sick – Ahuva’s Blog

“What’s It Like?”

I can’t believe how many people have asked me that this week. What’s it like to have Covid? MISERABLE. No matter how much you want to be “in” with the “in crowd” – pass up the opportunity to get sick.

Not the usual counter-top picture I share with you, but neither of us is much into food or cooking this week.

My husband and I have the same symptoms. It’s like having a horrible, horrible head cold or, imagine this, a viral infection in the sinuses. We are both congested. He’s coughing every few minutes and I’m blowing my nose non-stop. We’re both trying desperately to keep it out of our chests, because once the congestion is in your chest you KNOW how disgustingly uncomfortable that gets. I have had a painful scratchy sore throat for days. One of my personal issues is that if I take too many Tylenol or Advil I tend to get an ulcer. Yeah, this is probably NOT one of the more pleasant weeks in my life.

thank goodness the grape tomatoes are healthier than i am

Fever, yep that’s present too. We are living on Tylenol and Sudafed during the day, and Nyquil and Afrin nose-spray at night. We are drinking oceans of liquids. Sleeping a lot. For me yesterday that meant most of the day. Not sure I was awake for even 10 hours. Brain fog. What’s brain fog? That’s when you can’t focus at all on any one thought. It’s too much effort to think, you can’t remember why you wanted to think, and it hurts too much to think. I have no idea what day it is.

I have the butterfly weed but no butterflies 😦

I am so very grateful that we have our house, our garden, the deck, my sister & her husband, and that the contractors are NOT here this week working on the renovation. With the things we HAVE to help us survive, and the things we do NOT have to deal with, this week is less horrible than it could be. I tried to imagine the 2 of us feeling like this in a small apartment with no real space to separate and no way to go outside. I’m sorry that we had to cancel weekend plans, and maybe even next weekend plans, but we are very fortunate to have the support system we do. My sister and brother-in-law have run errands for us, replenishing the depleted medicine stock. I wonder if they’ll do a grocery run for us too? 🙂

On the positive side we do seem to be getting a little better. My husband has a prescription for some meds that are supposed to help him not relapse as he recovers. Of course the list of potential side-effects sound almost worse than the current symptoms. I felt strong enough last night that before I went to bed (in the recliner, because he’s in our bed and I’m living in the recliner in our sun room) I Windex’d every surface and handle and knob I could reach. And I only slept 10.5 hours last night! Definitely on the road to recovery. I hope. Please.

I LOVE these very tall daisies. I thought I’d lost them – choked out by other plants. But I have this group and a small group on the other side of the house. They grow to 2-3′ tall

I Ran But I Couldn’t Hide

Covid. I feel miserable. 😦 Congestion. Headache. Scratchy throat. Brain fog. Oh – and I blame my husband. After all, he came down with the symptoms 24 hours before I did. That means it’s his fault. He understands and accepts the judgement.

The House of the Dripping Phlegm

With most sincere apologies to The Animals

There is a house in New Jersey
They call The Dripping Phlegm
And it’s been the sorrow of many a soul
Now count me one of them

My sinuses once worked quite well
I breathed both in and out
I talked, I laughed, I inhaled smells
I even walked about

Now the only thing a cougher needs
Are drops and pills and sprays
I inhale steam in my hot tub
It’s been this way for days

Oh mother tell your children
not to do what I have done
But stay away from germ-y friends
Go to a beach with sun

Got one foot in the front hall
The other’s out the door
Searching for the miracle cure
They claim it’s at the store

Well there is a house in New Jersey
They call The Dripping Phlegm
It’s been the sorrow of many a poor soul
Now count me one of them

dirty tissues

Not Quite the Holiday I Envisioned

Yes, I have bins full of paper goods for all occasions

Good thing for me that I follow the Jewish calendar and the New Year starts on Rosh Hashanah, which happened back in September. Although there were some bumps in the road then, too, I got to spend a wonderful holiday in Arizona with my son, welcoming the new year. I have a zillion photos that I’ve been meaning to share with you about that, sometime. 🙂 But even if Rosh Hashanah is “my” new year, I love to party with the rest of the world when the calendar switches from December 31 to January 1. Of course by now you should know that I just love to party. 🙂

The first decision is always HOW to party – throw a party, go to a party, quiet party, loud party. You might remember that last year was my party-to-end-all-parties – the unveiling of The New Kitchen!! That party took at least 4 blog posts to describe. *grin* This year I decided that I was a bit worn out and wanted a quieter celebration. We decided to go back to our traditional NYE party – a group of friends over for dinner. We have a group of friends that I call “the gang of 8” – us and 3 other couples. Sometimes it’s the gang of 9 when my son joins us, sometimes it’s the gang of 10 when my sister and her husband join us, but for many, many years I have used the shorthand of ‘gang of 8’ to describe us (as in over 20 years, I believe, maybe getting close to 25 years). Anyway, we opted for dinner for the gang of 10.

