krankhaus

This was meant to be the week I got on top of everything – paying the bills, sorting thru some of the sifts of papers in the common areas of the house, getting a running start at some of the summer's writing projects. Then some malignant deity intervened: I woke up Sunday with a dreadful case of conjunctivitis in the right eye – glued shut with goop, redder than Joshua Clover's diapers. Like a good Protestant, however, I sucked it up & suffered in passive-aggressive silence.

Daphne had been rubbing an eye for a day or day or two & had been nursing a cough for much of the Spring (but generally feeling pretty decent), & Pippa was moving slowly; both of them wanted to stay home from school yesterday, so why not? A trip to the veterinarian – oops, I meant pediatrician – confirmed that both of them had eye infections, ear infections, & throat infections. On a hunch, I swung by my own G.P., to have my diagnosis confirmed & pick up a prescription for a run of drops.

Last night, however, D. took a turn for the worse, a spiking fever & a hacking cough, which woke her sister up at 15-minute intervals. Problem is, I didn't want to move P into the "guest room" (read: playroom), as I'd been sleeping there myself & the bedclothes were already saturated with my own bacteria, which on an off chance might be a different family from hers. So I ended up spending the night on the floor next to D.'s lower bunk, roused at 15-minute intervals from a non-sleep by her coughs, hysterical sobbing, & feverish delirium. (Hands me a sippy cup: "Use it on the cat!" Me: "Huh?" "Get the cat away from me!" Poor cat is of course slumbering happily somewhere downstairs, entirely oblivious. "Hold my hand, Daddy!") Not a happy evening.

Everyone markedly better today. A bit more Ruskin read, a new canvas gridded in & sketched out for underpainting. Writing projects – well, they're still waiting, their eyes glinting evilly in the corner.