We Want Our Moms

Ellis and Me at a healthier, happier time.  This photo was taken BC. My hair was "Richard Gere Gray."

We're sick. We missed Christmas. We're missing New Years. We're missing feeling festive. We've got cabin fever.

A woman with a cold isn't a pretty sight.
Actually this one looks like I had
more than a cold--like the mumps.
Self Portrait #1, watercolor

Still coughing with heads full of crap stuck in our jammies in the house drinking tea (with just a dash of B & B), I was too sick these last  days to  do any more photo work at the computer.  I didn't even feel like coloring  much less painting in the studio. I watched movies morning to night while Ellis slept and paced the cage.

 I have seen every Christmas movie there is, (with the exception of The Bad Santa  with Billy Bob Thornton and The Santa Clause with Tim Allen), plus a few not so Christmasy ones. Taking a break after The Girl With The Pearl Earring and before the start of War Horse,  I checked the computer on my way to get a new box of tissues and discovered I had cleared 25 GB. For a brief second, I was thrilled, actually felt better, but then went into a hacking coughing fit that took me  back to the couch where we are down to the pay movies. The Bourne Legacy is a pretty good fourth edition in that series even without Mat Damon.

 I resented having to pay for Home Alone and The Family Man, but I could never find them for free when I was up. Comcast really sucks the bucks, but I'll probably pay in six more for the Tim Allen and The Billy Bob classic to round up the season.

Food has been a problem. With both Ellis and me knocked out of the ball game with headaches, coughs, chills, scratchy throats, you name it, neither of us wants to venture out to the market. We want our moms.  

That being impossible, I went last Wednesday to stock up on Barq's rootbeer and get some blintzes to make a souffle. Ellis made his way there Sunday to get some more--and some potato chips--and some Mother's  chicken  soup with matzoh balls--not the crap I made up from substitutions.

Self Portrait, Drawing Pen
Maybe this was the last time  I had a cold?
Sick or just dissatisfied with our congress,I
didn't see myself  looking too good.

Then we did something we've haven't done since my boys lived at home, we brought in Chinese--I was dying for eggrolls with sweet and sour sauce with hot mustard--not those wimpy, way-too-healthy-for-you spring rolls, but the deep, deep fried originals. When we're sick only comfort foods will do. I'm now thinking cheese curls.

Ellis says I'm eating too much salt. I say, "What's it going to do make me sick?" We're going slowly out of our minds. That's all I need is a vertigo attack on top of all this. Today, we might venture out to pass this thing on-- just like that woman on the plane who couldn't stop coughing and didn't cover her mouth. I put a hex on her house!

Sorry folks. No more Mrs. Nice Guy. One more day on the couch or at the computer  may kill me. If you're in this area, don't go to Alexanders. We'll be the couple in the corner wearing sanitary masks and coughing our guts out while spraying the table with disinfectant.  Happy New Year to you all though. May you be in better condition and spirits than we are.

LANDSCAPE STUDIES  I'VE REDISCOVERED THIS MORNING suggest not to give up the genre. I like the abstract quality and the intensity of these drawings. The fact that I discovered them sifting through my files once again this morning shows I'm improving--but I'm still far from the happy, go lucky kid I usually am :-)

Spring Grasses, Pastel

Grasses, Soluble markers 

Spring Snow, Soluble markers

Spring Woods, Soluble Markers, Study

Spring Woods, Soluble Markers, Study 2#

Ragweed, Soluble Markers