Category: Words

This has been an unusually sickly season for me. I am normally one of those annoying people who is never sick. Not this year! I’m on round three with a nasty-ish upper respiratory tract infection which includes a cough which can be heard 3 counties over. Nobody likes being sick, and I may be even more whiny than most people when I am.

Today, I’m just well enough to be out of bed but sick enough that I’m stuck on the couch. To keep from breaking a rib coughing, I’m all jacked up on codeine. Which has some benefits, but coherent thinking and writing are not among them.

For instance, I just wrote the word writing this way:
Wrighting

Clearly not right. Spell check hated it. I was sure spell check was wrong.

I’m generally very good at entertaining myself. I read, scribble, knit or watch movies…the codeine is making those activities challenging. So it’s all music and naps. There are only so many naps a person can take, but music is pretty much infinite.

In the holiday spirit of positivity, and because I’m too gorked to do anything else, here are the top 5 things I’m grateful for even when I’m sick.

1. I am very grateful to only be a little bit sick. Having worked in and around hospitals for so long, I am very much aware that it could be much worse.

2. Codeine. Seriously. I honestly think this would be the time my ribs finally broke from coughing.

3. The people on my iPad and iPhone, and their willingness to entertain me.

4. Music. All the music, but particularly The One True Elvis. What did I do before they had magical devices which contained all of the music in the world?? And shuffle?

5. The miracles of booze and honey.

6. The ability to find humor in things even when I don’t feel too great.

Uh, make that the top 6 things…

I can’t blame that on cold meds. I can’t count sober, either.

The other day at work, I was following up with a friend and colleague about a long term project we’ve been working on. It’s one of those grinding, every day, horrible, drudgery-filled things where it’s important but low visibility. Multiple teams have to collaborate. None of them want to. I have no authority over any of the teams involved, but one of my jobs is wrangling them, and making sure that problems get dealt with completely. It involves a lot of what would be called “coordination” if I was of the male gender. Because I am of the female gender it is often referred to as “being a bitch.” Whatever. If they would do their fucking jobs without continual prompting, they wouldn’t need coordination OR bitching.

It is a part of my job that I dislike intensely, but I am good at it.

We were discussing how much progress we’ve made over the last several weeks, and when I told him how glad I would be to get out of bitch mode for a while, he said:
“It takes a lot of irritation and friction to get a pearl.”

I poked him in the eye because, because nobody wants to be referred to as irritation and friction even in a metaphor. Not even the kind of irritation that results in a valuable pearl being created. OK. I didn’t poke him in the eye. I told him to stop being so fucking wise, and he called me Minnie Pearl. I could tell there was no winning, so I went back to my desk.

That’s what my job is like.

The birds were all dead. Or dying. It must have been her fault for not feeding them, but how could there be so many dead after only a day? She tried to think. Hadn’t she put seed and water in the cages just yesterday? She was sure she had. She looked down the row of cages each containing several birds. Mostly dead. One clutched at her through the bars, getting talons caught in her sweater. Startled, she yanked her arm away, and the bird’s entire foot came off like a piece of taxidermy. The bird was so dehydrated there wasn’t a single drop of blood spilled.

Some of the larger birds were pecking at the dead in their cages, fitfully. Not like they were hungry, more as if they were trying to figure out what was wrong.

The smell.

She thought it should be worse, somehow. It was pretty bad, but shouldn’t it be worse?

She knew she needed to do something. Help the birds who were suffering. Wring their necks, maybe. Something. She was terrified. She needed to think of something to do.

She ran.

She kept running until she got into the house, slamming the door behind her.

She didn’t notice the very large shadow in the back of the barn. It wasn’t surprising. He was more of a shadow than even the shadows. He walked towards the door she had run out, shaking his head slowly, more birds dying as he passed.

“Not your fault, my treasure, not at all…I’d forgotten how fragile the small creatures are. I shall need to be more careful among you.”

Samael raised a hand slightly, and the birds revived. He wondered if it would please Mara if he freed them all as he walked toward the house. He thought idly that he was glad that he was not so easily damaged as these twittering feathered things around him. “Birds,” he thought, “they’re called birds. Annoyingly fragile things,” and walked towards the house, glad to be near Mara.

He could feel how frightened and sad she was. She would be happy that the birds were alive again.

He enjoyed making Mara happy. He hoped he wouldn’t break her. It was easy to reanimate the small creatures, but people…people were harder.