A Cow. I Has One.

My poor, poor husband. Attempting to play his game. Microphone to the other online players still on.

Me, in the background, but not nearly quiet enough to be background noise...

"Want to go to there! WANT. WANT." Insert whining here.

"I have to go, guys," he says. "Have to make the wife happy."

I love being on the email list for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Granted, we haven't been yet, and this was the first email from them that peaked my interest, but still. Worth it.

I was having a cow.

Idina Menzel.

Elphaba. Maureen. Original coach of Vocal Adrenaline. Married to and procreating with Taye Diggs. There is nothing this woman cannot do!

And we're seeing her from the middle of the 6th row in January, with a full orchestra backing her. If she asks me to moo, I am mooing. If you get that reference, high fives and musical-nerd respect, yo.

And we're not going to the grocery this week. I can stay on a budget! Watch me! I hate money. As in not having enough of it. The husband better get ready for some fish. Our freezer is full of fish. Does that sound dirty? I mean it literally. Sorry...

Someone is on a very strange, intoxicating high from excitement. I don't know what else I would get high on. Cake? Anyway, if it was possible for me to jog, I would do that right now. I can barely sit still. Awesome future date!

Moo with me! Mooooooooooooooo! Mooooooooooooo!

DVR Date

Saturday was beautiful. Or so it seemed the 3 times I took the dog out for 5 minutes.

Sunday, it rained! So no feelin' guilty there! Right? Sighs.

The hubby and I discovered over the weekend that our DVR went all uber-efficient on our asses this past week (or two). With the new seasons of our shows and the list of new things we may or may not want to watch, the available percentage withered lower and lower. Add in how tired we were from the week, and our adventures in dating took a less than dramatic turn.

Let's not talk about how I like my DVR to be clean and orderly. Like my inbox. And my sock drawer. And perhaps I did take all the silverware out of the silverware drawer the other day and then re-place it back in a more orderly manner. Bah.

I marinaded steaks and grilled them, and I Paula Deen-ed a chicken. We had real side dishes. I baked apples and baked potatoes. Not together. Separate side dishes there.

I MADE CHEESY GARLIC BREAD. From scratch. Points? I should get them. Lots of them. I have never even attempted that before.

That is date-y and romantic. I fed the one I love this weekend. Lots. Pretty plates of food eaten together on the couch, while watching Modern Family and The Office. Saturday Night Live, Parenthood, and The Soup.

We're still at 80%. Which is not acceptable. The large percentage of used DVR space haunts me in my bed at night. Don't. Like. It.

Did like stayin' in my pajamas, the newly discovered level of hatred my husband seemingly has for Katy Perry, and sleeping in past 8 am.

Lazy weekends? Still one of my favorite husband-wife activities.

Would You Rather Game

With balloons on our minds, I decided to look into taking a ride in a hot air balloon for a future date. Sure, I might vomit, or simply recede into the basket like a turtle drawing his head back into his shell. In other words, my fear of heights would be seriously tested.

At the same time, being scared made me want to do it more. It would surely be beautiful. If I could look. And the hubby would be there, so I would feel the safest I could in such a situation.

I figured it would be expensive, like good seats at the theater or ballpark. I did not, however, expect it to be so unreasonable that normal people cannot ever, ever, ever go up in a hot air balloon. I found 4 local hot air balloon businesses. They were similar in price and in experience. About an hour up in the air, and my husband and I would be joined with 6-8 other paying customers. If we wanted to do it solely as a couple... Well, that is more expensive than our entire wedding and honeymoon was.

So here is the game my hubby and I got to play... It's called "Would You Rather" and is just super fun.

Would you rather have a date in a hot air balloon (with 6 other people) or buy groceries for 3 months?

Would you rather have the hot air balloon date or get new brakes for the car?

Balloon or get our eyes checked AND get new glasses with the expensive frames and lenses for both of us?

Balloon or make 2 car payments?

Get all 9 of our rescued kitties vetted for a year?

Get 102 Vintage Stars Wars Action Figures on sale?

Get Happy-Happy Wife Boots that would be too expensive to wear outdoors?

Get a stainless steel fridge? A giant washer and dryer? A riding lawn mower?

