Monday, 28 July 2008 06:20
Well, no sooner did I make plans to beat the hot weather by going to the river, than a cold virus swooped down out of nowhere (or maybe it was out of the air conditioners that were just turned on after sitting stagnant all winter) and knocked all 3 of the kids flat. Overnight, they developed deep, racking coughs, head colds and listlessness. For two days, the kids could do nothing but sit inside and watch movies. Meanwhile, outside, the temperature was 103 with humidity so high you could have wrung out the air like a washcloth. Thank the good Lord for the person who invented split-system air conditioning. Our middle child, Miles, who has asthma, had to be put on steroid nebulizer treatments. Without thinking, Tim plugged our 110v nebulizer into the 220v socket, which instantly fried the motor on the machine and blew the fuse in our stabilizer. That 2-second mistake took a full day and $200 to rectify. Fortunately, we knew where we could buy another nebulizer, so now we have one designed for this electrical system, which is better in the long run anyway. The fuses for the stabilizer were another story, and we spent a day or so without computer access while Tim conducted a Fuse Search-and-Recovery Operation all over the city.
Today, just as the kids are on the upswing, the cold has turned its attention to me. Last night, we had 14 people over for dinner and I felt fine. This morning, I woke up with my throat and ears stuffed full of prickly pear cactus and my nose running like an artesian well. I bless all of you who sent Sudafed when we were home in April. It has become my best friend.
We expect our team leader, Eric Y. to arrive from Ukraine sometime today. He'll be spending a couple of days with us while he renews his Ukranian visa. Sometime between now and then, I need to drag my aching bones to the grocery store so we'll have something besides Sudafed and orange juice to feed him.
