Snapshot 02.04.15

— Sickness is still lingering in our household, as it is wont to do. I’ll probably take Elias in to the doctor today as every cold tends to turn into an ear infection with babies. I was really hoping we could prevent this from happening since Elias inherited my allergies to penicillin and most prescriptions will cause him to be much sicker than the original illness. I wish he had inherited something else from me, as this will make his whole life more difficult.

–On Anthony’s actual birthday we experienced the luxury of dinner and a movie by ourselves, thanks to my Mom. I still really can’t believe it happened. It was a fantastic and deeply strange experience.

–I’m excited to announce that I will be an upcoming guest on the Random Trek podcast! My friend Lisa Maria kindly nominated me. In stroke of luck, I was assigned a TNG episode, which if you know me at all you know that TNG is my bread and butter. One time Anthony told me he thought I was probably a bigger TNG fan than he was, and I was actually insulted on TNG’s behalf. WHY YOU NOT LOVE TNG MORE, ANTHONY?! I would have been just fine on an Enterprise or DS9 episode as well since I’ve seen those series a few times, and I could have provided a unique perspective on a TOS episode, even though I’ve seen very few. A Voyager episode would have been my Kobiyashi Maru. I’ll announce when it will air, along with which episode I’m doing, shortly.

–My FIL cooked an amazing four-course dinner for Anthony’s birthday, and it was so good it felt like a present to all of us. Each of us, including Isobel, was served half a crab in chili butter sauce as an appetizer, and she surprised us all by picking it clean. I was a little intimidated by the cracking of the legs and the picking of the meat. Did you know that crab legs are hairy? It is wrong and disturbing. Crabs are not mammals, and I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t eating half a spider as it was without noticing the prickly orange hairs sticking out from its legs defiantly in an arachnid-like manner. Second course was a creamy Gorgonzola-sage pasta, which I would have happily swam in like Scrooge through his money bank, followed by a third course of grilled steak, a Gorgonzola-pear salad, and buttered steamed veg. Heavenly. As if this wasn’t good enough, fourth course was a triple-cream brie with mango-pepper relish. I am a brie lover and I have never, ever had brie this good. We don’t have a fancy enough store in town that would sell cheese like this, and that’s probably a good thing or else I’d have to buy all new clothes. Tiramisu and Prosecco rounded out the dessert course and we were very happy indeed.

–My energy improved very slightly over the last week and I’m not sure if I have my greatly increased vitamin dose to thank or if it’s just the natural rhythms of health and incapacitation that is so common with this disease. Of course the cold set me back to zero energy and I’m working my way back up again.

–I caught Isobel pouring a small stream of water from her water bottle on Elias’ head the other day, and when I told her to stop she was like, “Oh.” As in, “Oh, I had no idea that pouring water on top of my brother’s head in the middle of the living room could be considered anything but praise-worthy!”

–We didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year and instead of my ritual trip to the grocery store during game time we all sat home sick while I made us soup and Anthony played Zelda. A neighbor kid stopped by to see if Isobel was well enough to play yet, and while they talked he excitedly asked Isobel who she was rooting for. He looked inside at our TV and saw Anthony in the GD water temple and looked very confused. We’re not rooting for Ganondorf, son, that’s for damn sure! Isobel has been begging me to dig out her bunny ears out of Easter storage so that she could pretend to wear a bunny hood mask like Link and gain super speed powers. I found it and used it as an excuse to make her eat lots of vegetables.