Saturday, November 21, 2009

It can't always be sunshine and Whoppers

The sore throat started on Sunday. The sniffles kicked in on Monday. The sore throat and sniffles double-teamed me on Tuesday. The sinus pressure presented itself on Wednesday morning and later treated me with an afternoon of watery eyes and "Damn, Dena...you don't look good. Why don't you just go home?" And because I'm a big baby when I'm sick, I really wanted to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I'm NOT a big baby when I'm sick. My body, energetic and screaming, "Go!!!" was being contradicted by everything from my neck up screaming, "Nooo!!!".

The body aches took over on Thursday and I finally gave up, collapsed, admitted defeat, and called in sick.

Because while I spent the earlier part of the week trying to prove that I'm not a big baby when I'm sick, I really only ended up driving what little energy I had to survive straight into a big hole in the ground and wearing myself down into a big ol' bag of uselessness. Somehow over the past few days, I had managed to drive myself and my daughter to two separate doctors appointments (where we were diagnosed with the same virus yet treated with different meds - I received antibiotics whereas she received allergy tablets), drop her off and pick her up from school (all while appropriately dressed in un-pajama-like clothing) and spend more time than humanly necessary stalking my Facebook friends.

Last night, Elle and I had a "Sick Girls Sleepover" by confining the hack-and-snotfest to my room. I was sprawled on my bed with a sick tummy, the result of an Azithromycin-Delsym-Sudafed-Yaz cocktail, while Elle's little belly grumbled with an overabundance of too many snacks. After days of eating little else but pasta and rice, I was craving some meat (and I'm not one to eat meat, nothing vegetarian about it - just simply not a taste/texture I particularly like in my mouth).

"Tomorrow, we're going to feel better. And I'm going to take us to Burger King so we can have a hamburger. No, no, no. A cheeseburger. No, no, no. A Whopper. With meat and cheese and tomato and onion and lettuce and ketchup and mayonnaise...", and so on.

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Well, howdy doo. I sprung out of bed this morning with a still hacking cough but none of the "oh, god, my skin hurts when the wind blows" kind of cold/flu pain. I prepared the little one her favorite breakfast of french toast, helped her clean off her wagon in order to load it up and deliver the Girl Scout candy orders, walked the neighborhood in the sunny warmth of this beautiful day - the first day I could actually walk outside and not have to shield my eyes from the blessed sunshine that had been making my congested head throb with explosive pains since Tuesday.

And what a day to really wake up to it all! I couldn't help but take pictures of how extraordinarily glorious my own backyard looked to me after having emerged from my week-long cocoon of bedding, tissues, and even more tissues. Oh, dear Florida. I talk smack about you alot, but seriously - I couldn't imagine waking up to gray, cold skies or bitter cold winds. That would only send me back to bed! And how can I get my Whopper from bed!?!? Mmmm...that was the best damn Whopper I ever had, by the way.

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My cat, Polly Esther Pooper Hemingway. The Pooper. Poopie, Poophead, Da Poops...you get the idea.

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Flowers. In November. Eat your hearts out, Northerners.

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Aaaah...palms.

tangerines
Our tangerine tree. The Tree of Vitamin C. $4.00 orange juice? Pttth...I get it for free (technically not until January - they're not quite ready for plucking!)

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Polly Esther - check out her fists. Six-toed cats rule my world. Too bad they can't clean their own litter boxes, which is why she's called Pooper - she spends most of her time outside but still manages to muck up an indoor litter box.

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Another beautiful palm tree.

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My little Girl Scout Elle...wagon washin'!

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More flowers...purple ones! Me likey the purple ones!

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The grapefruit tree...

Here, have a closer look!
grapefruit

Sunshine and Whoppers do a body good.

3 comments:

Geekzilla said...

Hey! I like Whoppers, too, but stop picking on us Northerners! Some of us actually like the clouds and cold. And unlike Citrusland, we don't have snakes and three-toed sloths lurking under our beds!

Chris said...

Your tangerine tree reminded me of the satsuma tree we had when I grew up there. I was always impatient, waiting for that first frost so we could start picking them.

Glad that the two of you are feeling better, sounds like it was a tough week. At least you got it over with before Thanksgiving!

Laura Lee said...

haha! thanks for all the pics of your beautiful landscape (including ms. poopie six-toes - that made me LOL!!) nothing seems quite so extra-ordinary as ordinary things after a week of the yuck! now to find me a BK... that sounded yummy =o)