I seem to remember much smaller hens – do they shrink in cooking?

Originally I thought that we’d make the 18 pound turkey we have in the downstairs freezer. Of the possible 10 eaters, 2 are vegetarians. That’s a lot of turkey for 8 people when you figure there will be side dishes as well. Then I was reading Jinjer’s blog and saw she was making Cornish Game Hens. Wow!! I haven’t thought about those in YEARS! There was a time when they were the ‘in’ food and EVEN MY MOTHER cooked them (my mother never cooked if at all possible). *smile* I thought that individual game hens was MUCH better than 18 pounds of turkey. My husband found frozen game hens at the local grocery store and a decision was made.

NOT the usual counter displays I share with you 😦

I have to tell you that planning dinner for the gang of 8 is a challenge. There was a time when we were all much younger when we had fewer food issues. Now – well now I almost think the challenge of preparing a menu and dishes is almost as much fun as getting to spend time with my friends. *grin* But that is definitely another post. Anyway, I had a great menu planned. Then I woke up on the morning of December 21 with congestion and a fever. Okay, I can deal with this: liquids, more liquids and rest. Except I kept getting worse. I was working that week (or at least nominally working) and was hard pressed to concentrate on the monitor. Definitely a fever. Definitely a hacking cough. Definitely SICK. All week. I was sleeping in a chair for 3 days until I threw my back out. So even though I felt better Thursday, I couldn’t move from the pain. We had a major party to attend on Saturday evening. I spent Thursday and Friday horizontal on ice packs. Saturday came. Yay for decongestants, cough drops, Advil and nose spray. We made it to the party and back again. I even managed Sunday morning to do all the grocery shopping for NYE dinner. And of course I picked up a treat for the kitties (obligatory photos included). Made it to my sister’s and brother-in-law’s for a phenomenal Sunday dinner of standing rib roast and the most amazing potatoes ever and heavenly salt stick rolls.

How DO you take good photos of black cats?????

Woke up Monday morning realizing that I was NOT healthy and NOT feeling like there was anyway I could throw a party the next night, no matter how relaxed. When I saw my husband taking the hens out to defrost I told him to put them back. Monday night I sent out an email and rescheduled our dinner to Saturday, January 4. I was in bed (in the chair again) on NYE by 10 pm, with decongestants, nose spray, cough drops, tissues, advil. The ball dropped at Times Square without my help. 🙂 Last night, January 1, my husband said “I’m going to take a dip (in our hot tub) because I’m feeling a little congested.” Oh no!!!!!!! It was inevitable but still horrible – now he is sick. I know several people who have gotten this chest congestion and coughing and misery. It seems to last FOREVER. With any luck my husband will shake it off faster than I did, okay, I still haven’t. In my head I figure Saturday night dinner is not happening.

Sigh. A lot of this dinner party food is perishable. And this is only the downstairs refrigerator.

This is not the best way to start a new year. On the other hand, maybe if we get all the germs out of the way NOW, the rest of the year will be healthy. One can only hope!

Better slightly blurry cat pictures than photos of waste baskets full of tissues!

Default Setting = Cats

Happy Chanukah! We got our chanukiah up and lit and placed in front of the window. I probably should have wiped down the soil there after I moved the plant from that spot. I was more concerned with making sure that the cords for the blinds were out of the way. Please forgive the dirt.

I was looking forward to Christmas, too, because I have that day off. I had planned to bake and cook and read. Unfortunately for me, I woke up Sunday and thought “gee, I don’t feel all that well”. I was worse on Monday and really worse today. 😦 I don’t anticipate much baking or cooking in the near future. My day revolves around heating hot water for tea and filling a tall glass of iced water. As my mother would have said, I’ve drunk enough clear liquids to float a battleship.

