Thursday

The added work effect: just one time--once--I am too throwing up on Tuesday night to do all the dishes and clean up the kitchen because the maid is coming the next morning, and now the woman has rearranged my whole kitchen. The knives are in the bread cupboard, the bread plates are under the company bowls, and every single shard of pottery Sunshine likes to eat out of teeters at the tops of the cabinets where our dear Rosy has taken care to employ the ladder in placing them. These are the easy examples. I am still only eighty, maybe eighty-five percent well, and I have been spending my day hunting down the things I use to make and eat my feel-better soup with. A lot of added work to get me over the last fifteen percent sick hump. Oh, on soup: I am charmed by the Campbell's flavors in Mexico. Sunshine is a big fan of this brand back at home, where I am not, so she is never completely satisfied unless she eats import soup. On the other hand, I think there is something comforting about digging into Cream of Chili Poblano when I am ill. It has pieces of corn and nopalito, and is head-clearingly peppery. It's the little things that mean a lot. Tonight with my new eighty-five percent-ness I accompanied Sunshine and a coworker to the Barrio for Greek food, most of which I even ate. Nga is Vietnamese-American so we riddled her with questions and a good time was had by all. I still don't feel like pouring over the news for anything interesting, although I am pretty sure that there is plenty of interesting going on out there. It just might have to wait another ten percent or so. [Cavin]