My dad died August 22, 2009, we buried him on Aug. 31, we started going through his "packrat-style" decorated house, Steve's mom started having more trouble, she died October 22, and we buried her on Oct. 31. And then came legal stuff, then Christmas, and then Disney World in Florida for 6 days. The Sunday we were home, I had a scratchy throat, but I was tired, and since this is often the cause of scratchy throats for me, I ignored it and started picking up where I'd left off before we left.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I had the flu. I'm not writing this to feel sorry for myself, because although I feel horrible, I'm kind of amused. And I'm right on schedule: I get a seriously nasty flu every 20 years.
When I was 16, I got the "Asian" flu, which involved a lot of muscle cramping. Unfortunately for me, no one recognized it in the first few patients--which DID include me! At one point, the guy I was dating at the time came over to visit me, and my mother let him in!!!!!!! I felt like hell, let him know it, and said he should leave. I was irascible! The poor kid had ridden his 10-speed bike 8 miles from his house to see me! What a welcome! Ha!
My parents and brother got it the next week, by which time someone had decided to try muscle relaxants. Low and behold, they worked. I hated my family so much that week! Ha!
When I was 36, I got another flu. I don't remember the name, but I do remember living in a new house among still-packed boxes--we'd been there for 10 days--and I woke on Christmas morning with the flu. Now, none of us, most especially the three daughters, wanted to be in this brand-new house with sheets on the windows on Christmas Day--although I felt so horrible that I considered asking them to go without me. The plan was for us to pack all the presents into the van and hightail it down to my parents' house, where we would mess up THEIR living room, THEIR kitchen, and THEIR dining room, and we didn't have to constantly watch the kids, because there were 2 more pairs of eyes helping! I decided I wouldn't say anything.
My mom, understanding a kid's impatience on Christmas Day, insisted we get there at 6:00 a.m. (An hour's drive, plus packing beforehand had me up at 3 a.m.--not conducive to healing! Ha!) So, we did. I decided I would go, sit across the room from the tree and mountain of gifts, and not breathe on anyone. I'd survived long days without sleep the night before, and if I could hold it together on other times, I could hold it together for 3/4 of a day! What was I, a wimp??
So, I listened to shouts of laughter that made my headache worse, the noisy toys--thanks, Mom!--and I was helping to pick up shredded wrapping paper before it hit me that I absolutely couldn't go through with this. I was in complete misery.
I threw away the stuff in my hands, found my purse, and told Steve I'd had it. He was less than thrilled, because my mother always fried bacon and eggs for him on Christmas Day, and this is one of his favorite meals. He even asked me if I could wait that long! Ha! It's even funnier that I considered it seriously, because I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I was very, very ill and needed to lie down!
As everybody gathered up Barbie bits, My Little Pony bits, and a few generic things for 3-year-old Chelsea (who had no opinion as to which "collection" she thought was wonderful), my dad came up to me and said, "I'm going to miss our traditional glass of wine together on Christmas Day." I hadn't realized this had become a "tradition" in his mind; I was going to tell him that I didn't want to do it anymore, because I was tired for the rest of the afternoon! Ha! I didn't roll my physical eyes--it would have hurt too much!--and, at 8:00 a.m., I mustered up a more-or-less smile, and said, "Okay, Dad. You pour it, and I'll drink it." He did, we toasted, and I did--straight down. I figured if I passed out in the car, it wouldn't matter. Steve was driving, and I'd get an hour of sleep! Ha! AND there was the "pain killer" aspect that had me drinking wine at 8 a.m.!!!
We got home at 9:00 a.m. I found some aspirin, a blanket, and I commandeered the couch and the remote, in that order. The others wandered around, feeling lost. Neither Mom nor Grandma was around to orchestrate anything. Yours truly had found "Mr. Roberts," followed by "Ensign Pulver," on tv, and since seeing me lie down at anytime was an anomaly, the girls were too scared to talk to me. Good.
Steve had no such compunctions. I finally suggested he call my mom, because it hurt me to talk, and I was having trouble stringing sentences together in a coherent fashion, anyway. He didn't call. Instead, he sat down with a pencil and paper and made a list: canned ham, 1 can yams with syrup, 1 bag marshmallows, and 1 can refrigerated biscuits. He went to the local store, returned with his treasures, to the dubious stares of 2 of his daughters and to the vocal consternation of the 12-year-old Marste. "I can do this!" he said in a ringing voice--kind of like a politician you wonder about. Marste wasn't convinced.
He did make dinner. He opened his canned ham and put it on a baking dish. He put it in the oven, according to the can's directions. He opened his yams and poured yams and syrup into another baking dish. He topped this with most of the bag of marshmallows and put it in the oven with the ham. (Jenna suggested they toast the rest on forks over the gas stove's flames, which Steve thought was a great idea! Snacks!) And he put the biscuits, edges touching (!) in a round cake pan and sat them next to the stove, awaiting their turn for the oven.
Steve was very proud of himself, but the girls weren't thrilled with dinner. The ham tasted like canned ham, which he thought was okay but the girls thought tasted like "can." I thought the funniest part was the yams. I could hear the girls exclaim that this wasn't "right" and Steve protesting that he thought the yams would melt. If I could have laughed, I would have. Marste kept telling him, "I told you so!" which went over in a big way. The biscuits were perfect--Steve had cooked these before--and they disappeared post haste.
Steve nibbled on the rest for the next few days. His ungrateful daughters stuck to fruit, whatever bags of celery and carrot sticks I'd chopped a couple of days before I got sick, peanut butter sandwiches, and hot dogs.
The current flu deserves its own post. Ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment