have to be making any part of your living as an artist to be counted. And they let you fill in whatever it is you feel your art is (and there's space for up to six specialities.) So, if you bead or scrap book or dance or play music or write or draw, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I need to get some work done on the proposals for the next Ana books.