Once again, I stayed home from church this morning. Seems like it's been this way all winter...either me or one of the younger kids sick. So this week most of us have been ducking in and out of sickness, and I believe now that some of us have actually contracted a second virus on top of the first. Several of us only *thought* we were getting better when we were slammed back down with either another bug or a renewed onslaught of the first. In either case, it's certainly slathered another layer on the normal February blahs (see below).

So this has been the week of AllAnnaNicoleAllTheTime. It's been very interesting for me to watch and compare coverage of the saga among the various networks. So many of the news and entertainment outlets are falling all over themselves and each other to be the definitive high-minded vantage...while the sad truth is that it's a tragic, low-brow story that can't be wrapped up in a nice, neat media package. Not now, perhaps not ever. This one makes Marilyn Monroe look like Mitford.

And for another incredible story, how about the NASA love triangle mess? I keep wondering how the three kids of the protaganist are faring, not only from the trauma of having an unhinged, fallen-from-glory mother who now wears a GPS ankle-bracelet instead of a pressurized space suit, but also from the specter of living in a fish-bowl with cameras camped outside their house 24/7. God, help them.

Happily, I'm looking at a calendar of March that has NO trips away from home by The Papa. He'll get to absorb his share of the family trauma around here for a while. But then who am I kidding? With all the cars, appliances, and kids programmed to his airline schedule, why could I expect that anything unpleasant would happen while he's home? Oh well, at least I can rest in the thought that he'll enjoy some peace and quiet for a bit :-)

WARNING: You are hereby instructed to cease and desist with all the phone calls, emails, and especially real-time IMs to tell me that you have three (or six, or twelve) inches of snow in your yard. I've tried to be nice until now, I really have, but I've reached critical mass and can no longer be happy for you. The icicles here last month were nice, but they were not snow, and they dripped away much too fast, and they did not leave me with any fantasy that I live in a winter wonderland.

This reminds me, in a way, of our first tour of duty in Hawaii. The state was in the middle of a long drought, and after a year of heat and no rain, I was suffering a weather-related depression. I longed for a good storm, for a juicy break in the Paradise that tourists spend big bucks for.

One afternoon when I thought I could bear no more, The Papa went outside and rigged our large lawn sprinkler to spray up to the lanai roof, where it made loud, pelting sounds and then ran off the roof in a perfect imitation of a summer storm. It was delicious. For two hours I was able to suspend reality and believe that it was pouring outside, and believe it or not, it did wonders for my outlook!

I'm sure that my dear husband would have been instantly and brutally incarcerated if the Water Police had found out, but to this day I remember that event as one of the sweetest things he ever did for his rain-starved wife.

Honey, can you figure out how to simulate a blizzard?

No, on second thought...

Labels: Health, Sundays, The Papa, Theater of the Absurd