(1) I am doing much better. I still have occasional coughing fits (and in fact I pulled a muscle with one this morning), but I'm almost all better. I feel better than I've felt in a couple months.

(2) plumtreeblossom has absolutely zero voice and can barely whisper, thanks to so much coughing for so long, and she has a bad sore throat (which I had for a couple days and got over), but other than that she is also doing much better. She's got her energy and her appetite back, the coughing is almost gone, and the fever's been gone for a few days. Yay! It's so good to see her up and about and energetic again!

(3) woodwardiocom has a great post about the many layers of fiction in The Big Broadcast, the show plumtreeblossom and I worked on which had such a spectacular run. I hadn't really thought about it until reading his post, but I think those onion-like layers of fiction within fiction are part of why the whole show felt so rich and satisfying. The Thousand Nights and a Night and parts of the Canterbury Tales have similarly deep nesting of stories, and I think there's something about that particular device that's especially good at sucking you in.

Wow, it’s been an intense few days. The spectacular show I’ve been involved with had performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, and Saturday afternoon. It was just spectacular — easily the most ambitious show I’ve ever been involved with. And it was huge amounts of fun.

Except for a day’s work on Friday — during which I passed out during a coughing fit and fell off my chair —, all my other time was spent with my poor sick plumtreeblossom. She says she was sicker than she’d ever been before in her adult life, and I can believe it. She’d have periods of not really being lucid, although she’d also have periods of being completely conscious of all the misery she was in. And she felt utterly terrible about having to miss the performances. (Actually, I was ill enough that if she’d been completely well, I’d have at least considered backing out of the performances because my cough was so bad. But I managed, and since all the coughing was away from the mikes I don’t think it distracted the audience too much.) On top of all this, she heard of an unexpected and tragic death in the family (her niece’s mother, who was still very much a part of her niece’s and her brother’s lives, died at 37 due to an undiagnosed congenital heart defect), so she had that to deal with too. Poor my honeywuzzle.

This was the first time I’d ever done Foley (sound effects), and it was a huge amount of fun. In fact, it was the first time for all four of us out on stage, but plumtreeblossom (Foley captain) had done such a fabulous job of training us and forging us into a team, and Sarah (Foley coordinator) did such a good job of figuring out how to adapt to plumtreeblossom’s absence on-stage, that it all flowed really smoothly.

I wish I’d been able to stay for strike and the cast party, but I wasn’t really feeling well enough for the labour (wouldn’t have wanted a repeat of my fainting experience earlier that day while I was carrying a heavy expensive speaker!) or for a late night of debauchery, and I needed to go see plumtreeblossom, who’d been a little concerned about being alone through the day’s two performances.

I can’t say enough about how wonderful the experience of being in that show was, and how proud I am of the entire group and how lucky I am to be able to do community theater and live radio drama with such a wonderful, talented bunch of people.

As far as our health, plumtreeblossom and I both seem to have turned a corner. Friday evening all my free thoughts were devoted to figuring out how I could get medical attention quickly after the show was over, and whether plumtreeblossom needed to go back to the ER. But Friday night something seemed to shift, and Saturday morning I was feeling not well, but much, much better. And plumtreeblossom was having a rough time on Saturday when she woke up, but after she got some calories in her she was doing a lot better than she’d been in a while. We were actually hopeful for a while that she might make it to the theater to watch the last performance, but she didn’t get better enough for that. But she was definitely better, and today she’s better still. So we’re both still coughing, aching, and exhausted, but I’m pretty sure we’re both over the worst of it and on the road to recovery.

In sickness and in health

But lately, in more sickness than we’d either like.

So a couple months ago (after everybody else in my office had already had it), I got the flu. (Probably the Hamthrax, since it was too early for seasonal flu.) I had it especially bad for a week or so. plumtreeblossom picked it up from me but she got a very very mild version — she was basically inconvenienced for a couple days, but nothing beyond that.

As tends to be the case whenever either of us gets any kind of respiratory infection, we ended up with long lingering coughs. They’ve lasted much longer than normal, though — ordinarily my cough would be dry and occasional by now, but it doesn’t seem to have gotten much better (or worse) over the last three weeks. This stage, though, has hit plumtreeblossom much harder than me all along, and a couple days ago she took a serious turn for the worse.

( plumtreeblossom’s trip to the ER, and some performance stuff. )

I am now on the train on my way briefly back to Quincy to feed and water Chickenfinger and clean her litterbox, and pick up clean clothes (which I will probably have to first cause to be clean). Then back to the theater for opening night. I can’t wait, but I sure wish plumtreeblossom could be with us in person as well as in spirit.

