I'm back, baby!

Did y'all miss me? I was out for like three days. Wasn't using the computer, wasn't drinking caffeine, you know I must be sick if I'm not getting my internet and coffee on. Me and Matt had the strep. It was actually kind of scary, I mean, just to me. I'm so pathological about visiting the doctor, I have to get over that. I just kept convincing myself I was feeling better, and wouldn't have to go in. In reality I felt like that character in Katherine Anne Porter's novella, Pale Horse Pale Rider... you don't mind if I go all literary on your ass, do you? I wasn't really at all that bad but I did just kept thinking that I could relate to that character in her state of delirium, in a way I couldn't before... so many thoughts and feelings came up for me. The main one was: I would make a completely sucky chronically ill person. I know, who signs up for that detail, right? But I would be the whiniest, most unable-to-deal person possible. I read this article in the New Yorker by the woman who wrote Seabiscuit of all things, it was about being struck down in her early college years by a mysterious illness, she probably still has it, the most memorable symptom of which was intense vertigo which, for all I know, she still has... OK, I just checked for you. She has Chronic Fatigue, and still has it, and has had it for 15 years. Anyway, I feel horrible that she has that cross to bear, but I'm so so so SO glad I don't have to bear it myself, I'll stick to complaining about my (poor innocent) children, that'll suit me fine.

But really, the sick did give me such a potent dose of perspective. I was just looking at my children and thinking that I wanted to have the energy to play with them so much, not to be begging them not to jump on me, not to make me speak because my throat hurt so bad. I know I'm acting like I had the bubonic plague here but maybe I'm just trying to show the universe that I learned my lesson so it won't send me any MORE lessons in the form of unpleasant illnesses. So Universe, dig it: I am looking around at the green world in which I live and thanking my lucky stars. The shining faces of my children, my safe home, my super mate, so many blessings, overflowing. And though I probably will forget post haste and complain about some aspect of something, well, always these little reminders, and what can we do but embrace it when we're really and truly reminded and know it so fully that we are living lives of bounty and bliss.

And now, without further ado, some of the life I was reunited with: RAIN WALK!


Rain-kissed streets of Austin in the springtime... glorious. We found a heavily laden loquat tree... abundance. Jack started saving seeds so we could grow our own. Henny LOVES trying new food, the tip of her tongue starts darting in and out as she eyes our loquats ravenously. I gave her some and she screamed when it was all ate up! We'd already left the tree behind... we'll have to go back to snitch a few more sweet fruits for these lads and lasses.

Lest you think it was all sweetness and light, little Darth Vader here (we call him 'Darthie') was noticing all these cute little snails out enjoying the recent rainfall, and he said, "We should take one of them home!" then, reconsidering, "Except these are killer snails. They kill people." And he STOMPED one! OMG. The learning continues. And we just learned about caracoles in Spanish this morning.

Poor little Darthie. You do wrestle with that dark side, don't you?