Merry Amoxicillin

What's Christmas without a little antibiotic?

Yep. That about sums it up.

It's before 7a.m. I'm up and definitely not going back to bed until this Alieve kicks in. Ari and I flew into Detroit last Friday, stayed with friends over the weekend, picked up a pathogen somewhere in there and have been squaring off with it all week. It finally won yesterday (Sascha's first day reunited with us) and we had to take Ari into MedExpress for some antibiotics. Bronchiitis and pink eye for Ari. Wretched sore throat and potential bronchiitis/pink eye for me. Merry Christmas, baby.

Despite intense exhaustion and because I can't sleep without extreme pain, I thought I'd fire up the old blog and sit down with a nice cup of Chamomile (unfortunately, coffee makes my throat feel like hamburger), and record some thoughts.

So here I sit, on The Day, battling oncoming bronchiitis. This Day has the added bonus of landing on a Sunday, the Actual Day (not everyone will understand this and that's okay). Here are some included bonuses...It took two hours last night to bring down a 103 degree fever and, after battling fever all day, Ari's understandably pooped. Last I heard, there's a storm coming in from the West (where the rest of our family is coming from today). And my brother may be stuck in L.A...or Chicago. We're not sure yet. And so, our annual 12/23 Observation and Guinness Glass Lift to Matt may have to be held in Saginaw. Perhaps sans a few family members. Well, poop. As long as they all arrive safely...

Clearly, I'm not thrilled. And to top it off, someone else is living in our house...the one in Ann Arbor. Yes, I am aware that we sold it - and one aspect of selling a home is that a stranger then occupies said home. I get that on a cognitive level...it's just the emotional level that's f-ing me up right now. I made the mistake of doing a drive-by while I was in town last weekend. All the lights were blazing and the shades were open and I could see quite a bit. The new owners painted a hallway. I wasn't too insulted at that, not everyone is as brave with color as I. However, they had the absolute nerve to replace the lovely green glass lampshade in the kitchen. I loved that thing. It was one of the only things we kept after the remodel. Now it's probably wasting away in a recycling center or, God forbid, in the trash. I hate them, the new owners. Just because of that. But it's their house, not mine...even on December 23.

So what does one do? Shed some tears and move ahead. You accept that life changes. The Way I Want Things isn't always going to be and you can't force new circumstances into an old mold. Such is life. You've got to ride with the current or you're going to be left behind, swirling in the rock and sand, bitter and dissapointed. And the last thing I want to be is bitter and dissapointed. This world doesn't really have time or space for that. And rightly so. Dwell, if you must, for a while (and believe me, I did). Muse. Figure it out. Reconfigure. Work your way through it. Bit by bit. But at some point you've gotta just move ahead and say, "Wahoo". "When was the last time you said Wahoo?" (Bonus points if someone comments with the movie from which this quote is taken.)

I hope Matt understands that trekking to Ann Arbor for his Anniversary today is kind of out of the question. I'm sure he does. I hope his family knows that I love them, if The Great Germ Battle prevents me from calling them. I hope today passes peacefully. And I hope everyone else facing a Day this season finds peace as well.

So here's to 2008...it'll be a Wahoo kind of year.