As always, plumtreeblossom, I love you.

PS — Yes, I know I need to see a doctor too. Slightly complicated because I’ll be seeing a new doctor and there’s insurance stuff I have to do first. I’d hoped to squeeze that in yesterday or today, but haven’t managed, and plumtreeblossom’s needs are a lot more urgent than mine.

plumtreeblossom and I have been having a wonderful weekend so far, with a fun PMRP work day painting some big pieces of Foley equipment, good food, a bad movie but with wonderful company, discovering a new neighbourhood near plumtreeblossom’s place, and a fabulous birthday party with an utterly spectacular birthday cake¹, a lovely and charming birthday boy and girl with very good taste in friends, lots of people we knew, lots of new people to meet, and excellent conversation. And now we’re about to run out for a pleasant breakfast. It’s a good weekend, and even the rain is kind of cozy-seeming.

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¹ Flourless death-by-chocolate, topped with a layer of strawberries, a layer of tiramisù, and a layer of hard chocolate. I want to learn to make that. And then I want to become independently wealthy so I can hire people to make it for me and to cart me around in my wheelbarrow. It might have to be a double-wide.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted this before now! I blame illness, extreme busyness, and not enough time for LJ. Anyway, by now this event is not news to very many of you because it’s been all over LJ, but in case you haven’t heard about it or didn’t know I was involved:

I’m involved with a live radio drama presentation of an adaptation of The War of the Worlds, with four performances at the end of this month at the Somerville Theater. I am doing Foley (i.e., sound effects). Among other things, you will get to see me fall down. My beloved plumtreeblossom is Foley-team captain; she’ll be onstage making lots of noise too, as will surrealestate and Laurie and Emily, whose LJ names I don’t know (if they have them). And the voice talent is very nearly as awesome as we are!

The War of the Worlds show is part of The Big Broadcast of 1938, and you can follow that link for reservations or more information. (In case anyone is confused, you use the switches and lights on the right hand part of the page to navigate the site; they turn into icons for the particular function when you mouse over them. The bottom one is for reservations.)

The War of the Worlds is loosely based on the famous Orson Welles broadcast adaptation of the novel, and tells the story from a Boston perspective. The other part of the show is an episode of the Frank Cyrano Byfar Hour.

Music is provided by the amazing Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, so it’s guaranteed to be incredible. The whole shebang is put on by the Post-Meridian Radio Players.

Performances are Thursday the 29th, Friday the 30th, and two performances on Saturday the 31st. You should come see it!

Had a particularly lovely evening with my honeywuzzle tonight. We heard Brahms’ German Requiem at the Hatch Shell, during which we saw the space shuttle and space station pass overhead (thanks to golux_org for confirming that that’s what it was), checked out the very interesting Liberty Hotel (a converted Victorian jail), and had a lovely time on the porch talking about politics, education, science, culture, and childhood (as one does). Life is good. And we get to snuggle with Chickenfinger tonight! Yay for neurotic kitties!

Sorry for my long absence here. I’ve been too busy enjoying life to post about it. In fact, I’ve started to post a couple times recently and not gotten very far. So, since I don’t seem to have the stamina for a long post, here are some bullet items:

• First, the bad news: As plumtreeblossom posted here, her lovely grey Siamese Rowley was diagnosed with kidney disease on Saturday. But evidently it hasn’t gotten too bad yet, and the vet says he’ll definitely get some weight back with a low-protein diet and subcutaneous fluids, and it might even cure him. So we’re very glad we took him in. (He’d been gradually but very steadily been losing weight over six months or so.)
• Everything else is good, starting with a lovely visit to see eisa in New York City a couple weekends ago, which involved good food (as always) and meeting a couple of her friends. It also involved getting introduced to a new TV show (on DVD), whereon more later.
• Mare and I saw Theatre@First’s production of The Winter’s Tale, excellently directed by dietrich. Loved the staging, loved the somewhat quirky play, loved the performance. Congratulations to all!
• The news from the vet was not good, but it was great to be there for plumtreeblossom and Rowley, and I’m really glad we got him to the vet. And that morning plumtreeblossom cooked me banana pancakes and bacon. She must love me!
• Besides The Winter’s Tale, I’ve been enjoying a lot of classic or retro movies and literature:
• On the bus on the way to New York, I finished the utterly bizarre Edison’s Conquest of Mars (Wikipedia; Gutenberg). ( Cut for length. )
• Preparatory to starting Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I read Pride and Prejudice, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The funnier bits reminded me a little of Saki.
• plumtreeblossom and I watched a DVD she bought of a 1964 adaptation of The First Men in the Moon, which we both enjoyed a lot. ( Cut for length. )
• The TV show eisa introduced me to was Mad Men, which is retro in a different sort of way. ( Cut for length: Mad Men vs. Star Trek. )
• And it’s not historical or retro, but I also watched a weird French movie called La Moustache. ( Cut for length. )

OK, that was fairly long after all. Now it’s time for me to go to bed. Good night, all!