The only thing my husband would answer "balloon" to would be the following:

Would you rather go up in a hot air balloon or buy 2 purebred Weimaraner puppies?

Yeah. No way are we taking a hot air balloon ride. I get that they need to make money on the rides but you'd think it would be just a tad more... Plausible. I will not be spending over 300 bucks a person to throw up in the skies above St. Louis. Besides, I probably wouldn't be able to see anything through my tears, which I would be crying out of pure frustration at how stupid we were paying that much to go up in the first place.

Fancy Smancy Cupcake Date

We had experienced the Balloon Race... location.

Then, we explored the Loop's... one restaurant we got an urge to check out.

Finally, we were back in the car and driving out of the city. Dating, we're back! And we went big! We had a lot of day already - don't forget we'd also run a bunch of errands earlier in the morning.

I had a vague recollection of seeing a cupcake place once while the hubby was driving me around. Of course, he's driven me all over the place, and this was however long ago. I did, however, start saying around the time we headed into The Loop that if we passed a cupcake place, we would be stopping. I love cake. I even tried to watch the DC Cupcake show... But even cake couldn't save that mind-numbing masterpiece of a program.

I was pretty sure it was on our way back home after we left The Loop the last time... So, as you can imagine, there wasn't a lot of happy going on in the car then. Because I was too stubborn to even get out of the vehicle and take two steps into The Loop. Ooooo. I was too scared of all the arty people. Which was entirely my fault and completely ridiculous, especially when you consider I used to be all open-poetry-mic-night girl and straight-out-of-grandma's-coolest-closet clad chick. But I was not so disturbed by the experience that I did not notice cupcakes. I could have sworn...

As we drove through one neighborhood after another, I kept expecting it to pop out. We were getting closer to the highway. My husband, humoring me as always, assured me it could emerge from the horizon at any second. We were both full anyway from the mac and cheese. It was fine. We'd find a cupcake place someday.

"It'll happen," I said to him.

He nodded, knowing I meant if we ever passed one ever, we would be having a cupcake.

I was too far to see the sign. It was a simple white building with several little businesses in it. But I knew immediately. I started yelling, "There it is! Is that it? Is there a cupcake place there! PULL OVER!"

And wha-la, my cupcake GPS opened like a flower to the sun. We pulled right in, and I clapped with glee.

I told my hubby, "Get excited! We're getting a couple to take home! CUPCAKES!"

Again, I am reminded how lucky I am to have found this man. He just took my hand and we headed into the cupcake shop. I was nervous, as I am when I go anywhere new (the hubby tried to open the door for me at Cheese-ology and I said, "No, you're going in first" because I was afraid of where to go and what to do and being the first one inside). The second we opened the door, a glass case of large, elaborately decorated cupcakes lay before us, and I forgot my nerves. Cure for my nervousness? Found. Check that off the list. Just have cupcakes waiting for me and I am ready to go. Happy perky party Happy Wife has arrived!

We picked out four (two each, no overlap allowed) after much discussion. We knew we'd split each one in half when we'd have them at home, so that we could both try all the ones we were getting. The 4 cost what a psychic reading would have cost the two of us. So, again, it was a good thing we didn't do that. Although, maybe the psychic would have warned me...

Anyway, we headed out, and I asked the hubby to pose in front of the shop. He started to do so, then insisted he take a picture of me there instead, since I was the one initiating all things cupcake in our lives forevermore.

Just as he was about to take the photo, a very nice woman who had also just bought some cupcakes was opening the door to her car to leave. She turned and said she'd be happy to take our picture for us. The genuineness in her voice was sort of staggering. It was very kind of her and unexpected. I have had too many cringe-worthy, lose-all-faith-in-humanity encounters at, for example, The Walmart, so this little interaction blatantly took me off guard.

In other words, this pic is courtesy of someone who made our day.

We came home and split one cupcake before going out again to run more errands. It was the "RazMaTazz" and was a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and a raspberry buttercream icing with chocolate ganache. Not bad, not bad at all.

After supper, we split the "Penguin" because... I like penguins. You got me. I admit that is why I was drawn to that cupcake. Still, chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate sprinkles, and white chocolate ganache. That's no poor man's cupcake. For some reason, though, I could only eat half of my half, if that. But it was tasty! I don't know. I felt a little off but shrugged it away and continued with my evening.

