Anniversary 6

It’s our sixth wedding anniversary, and I have a bellyache.

I’ve had it since Friday, when I laid on my parents’ couch for almost the whole day, ate only toast and crackers and drank ice water and Ginger Ale until evening, when the pesto linguine and buttered and sugared squash followed by tapioca pudding with crushed strawberry sauce called my olfactory sense back from its figurative deathbed.

I’d had enough of the couch by then, and more than enough of reading Gone with the Wind, especially its descriptions of the neverending days of Atlanta’s Civil War seige and its accompanying physical discomforts, which were all the more vividly played out in my imagination due to my pitiful condition.

The squash and linguine were more healthy and tasty than any food we would have had had I not fallen ill, since if I’d been well we would have gone ahead with the date I’d planned in celebration of our six years of weddedness. Unbeknownst to M, we were going to go to a local restaurant (“If you can look past the dirt, it’s great,” one of my dad’s coworkers said of the place) to eat and watch the DVD of our wedding on a laptop. But I was in no way suited to that possibility, and we had to postpone the festivity.

Yesterday I felt better, mostly, and took a walk, split firewood, and drove home, but by bedtime, while we were watching our wedding video (in a technical situation that allowed us only to skip chapters, not fast forward or back up, which was problematic because the DVD’s chapters were extremely randomly established and so we missed particular highlights and had to settle for hodge-podge segments, and so we didn’t get to see the “look of death” that struck my young face when I realized that the ceremony prelude was over and it was time to process), I was starting to feel a bit miserable again. Fortunately we hadn’t coupled the viewing with food; we’ll take care of that part later this week, when I can enjoy it again.

In the meantime, I’m being how I be when I get sick–mopey, demanding, lazy. I dozed until nearly 10:30 this morning (N was napping by then, too, so M didn’t even try going to church), right now N is napping again and so M has jogged off to the grocery store for Jell-O, chicken noodle soup, and Ginger Ale (“In small cans,” I requested), the futon is housing my mildly wracked frame, and just now N woke back up and so I must rescue her from her crib.

Happy Anniversary!