It’s VERY difficult to get good pictures of monochromatic cats in bright sunshine

I have lots of role models, however, to help me figure out how to spend my time. I made a little nest for GC on the couch. I took the fleecy liner from the cat carrier and an unused door-draft-blocker and made her a spot. I appear to have been successful in pleasing her as she has been curled up there since its creation. WC even left her red couch to join in for an afternoon cuddle. BC loves the box on the radiator. It’s been there for years now. GC likes it too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen WC in that box. She definitely likes cushioned comfort.

Another adorable monochromatic cat in sunshine

A blog is a piece of the internet, and we all know that the internet is all about cats. From all of us being relaxed and slow. Wishing you and yours a joyous holiday season!

Wrong Season for This

Not fair, not fair, not fair. Picture me throwing myself on the ground, having a major temper tantrum, arms and legs pounding the earth. I have a head cold. I mean, REALLY, who gets a head cold NOW???? I woke up Saturday with a scratchy sore throat. I thought it might have been from having dinner out the night before. Although the restaurant was lovely, they had music playing, which means everyone talking ups the volume, and ups it again and again because of everyone else upping the volume. But it didn’t go away. I felt poorly all day and ended up taking a nap. I woke up Sunday still congested and thought well maybe it’s allergies. Season is changing, maybe there is some pollen out there. I didn’t let it stop me from the important things like running errands and going to the block party. Monday – still congested and headache-y but I waged another foray in the Battle for a Beautiful Basement. I figured it was allergies (and dust in the basement) but when I went to the office on Tuesday, it would be banished by the closed ventilation system.

No such luck. 😦 I have a cold. I spent the entire day in the office blowing my nose and drinking gallons and gallons of hot and cold liquid. 😦 I couldn’t go visit my other mother as planned because I am obviously laden with germs. I did my coworkers a favor and am working from home today. I have my cold water with OJ to one side, my tissue box to the other, and an ever-growing mound of dirty tissues that I toss whenever I get up. It’s NOT FAIR!!!!! Itchy eyes, snuffles, post-nasal drip, and such a headache. Sigh. Do you think this means I might be spared a cold in the winter? Oh make it so.

Some of us are feeling fine and having a good day.

Tomato, Tomahto

tissues I do like going into the office. It’s good to see people, chat, find out what’s happening in other departments. I really enjoy the drive to the office these days. After decades of commutes on rush-hour packed roads, I now have a commute of 6.7 miles (yes, I measured). It goes through the outskirts of an ecological preserve, past a farm where there are horses grazing in the field, past a lovely little lake and even has the convenience of my bank and favorite grocery store before I reach the office. On the way home I have a great view of the river as well (only in the winter – in other seasons the trees in the park along the river block that view).

I also love having the flexibility to work from home. That’s so helpful if there are contractors coming, or if I need to run errands that are closer to home than the office, or if the weather is terrible and I don’t feel like driving even that short distance.

That flexibility combined with the short commute also means that should I start sneezing and blowing my nose non-stop, I can pack up my stuff and leave the office and head back home. That was Monday. I was all set to enjoy the last week at the office for this year. I bought coffee supplies and donuts for the coffee room. I made myself my coffee sat down at my desk and….. the sneezing started. teapot And never stopped. I used up all my tissues. Note to self: remember to bring in new box. After 45 minutes of this I decided that NO one needed or wanted me to stay in the office. We even get lovely emails from HR reminding us to keep away if we are ill. I shut down the machines, packed up and went home (12 minutes door to door. yes, I’m gloating). I drank copious amounts of hot tea, had tissues right to hand, even made the training session I had to lead without sneezing into the microphone. Tomato.

fireplace Tuesday I woke up and felt better, but not well. Obvious decision – work from home again. The sneezing and nose-blowing was over, but the headache and general meh feeling was there. Again, more cups of tea. Another reason to work from home that – I prefer the rest rooms at my house. 🙂

It’s Wednesday and I’m still home, because I thought oh why bother packing up and going in, so many people were planning to take off this week anyway. There weren’t many folk in the office on Monday and I’m sure there will be fewer today.

I’m still home. door OMG, I’m still HOME. I am going stir-crazy. I know that there are people who like to ‘nest’, burrow in as it were and do…. heck, I don’t know what they do. It’s been over 50 hours straight and I am soooooo tired of this view!!!! I neeeeeeed to get out. The sun is shining. I’m not sick. The cats are terrible conversationalists. Every where I look I see ‘things that need doing’. I want my office. I want OUT. Tomahto.

Anyone interested in meeting for a cup of coffee??????