I had visions of us having some cuddle time in front of the tv, or playing a board game, getting out the puzzle... Starting up the ole wii... Then adding the last 2 cupcakes to that activity would be like a little sweet at-home date! Oooooo. How smart I am! Tomorrow, maybe the next day, I thought...

About 4 hours after my 4 bites of the Penguin cupcake, and I'm not blaming the cupcake here, I got massively, horribly ill. I get migraines, and this was the worst one I have ever had. It came on like a flash of lightening, which is weird for me, but that wasn't my issue. My problem was the nausea that grabbed me with both hands by my face and proceeded to antagonize me for the next 2 hours. I was so sick that my husband asked if he could take me to the hospital... Yeah. Not good.

I want to make it clear that I have no idea why I felt the way I did. There were several possible causes. Easiest guess is sometimes I get nausea with my migraines. End of story.

Of course, this nausea made anything I felt in the past feel weak and puny.

It could have been that I still have the bug my husband had, the one that plagued him for weeks and that only moderately kicked my butt in comparison. He still has a weird cough. Maybe I never got over it and it's still playing a random game of tag in my body. You're it, stomach! No, you are, throat! How about sinuses! Boo-yah!

I can't forget also that still, I'm not good when we eat out. It nags me in the back of my mind. And all I could think about while I was in agony was those cupcakes and that made everything so much worse. I had to yell for my husband to bring me the wastebasket because when I tried to get up to get it myself, I couldn't. Then, I was in so much pain that I asked him to just sit with me and talk to me. Distract me from feeling like I was about to lose my ability to breathe. My whole head was one big "You're going to vomit up your organs! Ha! Ha!" evil, sadistic monstrosity and I felt like any second, I was going to lose it. My husband, he calmly rubbed my temples to abate my migraine, and he told me stories about when he was in high school orchestra. He did his very best to soothe my weary, weary soul. It was still horrible but he made it less so.

I ended up in bed for an hour, then on the floor of the bathroom for another hour. Finally, my migraine medicine kicked in and there was some relief. It was a wonderful day and a terrible evening.

We still have 2 beautiful cupcakes to try in the fridge, but there is no way I am going to take a bite of either of them. It is frustrating. The thought right now of the fact that there are still in there actually make my cheeks immediately all vomit-tingly even though I've been okay all day. I'll be sad to send them to work with the husband. But, at least now I can take upscale cupcake establishment off my bucket list.

So my cupcake-framed at-home date will have to be augmented with other snacks. That I can do. And today, taking it easy and just being at home with the hubby, watching a movie that should have been horrible but ended up making us laugh like crazy (She's Out Of My League), was so much better than anything I could have come up with for us to do. I am still the luckiest girl in the world.

The Loop Date

We drove downtown after our time in Forest Park. Since we have a date to see Daniel Tosh perform in a couple weeks, we wanted to find the place he would be at and figure out where we were parking. We found the Pageant fairly quickly. Yay! Then, before I knew what was happening, we were in (foreboding music inserted here) The Loop.

Now, my husband has attempted to take me to The Loop before. It's been a couple years, though.

The Loop, for those who do not know, is the arty (I call it arty farty) area in the city. It's all Birkenstocks, hemp clothes, dreads, and tie-dye. I would have really liked it in college. However, since I was many years removed from those days, my husband taking me there ended up a little overly-dramatic the first time he attempted it. I believe he may have parked the car and I refused to get out and we came home. I just felt weird. Some people have to be in a mood to deal with street musicians and a high (brow?) crowd. I am one of those people. Not the high crowd - the ones that need to be in a mood to deal with them. Sigh.

I used to be a coffee shop type of girl. The tortured writer/painter type. Now I'm more of a read-books-instead-of-write-them, cuddle-on-the-couch-at-home type of girl. I want to still be all knowledgeable about the latest indie movies and the bands no one else has heard of yet, but now both of those things make my brain hurt.

I just felt too insecure, I guess, to walk around The Loop with my husband. Which is stupid, I know.

