An unusual Valentine's Day

 

Jeff and I are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary today about 1,000 miles apart. 

He gets 75-degree-Orlando. I get 23 degrees in Indy.

We’re not fighting or separated on purpose. For the first time in the nearly six years she’s been a college student (4 at Purdue and 1.5/5 at UCF) she called asking if one of us could come down because she was “feeling like death.”

It came at a good time for Jeff. He’d been helping her with her project to add an ACLU chapter to the university and he currently doesn’t have a consulting contract. I have a busy work month with a client event that should be my swan song. So, it was he who caught a flight down.

Instead of death (thank goodness) Alison has mono and the ‘flu. She is medicated and recovering. Day One, her father ordered her to bed, started in on her mountain of laundry and made her Ramen soup. Day Two, she got into the doctor and got sent back to bed while he got her meds.

Then, he got (undiagnosed) flu. Day Three, he was no help to anyone. Ali sent me a great photo of him sleeping, wrapped in her taco blanket looking like a burrito. My Valentine’s/Wedding Anniversary gift to him is not sharing it. I have one of her in a mask, pre-diagnosis, but feel like I should gift her, too. She doesn’t quite look like Death, but she does seem to maybe know the way to his house.

I admitted to her that my FOMO was rearing up, even with the sickness in her air.  She reminded me that we have an upcoming girls’ weekend with Auntie Jen, so I shouldn’t fret. As long as she recovers as she seems to be doing, I will definitely get the better of the deal.

Back in chilly Indiana, it’s tomb-like. No noise unless I make it. I am on the tail end of the cold-with-hacking-cough that’s circulating here. 

So, none of TeamReed Indy is at the top of our game, but we are all recovering. If the weather doesn’t ground flights, Jeff should be OK to come home tomorrow, and Ali will be back in her lab and classrooms next week.

I am sad to report that my two weeks or so of this cold has not resulted in massive weight loss, which seems like a travesty. The only benefit of being sick is weight loss. I was hoping my harsh cough was doubling as ab exercise and that mucus production and expulsion would carry a good calorie count. Apparently not. 

I would file a protest if I knew who would take it.

Anyway. That’s the news from here. Hope you and your loved ones are feeling better and have a good Valentine’s weekend. And that you have friends like this: