Lovely Goodness... or Not.

So much to tell you all... and since I am stuck home in bed I have plenty of time to do it.

Why am I stuck home in bed, you ask? Well... that is part of the story. I wrote in the last post that I had been sick a while back. Well, I kinda lied to you all. I made it sound like I had gotten over it... but I never really did. I didn't want anyone to worry, and I figured it was just a persistent virus or something, so it wasn't a big deal. But I kept coughing and coughing, and coughing fits were actually slightly disgusting with snot flying everywhere and hacking up great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts. Breathing was difficult, liquid, and painful; and it felt like someone had wrapped a steel band around my chest. I was still pretty insistent that it was a virus, but I just couldn't shake it.

Then Ashley the Lovely ended up with a seriously infected ingrown toenail. Now honestly, you wouldn't think that much of a big deal, but it is. It is when you live a sedentary life as a couch potato, or a normal life as an active parent (As Kim did, once upon a time;) but it is a really huge deal when you rely on your feet as much as we do. And Ashley's feet are her mode of transportation, so when she couldn't walk on them without extreme pain... time to go to the doctor.

That in addition to the fact that I was down to my last scopolomine patch with much flying coming up this summer, and my job was being pretty insistent about my needing to have an epi-pen, since there are bees in these here parts... I decided that I would have my cough looked at too.

The doctor, a Doctor Barton, was the stereotypical older Englishman that you envision. He has a cane. He has white hair. He wears a bow tie. He has the accent that we Americans define as the epitome of English accents. And he took one listen to my chest. Then listened again. And again.

"You have pleurisy," says he.

Pleurisy is the inflammation of the lining of the lungs, and has a tendency to go hand and hand with pneumonia. Which is what he is worried about. The lower right lobe of my lungs is the most tender and goopey, and when I cough and Stephen pounds there, it helps because the cough becomes more productive. It was this lower right lobe that he said was where all these fun things were happening.

So, I have super strong anti-biotics. I am on day 5 of them now. The cough is slightly better, but is by no means gone. It doesn't hurt as much to breathe, and I don't feel like I am breathing through water. I will be having an X-ray this week, and then possibly another one the week after. That will either confirm or deny pneumonia, and may change what we are doing to treat this. I am desperately hoping it is NOT pneumonia. I am also desperately missing the dry windy hot places that this desert rat thrives in. I blame this lung thing on the weather and infernal cold of England.

Ashley is also on anti-biotics for her toe. It is doing much better. Dr. Barton did nothing for the ingrown bit of it because the infection was too bad, but that just means that we get to go back together next Wednesday. Me to be checked again and her to have the ingrown part taken care of.

In the process of all this, I now have 2 Epi-pens (one for work and one for home.. and watching Stephen read the directions and play with the Epi-pens was quite entertaining. At least now he can save me if I get stung) and 10 additional scopolomine patches. I also have acidophilus, and a yeast infection thanks to the anti-biotics. I love being sick. (ha!)

A funny side story that might just make up for being miserable: The anti-biotics that I am taking smell quite nice, as they are coated with some sort of stuff to make them easier to swallow. Stephen is attracted to nice-smelling things. He just can't stay away from them. He opens the medicine jar and sniffs them. Often. And asks if he can please just lick them before I take them as they must taste lovely too. Soooo...

I let him. Ashley watched and burst into laughter. He looked at me, then did. Slowly, with anticipation, he licked my anti-biotic before I took it....

... and was disappointed. He says they smell much better than they taste. So now he just opens the bottle and smells them. It makes me laugh every time... which turns into a coughing fit. Every time.

On the not-sick front, Stephen has sent in an application for a new job today. It is a learning technology job at a University in London. It is a significant (possibly 5 digit) pay raise for him. If he gets it, it means that until I graduate he will be commuting to London... but our potential plan is to move somewhere between here and there, so that his commute is shorter and balanced by the equal one I will have to make. Since the school that I think I would like to teach at is in London, that would make the transition after I graduate an easier one to make. No one will be settling for a job so the other can do what they want. We will keep you all informed of the result of the application. But, to be honest, Stephen is awesome enough that I can't imagine they won't want him. And I am not biased in the least.

It dawned on me that it is less than a year before I graduate with my Bachelor's degree.