Last night plumtreeblossom and I joined quem98 and a bunch of her friends for a really delightful dinner that involved meeting a bunch of interesting people for the first time. I wish I knew all their LJ names. It was a wonderful group of people. (Dinner was at Namaskar, and I had the Lamb Kashmir which I highly recommend.)

Then today, plumtreeblossom and I went to the circus. The nonprofit Big Apple Circus, in particular, which was set up outside Boston City Hall, with all their tents in a big concrete courtyard. (It’s weird to feel completely like you’re indoors in the concession “building” and to notice a street light poking up through a hole in the floor.) There were a couple of impressive aerial acts, a pair of impressive jugglers, a guy who did implausible things balancing urns on his head (ending with one that must have been about sixty pounds if it was actually ceramic, and it probably needed to be ceramic and that heavy in order to have the kind of momentum it did), lots of silly and entertaining clown acts, acrobats on horseback, trained dogs (all shelter rescues), and lots and lots of fun. I got lots of photos. Let’s see if I get organized enough to post them.

After that, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to my sweetie, so I asked if she wanted to sit somewhere for some coffee. We ended up at Faneuil Hall having an early (and tasty) dinner, instead. (And on the train on the way home, I realized we’d forgotten the coffee we were originally searching for, despite passing some yummy coffee-roasting smells.)

So, a wonderful weekend.

[So I composed this last night and was just about to post it, and a slip of the thumb on the trackpad wiped most of it out. Retyping and posting now, but let’s pretend I posted this last night.]

First the good:

Had a fabulous day with plumtreeblossom, surrealestate', and some other folks. Met plumtreeblossom at The Burren for a yummy brunch, then browsed in a housewares store before meeting surrealestate and some other Firsties back at The Burren for a performance of All in the Timing, a collection of short plays that Theatre@First had done a few years ago. It was a lot of fun. When Theatre@First had done it, each one-act play had had a different cast, but this group did it with mostly the same actors on all six plays — and some of them were real feats of memorization. It was a lot of fun and a great performance.

Afterwards, plumtreeblossom and I went back to surrealestate’s for a game of Scrabble and a couple of games of Chez Geek, and had a great time. On our way back to plumtreeblossom’s she and I got really yummy Thai food at Tip Top Thai near surrealestate’s. And it’s so nice out that she and I just [Sunday night] had our regular nightcap and wonderful meandering conversation (and her goodnight cigarette) out on her balcony.

A very good day.

Now the bad:

On Friday night, I coughed. Just once, and not a very big cough. Barely clearing my throat. But it hurt my back really badly, and it still hurts (although it’s somewhat better now).

On Saturday evening, as I was finally getting around to the morning shower I hadn’t managed all day because my back hurt too much to stand for that long I reached for the bathroom doorknob. And felt a sharp pain in my wrist, along with a weird shifting sensation. The sharp pain went away pretty quickly, and I thought I was fine until I open the shower curtain and it was back again. And I still have it, whenever I do the wrong thing. Putting on my coat or buttoning or unbuttoning buttons is always the wrong thing. Taking my cell phone out of my pocket or steadying myself on a wall (did I mention that my back is still in a lot of pain?) is sometimes the wrong thing. Conveniently, typing is never the wrong thing, and I had no problem holding my cards in that hand at surrealestate’s.

And as we were getting ready to leave surrealestate’s last night, I bent over to tie my shoe, and hurt my back in a completely different place. Fortunately that only lasted about 20min and seems to have gone away completely by now, but still!

This is Not Okay. I’m going to take this body back for a refund.

(I have a vague notion that this joint stuff might be related to side effects from a new drug my doctor put me on — I’ve got some other, less worrisome side effects that I’m pretty sure are from it — and I’ll be talking to him as soon as possible.)

I bet about 50% of University art professors could be replaced with Tiny Art Director without their students noticing. Thanks to nex0s for the link!

EDIT: Syndicated as tinyartdirector.