Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Stay away from the brick and cedar sided house with a green metal roof. Stay far, far away, my friends. There is some bad juju in that house. The duct tape x's on the windows will hopefully warn everyone enough. Even the meter reader should beware. The force is strong with this one. Trust me.

Ab slept quite awhile yesterday afternoon. Slept through her brother and sister shooting off fireworks in the front yard even. When she finally ventured back into consciousness she came outside and sat in a lawn chair and watched her father and siblings shoot off explosives and her mother proceed to get drunk. I'm sure it'll be a 4th that sticks in her memory forever. She did get up and shoot off a few finally and we all ended up sitting under the carport in lawnchairs and just enjoying fresh, non-germ-infested air. Then we went back in the house, where I promptly crashed into the recliner and slept off what had been the beginnings of a good drunk.

My sister called to tell me that they would not be coming to our house for fireworks that night. I understood why, but still it was disappointing. They began major renovations on their farmette today and she said that any of them getting sick this week would be disastrous and they couldn't chance it. Not like it was a walk in the park for us, but I guess when you have a contractor coming out it's worse. So a slightly dejected me, a very tired and depressed me, wandered around the house really pitifully until finally Mr. Diva told me to go to the casino and get my free Ladies' Night money and come back happier. I grabbed my keys and nearly ran out the door. I was only out for an hour, but it helped. I didn't win anything, but that's okay.

I got home to find my family watching the neighbor's fireworks while they waited on their compulsive gambler to return home. We shot off our fireworks and then came back in the house and took showers and went to bed. Abby was acting pretty normal. She'd eaten a half a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner and seemed like she was over it.

Mr. Diva's alarm went off at 5:40 this morning and I slapped it off and then slapped him awake then went back to sleep myself. At 5:50 he woke me up and told me that Ab was in the bathroom sick. Sure enough, she was in front of the toilet looking ten kinds of miserable and then the barfing began. I made her a pallet on the couch, made myself a pallet on the other end, gave her a dose of Phenergan and we both crashed. I woke up around 8:30 when Kady and Sam got up. I ate a piece of cheese because my stomach was kind of rumbly and nothing really sounded good. Five minutes after the cheese hit my guts I was doubled over in pain and hobbled to the bathroom where I would've sworn Montezuma had deemed me worthy of his revenge. Oh the pain. It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. I laid on the couch in a state of semi-consciousness and pain for most of the morning. Right before noon we heard a vehicle in the driveway. Weakly I looked out the closed blinds to see my husband's truck in the driveway. Yep, he has it, too.

He collapsed into his recliner, I maintained my position on the couch, I begged the children to pick out a really long movie and for the love of God, lie down and watch it quietly. Thankfully they did.

I felt betterish this afternoon and since my mom wasn't available to take Sam to karate, I took a shower and got around to take him. It wasn't too bad. I probably spread lots of germs, but whatcha gonna do. The boy had to go. I stopped at the store after class to pick up some bananas, chicken noodle soup and a 12-pack of Diet Coke. Staples when you've got a sick family. Well, the Diet Coke not so much. That was entirely for me.

I'm ready for this week to be over. I'll miss at least three days of work and he's missed one. The children are stir crazy and want to go outside, but Mr. Diva and I aren't up to going out in the heat, nor are we sure enough that if they went outside without us we wouldn't fall asleep and not hear screams if the rest of the snake family decided to visit. So they've stayed in the house with us, fighting, whining, crying, arguing, and just generally making being sick a not so fun experience.

The trainer guy at the Wellness Center called today to set up an appointment. I laughed and told him that it would be next week before I had the strength or ability to do anything that resembled anything more than breathing. I have an appointment for my assessment and first workout at 2 on Monday. Go me. I just hope I live long enough to go. Abby missed her followup appointment with the ENT about her hearing and we missed the auditions for Miami Little Theatre summer theatre and upcoming production of "The Lizard of the Boz" as Kady calls The Wizard of Oz. Ya know, if God didn't think my kids and I needed to add performing in a theatre production to our already busy summer schedule, He could've just written it on some stone tablets or burned a bush. The relentless intestinal germs are a bit on the overkill side.

I'm going back to the couch now.