Goofy

What a weekend. I spent most of it down with Strep Throat in a fevered and painful reverie in which I communicated with aliens who looked much like Abe Lincoln. They were nice enough to emancipate me from my fever just in time to get back to work today. God love those little green bastards in their stove-pipe hats! When they left I told them to stay away from the theater unless it happened to be a really good revival of a Sondheim musical, like “Assassins”. They agreed, but felt that since they were fever induced hallucinations of mine that, no matter what play it may be, they wouldn’t be able to get tickets being as they had no corporeal form.

The bad news is that I think my stomach has developed sensitivity to anti-biotics. Or, more likely, I have created super germs that are right now developing sentience and will soon exit my body in order to begin to take over the world. If you see a little germ with a sign that says, “Germ Solidarity Now!” run away fast. Seriously.

When I called my doctor, they seemed to be prepared for some sort of paranoid reaction that all patients are expected to have.

“Hello, this is Doctor X’s office. It is highly doubtful that you have SARS. If you are short of breath, are coughing and are running a fever, please consider the more rational explanation that you probably have a cold. If, however, you are convinced that you have this highly contagious disease, please go immediately to a hospital far away from us.”

I told them that I didn’t feel particularly SARSy today. They believed me. I told them that a radical group of germs had taken up residence in my throat and have commenced to build a small civilization. “Please hurry,” I pleaded, “I think they are about to discover fire.”

So, that’s pretty much how my weekend went. Delusions, fever and a feeling of being left out. I had to cancel plans and confine myself to the homestead whilst my family went out and did things. Any time I would move toward the door to even look outside to see what the real world was like; my youngest daughter would block my exit.

“You sick,” she would say to me accusingly. “You stay.”

I just want to look outside.

“You sick! Go to bed!” And she’d wag her little index finger at me accusingly as if I were the epicenter of some sort of biologic contagion and it was my aim to infect the entire neighborhood.

The good news is I was allowed out yesterday. I went for a walk with Mommy and baby. At one point baby said, “I walk in circles!” And she did, until she fell down. I laughed.

Earlier in the day I had gone down in my office/cave to do some (wholly legal) searching for music. I was interrupted quickly by a young child’s voice. “Daddy! Coffee! Daddy! Coffee!”

I had left my coffee cup upstairs. Bad me. So I went and retrieved it.

She was almost repressive in her regime of cuteness. To the point where I told her she had website dedicated to her.

“It’s www.cutebaby.com,” I said.

“Dubby dubby dubby com?”

“Exactly.”

I credit most of my recovery to her cuteness, actually. She was very concerned for my well being and tried to take care of me. She’d come and stroke my fevered brow, leave gifts of coffee beans and acorns in my lap while I slept. At first I thought I had been abducted by aliens and this was a sign. Turned out I was wrong. However, I don’t know where she found these acorns. They were huge. Like the size of a bull elephant’s testicle (not that I’ve seen one). I’m quite frightened. I’m relatively convinced that Gertrude and Matilda believe that there are a group of Totoro living in the tree in our back yard and that by creating a trail of acorns we’ll be able to befriend them. A magical adventure would then ensue.

The baby’s cuteness extended into this morning. We were sitting and eating breakfast when she said, “C’mere and give me a kiss.” How could I refuse? My check was left with a fine film of milk and half chewed Apple Jacks. But, I got a baby kiss and that’s all that matters.

Shortly there after she turned into a tiger and started growling at her cereal. At that point we all left her alone in fear that she may think one of us was Roy.