Spring is here and though it is still cold to me, it is much warmer than it was. The rain is nice, though not as constant as I was led to believe. Ashley tells me that it is SO HOT, though I take a sweater everywhere I go because I get cold. She hasn't adapted...not at all. ;) My favourite part of the spring is the babies. Baby ducks and baby moorhens are everywhere. My favourite, of course, are the baby moorhens. Their parents stay together to raise them, and moorhen parents take the cake for trying hard... though they are really dumb about it. Most moorhen babies are lost, sometimes before they even hatch, because the parents were not quite as thoughtful as they could have been when placing nests. But they make up for it in hard work when the babies are actually born.


Moorhen babies are little black balls of fluff. On the river by the house, there is a family of moorhens with small ones. It is nice to watch them grow. They are very cute, and since they are not as good at swimming as ducks, they holler after mama and daddy to slow down and wait for them. And they eat all the time. I feel slightly sorry for the parents. I don't think they have had time to rest since the babies came.

Though resting is something I am now getting back to.

In Which Amy.... well, just read it already. (Myspace Blog)

This is my favourite holiday ever. Ever ever ever. Samhain - with crisp apples waiting in big tubs of water to be caught with the teeth, lit candles on the alter flickering in the dark for those that have passed, for us to remember, costumes and candy, jack o'lanterns carved into scarey faces and lit throughout the night to guide our dead to visit us, and the seeds salted, roasted, and dipped into the sweetest honey in the world. Ouija boards, circles, bonfires, tarot readings, the dumb feast... I love it all. This Samhain is different for me. It is my first in many years in which I am choosing not to have large crowds or a huge gathering of people come to watch the witch in action. I will not be reading tarot until 3 am for everybody under the moon. I will not be casting circles of salt 'round the bonfire and drawing open the West to welcome in the dead. I will not be dancing around a cauldron, stirring the witches brew that fogs the ground from the secret stash of dry ice which I dropped in. I will spend my Samhain alone. My children off, for the first time in years, at "halloween" parties and trick or treating with peers. For them, this is a rare treat. They never get to be normal... this is Samhain. But this year, even they must go. I will be in the dark of my room, incense thick in the air, chanting in commune with the world that is thin with the veil between worlds. I will cast off the old - this is a moment of truth, of moving on. I will shrug off the past. It will be closure. Closure at the time of new beginnings, the start of a new turning of the wheel of the year. When I am done, I will be cleansed. I will be empty of the past and able to let go of it. I will be looking foward, into the future. And there will be a new candle on the alter, for this year only. It will be a rememberance of dead relationships. This year, when the veil is the thinnest, I send that path into the world of the dead, and I will not be haunted by it anymore. So mote it be.

In Which Amy Rolls with the Wheel of the Year... (Myspace Blog)

It is officially autumn in my book. I am standing in the doorway of my house looking into my yard. There is a slight cool breeze, far better than the very cold breeze that has accompanied all the rain we have had for the past few evenings. (I adore the rain. My favourite days are always rainy ones.) The reason I know it is autumn is apparant when I look at the ground. It would crackle under my feet had it not been so wet. Leaves. Everywhere. Grey, brown, yellow, orange, red, all spread in a thin layer across my yard. There is more to come, because the tree they have come from is still green and vibrantly full of life. I love the autumn. It is the beginning and the end. We pull in the harvest, remember our dead, and prepare to give thanks for the things in our lives that are a blessing. And I have so much to be thankful for. This year has been a year of transition for me, and I appreciate the transition of the autumn more so because of it. Like me, the life of the tree is a state of flux, constantly changing with the seasons. This winter, while the trees lie dormant through the cold; I ,too, will lie dormant in many ways - my focus inward rather than out. I feel as though I have much to learn from this introspective reflection. Much to learn about myself, how I think, where I want to go in life, and what I believe and feel is worthwhile and worthy. This process of reflection does not come easily for me. I must struggle and fight my way through it because I like to believe that I am flawless and perfect, even though I /know/ that I am not. But this inner struggle is a challenge that carries many rewards. Not only do I stand to gain a greater perception of me, but I also stand to gain a greater acceptance of those who are not like me. I welcome this acceptance... there are so many different types of peoples. I want to be critically aware of the impact that I make while walking amongst them. Am I one who makes waves by speeding through without regard to culture? Or do I row in the midst of culture, basking in it and soaking it up like a sponge in order to internalize the fact that I am no different than they in so many ways. We each choose how we move among our family of fellow human beings. We can choose to make waves and expect the world to move the distance to meet us, or we can bask and soak and meet the world in the middle. I choose acceptance, even when it means that I am the one to do the work.