This time, we drove through, and we drove slowly. I looked in the windows full of local clothing stores and handmade items. The vintage record stores, little art galleries, little crafty shops.

PIZAZZ FUTONS. What a name for a futon store. Just saying it makes you feel like you've been smoking something, and you have to gesture very dramatically when it comes out of your mouth, otherwise you're not saying it right. Feel free to add jazz hands. It rhymes with Pizazz. A natural union there.

Then, we passed this.

Now, you may have noticed we don't eat out a lot. Partly, it's expensive. Partly, I like to cook. Mostly, I tend to get sick whenever we eat out. However, this gave me a craving for mac and cheese like nobody's business.

I'm a planner. I don't do a lot of spur of the moment stuff. And I'm not a Loop person, just remember me sitting in the car, refusing to get out. I've only lived here 4 years. It was not that long ago.

We drove around some more, made sure we knew where we could park for the Tosh show, and then started heading out of the city.

I said, "Are you hungry?"

And I INITIATED GOING OUT TO EAT. Then and there. And so we went, we parked in the same parking lot as was my previous fail, and we walked through The Loop and had a late lunch at Cheese-ology. There were flowy peasant dresses, and men wearing fedoras, and employees wearing vintage tees.

There was also MAC AND CHEESE of the tastiest caliber. I went original and he went Philly Cheesesteak. It was served in cast iron skillets. Piping hot. They had Pepsi (the hubby's drink of choice) and a very tasty and calorie-free peach iced tea.

The mac and cheese was, I assume, not calorie free. I didn't ask. Why would anyone ask that? Some questions have answers you do not want. Best leave those questions in the room in your mind that is being visited by all things mac and cheese. That'll quiet 'em.

We had a very nice, sit down meal.  When we got there, the place was not very crowded at all. It was after we sat down and waited for our food that a long line of people came in. It was nice to already just be and be able to watch everything and everyone. And to enjoy my excellent company. The table was small so it felt nice. Safe. Close. No "let's-get-back-to-the-car I'm-scared-of-hippies" meltdowns or anything! A perfect little lunch.

We walked by a couple shops, restrained ourselves from going in. Got back to the parking lot, back in the car. Headed home. That was a multi-layered date! Date explosion!

But, did we go home? Not straight home, we didn't. Date A-bombs, away!

The Forest Park Balloon Race Date

Every year, St. Louis has a weekend event with giant, colorful, hot air balloons. To see photos from 2009, click 2009 Balloon Race and then forget what you have seen, please. Those photos are not the date that we had.

We decided to go check it out. Looked fun. We've never seen hot air balloons up close before. Could be interesting. Although we ran many errands this morning (groceries! Hubby's hair cut! Mailing back some internet returns!), we were on our way to Forest Park by 11:30 am.

Friday night, the balloons were grounded but lit up and people could walk around them. Supposedly this is very beautiful and very crowded. We were glad we waited to go and missed that because this morning's radio shows were all a-twitter about how terrible the parking and crowds were. At the same time, we knew the actual race wouldn't start today until almost 5 pm, but the event started at noon.

We found a parking place near the Muny. The Muny is an open air theater in the middle of the park, and although we haven't been, we hope to remedy that next summer. Their season just closed, and none of their shows were quite what we wanted to see. Here is a pic of us in front of the Muny.

We reached the large, open balloon area fairly quickly. The walk there was full of very steep hills and very serious Balloon Festival patrons. There were tents. Grills. More tents. There was massive preparation and set up for a day of waiting on the balloon race. I say waiting because these families were just settled into close-by areas of the park and were not in the actual walking around and activity area.

If you have ever heard the song Joy Ride by Roxette, then you were in my head this afternoon. "She's tellin' all her secrets, in a wonderful balloon!" On repeat. I kept it deep, deep inside, which ended up not being that difficult due to...

The first thing we noticed was the distinct lack of balloons. I guess the balloons are not there for the first 2 hours of the balloon event. Which was really kind of disappointing. Look, here's the field where the balloons were last night and would later come back to!

Invisible Balloons!

We took it in stride. It was hot, sunny, and we hadn't been out in over a month. We walked all around the field to see the different... Sights? There were pony rides!

