the wages of snow

Are cough­ing, sneez­ing, wheez­ing. Ugh, it’s hit me again. This end­less res­pi­ra­to­ry non­sense is back, hav­ing left me for per­haps six hours, but I was appar­ent­ly busy doing some­thing else and did­n’t notice. I should just be grate­ful that I don’t have the awful fever and utter mis­ery that has plagued my poor moth­er across the pond. Would you believe we were reduced to arrang­ing for chick­en soup to be col­lect­ed from a Jew­ish deli in Indi­anapo­lis, for her? How awful not to be there to min­is­ter to her myself. Rest assured, there was a roast chick­en on our table for din­ner this week and there­fore, as night fol­lows the day, chick­en soup tonight. I have a cup of hot Lem­sip on my bed­side table.

Yes, I played and played in the snow even though my chest was already full of what­ev­er. It was worth it. The gath­er­ing of Wellies in my hall­way did make me laugh. Actu­al­ly this pho­to­graph is cheat­ing, because some of them have been out­grown by one of us (guess who) and we’re busy find­ing homes for them.

School final­ly reopened on Wednes­day after two long, full days of hol­i­day may­hem. Avery and Emi­ly set up a stand out­side the estate agen­t’s in our near­by tiny high street and sold their home­made Valen­tines, to a rous­ing suc­cess. They returned, red-cheeked and mirth­ful, but unfor­tu­nate­ly they sold every­thing so noth­ing was left for me to buy. I will have to suc­cumb to ask­ing for one, made just for me.

Yes­ter­day I self-med­icat­ed to every extent I could think of and dragged myself to South Kens­ing­ton to hang out with my friend Dalia. She can always be count­ed on to cheer me. I hate to be shal­low, but it’s part­ly… her extreme beau­ty. It’s very dif­fi­cult to stay dis­turbed about any­thing in one’s life, or indulge in a lack of ener­gy, when across the table is a gor­geous vision, snap­ping black eyes, crowned with a wel­ter of black curls, always test­ing me to stay as cur­mud­geon­ly as I can be. “You are NOT bor­ing! If you were, I would­n’t be here. You will not get bor­ing,” she says, and I almost believe her. We trade crush­es, gos­sip, celebri­ty info, divine­ly wise advice on one’s emo­tion­al life. I had an entire plate of veg­eta­bles, labelled the restau­ran­t’s “New Crunchy Sal­ad.” Relent­less­ly healthy: beet­root, car­rot, kid­ney beans, broc­coli, hari­cots verts, all bathed in a blame­less mus­tardy dress­ing. Believe me when I tell you that I was starv­ing an hour lat­er. And an hour lat­er I was in Whole Foods buy­ing all the spe­cials: lamb chops for half price! White crab for 30% off! Heav­en. Shop­ping when hun­gry can be so much fun, so not credit-crunchy.

Today, how­ev­er, I paid the price of rush­ing around when not feel­ing well. I made my way to Put­ney for, can I just tell you… my debrief­ing meet­ing as the new… drum­roll please… Head of “Lost Prop­er­ty” at Avery’s school! Yes, only the coolest vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ty ever, and I get to run it, begin­ning in April. This, even after my crab tart refused to set prop­er­ly (per­haps the cur­rent chair under­stood about the occa­sion­al mis­take one can make with the chem­i­cal uncer­tain­ty of eggs). I must say I am THRILLED. It will be such an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hang about school, find out what’s what, get a behind-the-scenes view of life on the Par­ents’ Group of such a cool school. Lucky, lucky me.

Home in a rush to med­icate myself yet again, rush rush to pick up Avery in the fizzing rain to get her to skat­ing, shiv­er through two hours in the freez­ing atmos­phere of the rink, then shiv­er toward home on the bus in the rain. Believe you me, the lamb chops, mashed pota­toes and sauteed aspara­gus John had ready for us when we arrived home made me ready to renew my mar­riage vows.

Well, I’m beat. The snow is gone, I have writ­ten a new chap­ter of my book, there is chick­en soup on the stove. We’re cook­ing with gas… Tomor­row will be better.