On the Mend

When I woke up at 4 this morning I was lying on my back in the exact center of the bed, my arms flung out straight to the sides, hands limp over the edges. My legs pointed straight down.

Everything was wet. The bed around me was soaked, the top sheet and duvet were on the other side of damp. From the inside, I could feel that my whole body was covered in sweat.

"Thank Christ," I thought. "That's it then. It's broken."

I promptly rolled over into a dry spot and the deepest sleep I've had in a couple weeks.

This flu kicked my ass. My nose is still stuffed up and it'll probably be quite a while before I'm able to clear all the gunk out of my lungs. Maybe a bit too, before I recover from the lack of solid sleep and appetite.

My fridge is a bit of an embarrassment. Not to me, when I'm on my own and not thinking about it. But when I look at other people's fridges, or at my own through someone else's eyes. There is often more compost in it than food.

I say embarrassing because visually, it's a little sad, this giant stainless steel behemoth often containing only a few slices of bread and a variety of alternative milks. But I also half-pride myself on it. Very little gets thrown out of that fridge.

Both my work and my house are close to grocery stores of all kinds. I'm passing them all the time. I don't really need to have an army's worth of food in my larder.

Until, of course, I don't have the energy to make it to the grocery store. At that point, my sketchy pantry becomes a liability.

Luckily, I know lovely people. Shelley's done bits of grocery shopping for me as she's gone to and from the back house, and dropped off quinoa salad and strawberries this morning. Just a couple hours before Mae emailed to ask did I want some of her leftover portabello mushroom soup. Umm, yes please. Steve, Jennifer and Greg have all offered to bring me anything I need.

For the most part, I've been wanting random things.

I mostly don't want to eat, and disturbingly seem to have lost my taste for coffee. When I do want to eat, it's kind of random stuff. A muffin. No, any kind is fine, just a muffin, thank you. Tortilla chips and salsa, procured finally from one of the two wacko convenience stores near my place.* Dinner last night was 1 red pepper, which sounds pathetic but was the only thing I could imagine eating. A lot of toast and peanut butter, until my bread ran out.

Shelley brought me a loaf today though, so now I'm all set.

*When I walked into the first place, I was shocked. There were about 20 bags of chips in there, a few random magazines, and the shelves were two-thirds bare. There were 4 small jars of salsa at nearly $5 a pop. The shelves behind them were completely bare.
"I'm looking for tortilla chips?"
The guy smiled a jolly smile at me.
"Oh, nope! They just came and took those away!"
Uhhhh, okay then. Off to Little India and the woman with the gross fingernails and rheumy eyes.