Ponies!

I definitely had a childhood full of this exact scene. And while I may not have outgrown my love of ponies, what's a girl to do? There were no adult horse rides. Which is good. I mean, what would they be? This set up only with full size horses? No one would do that.

Okay, I would have still probably done that. But it would have been less than fulfilling. I would have felt silly. Still. Where's my purdy horse?

There were tons of fair food booths and beer tents. I said "funnel cake" in the car about 9 times on the way there, but we weren't really that hungry when we were actually presented with it. Besides, 7 bucks for one funnel cake was a little too pricey for me.

There were a line of bouncy houses (again, for kids). There were balloon souvenirs! If I try really hard, I can pretend they're real!

Balloons! Kind of!

There was also this lonely balloon.

It was next to a line of new cars that were for sale. Who is impulse buying these?

Someone must have too much money. Walking around an empty field, waiting for balloons, then, bam! I could use a vehicle! That is on my to-do list! Won't my spouse be thrilled!

There was a highly advertised human chess board.

This made me think two things. Number one, maybe the car-buying money people could give some dinero to this little group. Number two, does this mean I'm a giant?

My husband got the most excited at this next... thing. He knew immediately what it was and got excited. He was the only one. Out of everyone at the fair. Every. One. 

 It's a longitude marker. Yeah.

It did not help that I said, "Touch it and smile!" in a weird, demanding voice while taking the picture. It felt dirty. Not good to be around the face painting booth and start diving headfirst into the brain gutter.

We collected ourselves and walked towards the area in the background of that picture. There was a dog show going on to the left, with a large crowd of people. We stood for a couple minutes, but people kept literally walking right in front of us and standing so that they were completely blocking our view. It was an exercise in super rudeness. But, it was also, gasp, a dog chasing and catching a Frisbee. Even my Mav could do that in her younger days. Shrug-able.

Suddenly, behind us, in the area fenced in white in the photo, we saw what was supposed to happen in that agility course. We had assumed dogs run through it doing great feats... Then, we saw a dog with a trainer, and the dog was low to the ground.

"He's scared," I said. Awww. Poor guy. That's when we saw the ducks. Holy sh*t.

At first, we thought maybe the ducks had just landed nearby and were about to fly away. Nooooo. These were FOR the show. The dog herds the crazy ducks and makes THEM go through the obstacles.

He made them go up stairs and then slide down the slide into the pool!



If my Mav had been released in there, I know with 100% certainty that the only place those ducks are going is over the fence and back into the wild. We bow to you, Dog-With-Divine-Restraint.

They stopped the interesting dog stuff almost immediately, I assume so that we could go back and attempt to watch dogs chase and catch tennis balls or something. So, we walked around some more. Passed up a psychic reading. But then again, don't they know we wouldn't spend 10 bucks on that? They didn't even have a tent. Just a folding tray table and a very cheap set of plastic lawn chairs. I was tempted, since there was so little else for us to do. And, more Joy Ride lyrics danced through my head.

"Don't need no fortune teller to tell where my lucky love belongs! Oh no... She says, hello, you fool, I love you! C'mon join the joyride, join the joy ride, love..." *Head bangs.

We decided then to call an end to our festival time. The hours before the balloons were just too many and our desires too few.

Besides, something was interrupting my private Roxette concert in my head. All anyone could hear, and IT IS A SHAME you missed out on this, was live music of such magnitude and magnificence that it couldn't be completely taken all in. It was too much. Too much awesome.

I honestly have no idea what his real name was, but I christen him "The Justin Bieber of Rap" and my cup was not only full. It runneth over.

"I can run a marathon, you can't even run on a treadmill!" Such rap lyrics will surely replace Yo Mama's putdowns. Something, something, something "Star Wars Spaceship". Mmmm-hmmmm. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

I should try to be a more positive person. Okay!

Chorus of cheerleader voices respond "Okay!" I can feel the pep and hear the rustling of pompoms. I can do it. I can be positive!

The 12 year old white rapper was very enthusiastic!

The end.

