Happy Birthday, sicko!

Yesterday was my birthday and I spent all of it pretty much like the rest of the week: being sick. I tried to get up early so I could head back to my apartment to shower and get clean clothes before going to work, and I can usually do it without an alarm clock, but at some feverish and godforsaken hour Ivan, who is also sick, was gently asking me if I'd heard him saying it was 6:30. No, I replied, to which he said something like Seems to me that you should be able to take the day off if your sick and it's your birthday. This seemed wise to me so I crawled to the living room where my cell phone was last seen and left a message for Tram that I wouldn't be in (I think my voice alone - midcentury frog- was enough to indicate the state of affairs) and then crawled back to bed where we both slept until about 11:30. I use the term 'slept' loosely here. Think 'state of unconsciousness punctuated by spasms of coughing and occasional bursts of fever.'

When I reached a state of being capable of maintaining up-rightedness, I spent the afternoon doing errands and trying not to fall asleep before heading to my doctors appointment (guess what? My vitamin D stores are kaput!). Back at Ivan's we read on the couch, had some eggs for dinner followed by pseudo-ice cream sundaes that I like to think of as this year's birthday cake, and watched a couple of episodes of The Tick.

At some point during the morning, before I left to run errands, we were sort of leaning on each other in the hallway being sick and exhausted, staring at Sally or something, and Ivan said Happy Birthday. We laughed realizing, I think, that it was going to be a sucky way to spend the day. And then he said, At least you're not dead.

Very true, obviously, and I am grateful, in general, for being blessed with reasonable good health. As birthday's go I've had worse but I think that I will start prepping for #50 - no cold, no errands, no work, and sundae's for everybody.