Bearshorty's musings

After Thanksgiving everyone around here from my Mom to Bear to me had a cold. (Tanya had it first over Thanksgiving weekend and Olivia never got it, most likely because of my milk). That was pretty miserable. But at least it was just really annoying and I was fine at work. Because over this Christmas break, I actually got pretty sick.

My nose started running on the 24th by the afternoon but I thought it was allergies. My in-laws have three cats in the house whom they keep in the basement for Olivia's sake, while we visit. And Tanya likes to play in the basement because her doll house is there and my friend T sent Tanya a kinetic sand toy, which we took with us and set up in the basement. And so I spent a bit of time playing with Tanya there. So I thought it was allergies. By the evening I looked up what I could take (Claritin is OK , Claritin D is not). Bear went to the store to get me Claritin and it did help the dry mouth but my nose kept running and my throat was irritated. So Christmas was a bit miserable. We got back home Monday night and I was still hoping it were allergies but by Tuesday morning, my throat was not happy with me. I went to work and drank lots and lots of tea but my voice was not pretty by this point and I was feeling very meh and cold and tired. It doesn't help that the weather outside is very freezing.

By the end of the work day yesterday I knew I should take a sick day today. Both Larisa and my boss were all for it so I'm home today and probably tomorrow. When I got home I actually measured my temperature and it was 100.9 so it was definitely time to take it easy and go to bed. It is very boring to lie in bed all day. I'm not super sick but sick enough. And it's only 8:30. My Mom is here to take care of the kids. I will probably read and nap and maybe watch something.

Christmas itself was pretty nice, aside from me feeling like crap. We woke up and I got the girls dressed in pretty dresses and we went downstairs to see an empty milk glass and a tiny bit of carrot left with cookies gone. And lots of presents under the tree. One present - a wooden train track from IKEA was all set up and ready to play with. We open the presents slowly, most of the day, so no one feels overwhelmed. Tanya also got a unicorn puzzle, figurines from Frozen, Jacob's ladder, sewing game and a talking bear that will still need to be activated. She also got Cyrillic magnetic letters from my brother in law. Olivia got a musical seahorse, Mickey shapes and a couple of teething rings. Of course, she just wanted to chew on the wrapping paper.

When Tanya was first playing with her train, the sun was just rising and I was in the kitchen making her soup for later. We lifted the window shades to see a little bit of falling snow. It didn't last but that was a magical moment.

I gave Bear his presents: Spiderman Homecoming DVD, cables for his game system and a tiny arcade game. We gave me Wonder Woman DVD that I wanted. I also got the latest Sam Smith CD, a book about New York bridges, a book of Turner art, a subscription to National Geographic (I can read it at work now and I did miss it since I let my subscription lapse in May 2016), and a bracelet. I also got a Gryffindor bookmark and Carrie got me the Harry Potter cookbook that I already have, so she will return it and get me Amazon credit. That works too.

For brunch Bear and I made pancake breakfast as per Christmas tradition. I'm in change of scrambled eggs. Laurie and John (Bear's brother) joined us in the afternoon and we had appetizers and then pot roast. We had to drive back home after dinner but we managed everything well. Both girls fell asleep in the car and I put then back to bed when we got home. If not for being sick, it was a lovely Christmas.

When worrisome/frustrating/bad things come, they tend to come in packs. And this week has been stressful.

We had a good week last week. My parents's place and the beach and traveling to Bear's parents for Fourth of July and having a good, quiet holiday.

And then on Saturday night, around 11:30 just as I was about to drift off to sleep with Tanya sleeping right next to me, I hear a thump. She rolled and fell out of the bed. We did put blankets and pillows on that side, so she was mostly startled and cried for just a bit to go back to sleep but it obviously stressed us out. I didn't even try to sleep until 2, looking things up online to make sure I would be able to spot adverse effects.

We watched her the next day carefully but she was fine, her energetic happy self. We came home on Sunday evening.

On Monday morning, my Mom came over to help cook for Tanya and me. She usually comes for half a day, maybe twice a week. This time she didn't leave until this afternoon because Tanya got a fever for the first time.

It wasn't super high but I called a pediatrician anyway to make sure it was not related to falling out of bed. Doctor said to bring her in. When we were in the doctor's office, her temperature got to 101F (that's 38.4 C -to this day I can only really understand body temperature in Celsius. Outside weather temp, no problem with Fahrenheit ). It's not related to the fall. So last three days we've been up and down with the fever. I though it broke today but low fever is still here, came back by bedtime. It's so much more stressful when a baby is sick than when I am or Bear or anyone else.

Then, on top of dealing with a sick child, our toilet decided to leak yesterday. That was fun. Thankfully our super actually showed up and fixed it. He is not always reliable.

And for the last week or so I've been dealing with tooth discomfort/mild ache. It's an ache but not quite. And I'm not even sure it's any of the teeth on that side because I got a canker sore under my tongue, which never happened before, and it does hurt. I should go to the dentist - which was my plan this week (I really don't like going to the dentist) but then Tanya got sick.

So all this does not make for a happy week. Here's hoping it will all get back to normal soon.

I have not been inspired to write lately, mostly because I'm tired when I get home from work and I just want to veg on the couch, read fic and watch "West Wing." But since I actually have time before my office hours come to an end today, I thought I'll put together a little update.

1. I've been sick for the last week and a half and it has not been fun. My throat hurt so much that I couldn't really talk for a couple of days last week. I even cancelled my history classes since it was kind of pointless to not talk in a lecture class. Bear is now sick too, so he probably got it from me. I'm just so tired of coughing.

2. On Sunday, despite not feeling 100%, I went to the Leonard Cohen concert at Radio City Music Hall. I spent a lot of money on that ticket (I did have great seats on the first row of the balcony) and I was not going to waste it. And it was amazing. He was better live than on his CDs which is not that common for musicians. And he made me appreciate his songs even more. For a 78 year old he was going up and down on his knees a lot and he sang for over three hours. The concert ended close to midnight. I loved it. It is just the great band with wonderful musicians, back-up singers and pure songs. My favorite bits were when he was reciting the lyrics to some songs like "A Thousand Kisses Deep" like poetry. I also got really emotional during "Come healing" and "Hallelujah." I knew all the songs, except maybe two, but I certainly got new ideas on them.

3. On March 28, I went to Manhattan for the Mark Tour event. Mark Oshiro from Mark Reads and Mark Watches websites was touring around US and Canada so I decided to go this year. It was a lot of fun. He read terrible fanfic like one with Batman/Robocop and answered questions. And I met some of the other people who read his sites. I'm shy in social situations where I don't know people (when I'm comfortable, I can't shut up - I'm such a Gemini) so I got a little flustered when I talked to him after the show. It was very nice to meet him in person.

4. Speaking of Mark Watches , he started covering "West Wing" in March. I had no intention of starting it but after reading his first review, I gave the pilot a chance. I'm on episode 7 of Season 2 now. I really like it. It's the characters - i like almost all of the characters, especially, Josh, CJ and Toby and I'm enjoying the stories.

5. On Saturday, March 30th, me and my friends did our annual Passover Seder cooking and eating a lot extravaganza. It is always so much fun. Marianna made a whole chicken this year, for the first time ever, and it was very delicious. Janna is pregnant and due in September. I'm going to pick up cross stitching again. I haven't done that is a while.

6. And speaking of Passover, I made so much food on the first night for the seder just for me and Bear. There was mazza ball soup with veggies, roasted potatoes, boiled geffelte fish, salad - too much food.

March was a very social month. We went visiting someone almost every weekend.

I have to go teach now. Crusades, here I come. At least the weather is finally lovely.