The hubby and I then went to find the venue where we're seeing Daniel Tosh in a couple weeks. I am both scared and excited. I just want him to NOT notice us and we'll be good. Love him but do not want to be any source for his funny. Might possibly die. This led us on more date, which I will talk about in the next post! The dating, it is back, and we're blowing it up! It was a date explosion! A date A-bomb! So much date! All in one day!

Oh, and on our drive to get working phones from Sprint, we passed a pizza place. I yelled, "It counts!"

And the great love of my life proved why he is the great love of my life. Without missing a beat, at the red light, he immediately said, "Do you still have the camera! GET A PICTURE!"

This was our balloon festival. We're lucky we didn't turn around and pose with it.

*Bangs head on desk.

*Starts hearing "In the wonderful balloon" and suddenly, all is right with the world. Happy sigh.

This Photo Tells The Story Of Our Weekend

And no, there are not enough options. We're on a budget, People.

Don't even try to tell me that other people do not have 2 thermometers.

You need two, one for the original reading and one for right after that

when the first thermometer has made you all angry. Right? Right.

And for the record, yes, there may have been some type of elaborate

chart somewhere since someone is still technically a licensed nurse.

I Feel Sorry For The Queen of England

"I feel sorry for the queen of England."

Not a sentence I ever thought would pass from my lips, but there it is.

The hubby has been back at work this week, although his cough still persists. He is convinced I have caught a milder version of what he had and claims many coworkers and their wives have had similar complaints this week. I've been a new kind of beat, the kind where you're too tired to even shower. Not pretty. Literally.

It has taken a lot to get out of bed at all. As horrible as it is to hear anyone else feels less than desired, it is nice to attempt to convince myself that it's not all in my head. It also doesn't help that all I want to eat is cereal and jello (not combined). My get up and go is.. gone.

When the husband returned home from work this week, we've sat together on our oversized basement couches in the darkness, curtains drawn, watching Showtime's The Tudors. I have to admit that it is easy for me to look at the world and think what terrible times we live in... If this show has done anything, it had made me appreciate the good old present day. Holy crap. And how our lives are wonderfully free of drama in this house. How fortunate we are! I think I've had about ten aneurysms per episode. Those historical figures, granted they and their lives are fictionalized partly for the show, still make my brain hurt.

It is also fun to continually cross my arms and mutter to my husband, "Your gender. Oh. My. God."

It helps that although I was an excellent student, I am terrible at all things related to recall, so I never know what happens next. Besides, there were like 20 kings of England or something, right? Who can blame me? It is easier to point fingers considering I had forgotten how Ann Boleyn... Yeah. When the hubby mentioned losing her head later, I yelled at him emphatically, "Why did you have to tell me that?! You've ruined the ending!" It sounded familiar when he brought it up, but I would never have remembered that on my own.

I do hope that if I am lucky enough to age and grow very, very old, that the caverns of my mind will open and instead of general Alzheimer's, I will have some kind of wonderful disease where I remember everything locked away in there. Think of all the state capitals! The whole math thing with the letters instead of numbers! The food pyramid! How to use a sewing machine! What, didn't everyone get that last one in junior high?

Basically, I hope all my doodles on the cafeteria paper placemats are drawings of a map of the world with the correct location and labeling of all the countries.

In those cobwed covered rooms of my mind, I am sure there are many large filing cabinets full of facts about royalty and European history. Perhaps they are there for all the reasons this show dusts off and places on pedestals in the entryway. The plague. The poor and the rich. Oh, the joys of religion. And I know it's Showtime, so it's inevitable, but wow, could there be anyone in the castle the guys were not banging? I suppose it is not so fictionalized. How did humanity even survive until now? We were lucky to keep our reproductive abilities after that time period.

It seemed every storyline with Queen Katherine included me turning to the hubby and asking, "I do not know how she doesn't go all stabby stabby on everyone." The show in general makes me feel "stabby stabby". It is fascinating. And always calming to simply sit, rest, and be with the hubby and our 4-legged kids scattered around us.

As to our next official date? It's coming. Sometime after we get the expired car plates taken care of, the thousand errands ran, and the case of Neither One of Us Has A Working Phone Anymore solved. Stupid technology. But I'll take today over the 1500s any day.

Bigger Than Dating

Well, this past week has been less than romantic. As is life sometimes. Dating hasn't been on our schedule or minds.

