Back, But Not Quite Here

Some souvenirs from trips are fun: postcards; fudge; novelty T-shirts.

Some souvenirs -- not so much.

I've just gotten up after an afternoon in bed while unseen viral gremlins worked my intestines into macrame. Ouch. Sore throat and fever too. I begged off work; came home, got into my nightgown, microwaved my flaxseed neck pillow to serve double duty as a heating pad, and hunkered down in bed with the Mark Powell book I've been trying to finish before my next lay ministry retreat. (For some reason I felt compelled to pair abdominal cramps with Serious Theological Reading.)

Fellow Traveler -- who is just getting over the feverish, sore-throaty bug -- came by with sympathy (at a distance, as the song says) and fruit-juice popsicles, then backed quickly out the door.

First my camera broke. Then I came home to find that in my absence the resident deer herd had stripped every one of my carefully nurtured container tomato plants down to nubbins -- even ate all the little green tomatoes. Then I found that the voice mail function on my cheapazoid dollar-store Terrorist Special cell phone isn't working -- every time I try to access my voice mail I wind up talking to a cranky directory assistance operator. Now my immune system is temporarily shot. And as I'm typing, I'm feeling the heat generated by the battery in my Dell computer, and wondering if and when that machine's gonna blow.

I did have a really lovely vacation, though.