The Sun is Shining

And that's all the good news I have to report.

No, wait. Today is That Stud Muffin I Married's and my wedding anniversary. This makes 18 years of near bliss, except for that part where I had post-partum depression, and the time I was so constipated I was literally rolling around on the floor in agony, and the time I found out that I was carrying a perfectly healthy baby except it was a boy, so I dissolved into tears right there on the sidewalk outside the amniocentesis place and had to be led to the car, and pretty much any time I'm on a diet or haven't had enough caffeine, or like right now, have Nomia, which, if you haven't been reading this blog for a long time, is how my daughter pronounces pneumonia.

She had Nomia last week, and this week my son and I have joined her in coughing and coughing and coughing. And not a dry cough, either. But that's all you'll hear from mucus-ridden me. Because this blog is not about creepy stuff like mucus or constipation or mental illness. No matter how well that works for dooce.

No, today is my wedding anniversary, and I got two presents, yay!
Isn't my husband smart? When his wife gets all geeky over the Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, his reaction is exactly the right one: feed the monster so that it may grow and take over even more of her life.

And my presents to my spouse? Are the white tie accessories I went out and bought for him. I mean, he's paying for them, but my present is that I took the trouble to go out and find them. (Please click on that link and read my report on shopping for men's formal wear, no matter how uninteresting you find it, because it took a really long time to pull together, and I'm sick, and have I mentioned it's my anniverary? Call it an anniversary present.)

I got pancakes in bed this morning. And presents! And my two new books are so perfect, I can't even begin to describe my bliss.

I'll also be getting a new laptop soon. Typing in blog entries on this one, which has a big-ass crack (um ... not a big ass crack, no matter what you Googlers think) in the screen is getting ridiculously difficult. I'm thinking a new laptop with a 17 inch screen would be nice. To keep the cost down, which I really should do, since this will be my fourth laptop because I KEEP DROPPING THEM, I'll get a big heavy one that I won't want to carry anywhere. But that means another present for me, yay!

And it's not hailing, and tornados aren't about to decimate the neighborhood, unlike Friday night. It's not even raining! Which it's done five out of the past seven days.

Now if this place could just stop sounding like a tuberculosis ward, with everyone coughing their lungs out (cough cough cough SPLAT. Whoops, there goes another one) everything would be groovy.

The weight of the world owes me a shoulder rub

How are you, tonight, Internet? Great? Well, too bad, because I think life sucks, and I'm going to complain.

I don't know when life started sucking, because Saturday night's opening night at the opera was fabulous. For one thing, That Stud Muffin I married took much, much longer to get dressed than I did. By about half an hour. That never happens. Usually he's walking around with his coat on, jingling car keys, and I'm in the bathroom wrestling with my contact lenses. So that was good.

And Turandot is one of my favorite operas, and the woman who sang Liu was fabulous. And the party afterwards was actually fun, even though I was as dressed up as I've ever been in my life, which I usually hate, but then, my husband was even more so, right down to his patent leather shoes with grosgrain trim.

But at some point today, I just sort of crashed. I know what you're thinking, Internet, but this was not a hangover--although, naturally, knowing me, it should have been. I know it wasn't a hangover because it didn't happen right away. This morning, as I walked down the part of Chicago rather hilariously named "Cathedral Corridor" (or some such idiotic real-estate-derived marketing title) I actually enjoyed hearing clamor that is Chicago on a Sunday morning: the muffled clanging of church bells, the loud crash of ongoing construction (will it ever end?) and the taxis zooming by. I scurried into choir rehearsal feeling fine, even though I hadn't gotten home until 1:00. The weekend as a whole was lacking in quality sleep, what with Friday evening's Margarita guzzlefest at Jen's--but I didn't overdo it that horribly.

During the service I found myself giggling at the five babies being baptized. The vicar was wearing a microphone, so every time he held a crying baby the crying became REALLY LOUD. Then the baby would cry louder, because it was freaked over HOW LOUD it sounded, and then the other babies would cry, too, because they needed to express their views on the subject. Imagine those novelty Christmas numbers, like a bunch of dogs barking "Jingle Bells," but make it a barber shop quartet of crying babies, and you've got it. So call me insensitive, but I thought it was pretty funny.

But then about half-way through the service, I developed a stiff neck, stiff shoulders, and on top of that, my cranium hurt. My brain limped along through the post-service rehearsal, but it wanted to go home to bed and curl up in the fetal position.

Instead, I had to trudge homewards through the appalling humidity, get everyone ready, and drive home. That Stud Muffin I Married and I had a concert to go to tonight. But tonight's babysitter decided to lecture me about how I should have called her back with directions to the house earlier than this afternoon at 2:00 because she wasn't sure she could get to our house by 7:00.

My reaction? "Who wants you anyway, you big douchebag." Although I put it more politely. To my recollection, vaginal cleansing devices were not actually mentioned.

So I sent my husband off to tonight's concert alone. Neener, neener, bad babysitting lady, I didn't want to go to the concert anyway. Let's face it, after three hours of Puccini on Saturday night, and four hours today rehearsing, I didn't exactly feel that I was experiencing a dearth of classical music.

Also, my daughter has been sick. On Friday the pediatrician said she had pneumonia. (She calls it "Nomia." And I haven't corrected her because I think it's cute. Yes, I really am that dorky.) She's coughing to a terrible extent. It's a bit worrisome ... not terribly, and she's on antibiotics ... but right about now, the weight. Of the world. Is on my shoulders.