My husband came home from work early late last week with a fever of 102. I attempted to give him acetaminophen to bring it down, but it fought with me and refused to break until around 9 pm, when I gave him a cold/flu tab with various medications in it. The heat just radiated off of him. My husband has always been very healthy, and the few times he's been sick since I've known him, he's bounced back quickly and with ease. He said he had never had a fever before that had caused him to feel so warm himself because every time he's ever had a fever, he gets the chills. Not this time. He was steaming and felt like it. I thought the fever had broken for good, but the next day it was back and as tenacious as ever. 102 degrees.

I don't know if it's the nurse in me, the control freak, or just the general job description of being a wife, but seeing my husband sick kicks on my worry machine and I go all out "I will defeat this" before the thermometer beeps for the first time. I want to make it better and to give comfort, but when someone's miserable, comfort can be hard to come by. Watching someone you love feeling awful makes you feel awful, too. Helpless. Like all you can do is watch because you can't protect your loved one from this or make it go away.

Over the weekend, I tended to him the best I could. Made him take various over the counter medications to treat his symptoms and still watched his temp hit 99. Pushed fluids like a crazy person. I cooked him turkey chili and made taco salads at his request. At least his stomach wasn't upset. The first thing my mom said when I mentioned he was sick was, "It's the eggs!" If there's a silver lining, it was that we didn't get sick from the egg recall. My husband, always one to surprise me. When I'm sick, the last thing I ever think is, "Mmmm. Chili sounds delicious."

As his fever subsided with the end of the weekend, we both expected him to start feeling better. His cough, which had been frustrating but we figured was simply along for the ride, suddenly took on a deeper, more jarring character. He started complaining of chest congestion and sinus pain. Well, not complaining. He doesn't complain. But he does answer when I list off every possible sign and symptom and ask if he has it. Thank you again, nursing school, for giving me a hefty, hefty list to draw from automatically.

He went to work Monday and met a chorus of coworkers who sang the same song I had sung earlier. It's called, "You shouldn't have bothered to come into work" and was certainly originally recorded by spouses everywhere. He didn't last long, as his cough increased and what little energy he had decreased. He threw in the towel and came home.

On Tuesday morning, I started calling the doctor's office at 10 until 9 and got a hold of someone at 9:10 am. Their only opening was at 9:30, so we fast forwarded through only necessities and practically raced into the office at 9:25. It was a brush your teeth but put off peeing until you get home later kind of morning.

We saw the doctor quickly and antibiotics were prescribed, a kind of which surprised me, but okay, let's kill it. I'm with you. But holy sh*t.

The doctor thought that he had an initial virus last week that weakened him enough for a bacterial infection to creep in. That's why he was getting worse instead of better.

I ran him home and then took a quick trip to the pharmacy (and to get ingredients for spaghetti - seriously, last week I stocked up on noodle soup, crackers, ginger ale, and jello and he's touched none of it). I came home to find him as I had for days, in bed. He's been either resting in bed or sleeping for a week. Sometimes he has to sit up in bed, often at weird night hours, because his chest congestion is too much for him laying down.

I listen to the coughing and hacking. Voice disintegrating more and more. Whatever this is, it's sure taking its time with him, settled in, and called relatives for reinforcements. As ready as I am for him to wake up and feel better, I imagine he's about twice as ready as that.

Even now, he's in bed. Medicated. Exhausted. Weary and weak. All I can do is bring him juice, keep the dog from trying to sleep on top of him, and wait. The nurse in me has an elaborate medication chart on the large white board in the office. We have too many medications to count to treat his symptoms. The control freak in me has cleaned every inch of the house (no way he'll reinfect himself!). And the wife in me, well, she's just watching him. From morning until... Morning. I don't hold back the murmuring consoling words, the back rub, or the furrowed brow.

Right now all I'm doing is waiting, worrying, and waiting. How wonderful were all those weekends, all those dates, all this time... When we felt well, healthy and happy. How easy it is to take that for granted until all of a sudden it is gone. How lucky we are to be fighting what is only a nasty infection or general flu-like illness, one that will leave as it came, and will, with all my hope, soon be nothing but a memory.