(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!

I’ve had a lot stacked up to post about lately, but the only thing to talk about right now is that plumtreeblossom’s cat Rowley is dead.

( Cut for those who can’t deal, but I’d love it if those who can read do. It’s not gory. )

I love you, sweet Row-Row. And I love you, dear plumtreeblossom, and I am so glad that the logistics worked out so that I could be with you so quickly and stay with you through this.

(1) I forgot to mention in my post about the weekend that Saturday morning plumtreeblossom and I got together with my old college friend beeiger her son projectmothra, and her girlfriend lediva for early brunch at Johnny D’s, and we had a delightful time.

(2) I’ve switched my phone service over to a new carrier, and I can send and receive voice calls and send text messages, but so far I haven’t been able to receive text messages. Perhaps the SMS routing system is independent from the voice-call routing system and that part of the switch hasn’t happened yet, but in any case, for now, don’t assume I can get your text messages. My phone number hasn’t changed.

(3) I have some health news (on balance good, but leaving me pretty dissatisfied with the state of my health care) which I will eventually post about. Anyway, the tingling, itching, and occasional pain in my hands and feet is gone now. :-)

(4) A lovely coda to my extended weekend was having cathijosephine and m_c_t ask if I wanted to meet them for a trip to the beach so they could fly their kites. I joined them, had a great time watching them fly kites and hanging out, and was introduced to a wonderful beach just a short walk from the T, which I look forward to taking plumtreeblossom to soon. (We had a kind of stressful experience towards the end of the evening, after it had gotten dark, when after a long walk across he beach m_c_t discovered he didn’t have his phone. The three of us spread out and retraced the path he and I had been walking, constantly calling the phone so it would be ringing, and we did find it. That was a huge relief!)

(5) And then on the way home I had an extra-thick double-malted frappe for dinner (because the places that served real food had just closed, but I’m not complaining!).

I have lots of wonderful weekends, but I just had an especially wonderful one.

It started on Friday night, when warlord_mit and surrealestate had a wine tasting (with several selections from warlord_mit’s ample cellar) followed by a Chicago singalong. That was just about the most fun event I’ve been to since, well, probably the last party at their place. :-) plumtreeblossom and I had a great time.

On Saturday [EDIT: after a yummy breakfast of catching up with beetiger, her son projectmothra, and lediva at Johnny D’s], we needed to pick up new veterinary supplies for her cat Rowley from Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in JP, and since I really miss Jamaica Pond and plumtreeblossom has taken up long walks, I suggested that we combine pleasure and business and take a walk around Jamaica Pond first. Which we did, and we had a lovely and relaxing time and got to see lots of dogs and lots of scenery. (I did, however, break the screen on my old small camera while I was carrying it, though. Good think I have the awesome new one, and a camera on my cell phone.) Nice to enjoy the outdoors, now that Massachusetts has finally decided it’s summer after a couple months of Novembers.

After that, we went to Angell and picked up Rowley’s supplies and window-shopped for quite a while in their adoption center. Had a wonderful time visiting with all the animals! Then we went home to our respective houses.

Sunday was a workday at theatreatfirst, so I got to see plumtreeblossom again at that, as well as lots of other wonderful Firsties. It let out very early, so we had an early dinner together outdoors in Davis Square before going to her place to take care of Rowley.

( Don’t read if needles or related things upset you. )

And today I went in to town to meet plumtreeblossom for the Indian lunch buffet at Shalimar of India in Central Square. Yummy food and a nice little daytime mini-date.

Oh, and today was a good day to take off from work, apparently. I most often take the Green Line down Huntington Ave, and I would have been significantly delayed. That was a couple blocks from my building at work. I’m really glad nobody was hurt!

Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom her housemate and cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.