Checking In

I'm sitting in the sunroom tonight, trying to get a pathetic little fire going in the stove.  The fire gods seem to be against me.  For those of you who use wood stoves regularly, you know how there's a RIGHT way to start a fire as well as a WRONG way?  And, yes, sometimes the wrong way actually works.  Most of the time, though, it doesn't.  You cut some corners:  you didn't use enough paper or birchbark or there's not enough kindling.  Or the only logs in the woodbox are too big but you don't want to go out to the woodshed to get more.  You know the drill.  Anyway, that's the point I'm at with this particular fire.  I didn't have the energy to build it properly and, so, it is faltering.  And I'm blaming low pressure.  Or the stupid stove.  Or the fact that it's a Wednesday.  Certainly not myself.

I've been trying to write the necessary post ever since it all happened on Monday, but I'm just not having any luck.  I don't have the will to rehash the whole story right now. But, in brief, for those of you who haven't already found out from Mama Pea's blog or Facebook, I lost Annie Blue (the little cat I'd picked out when she was just 4 weeks old) Monday morning.  A big-@ss fisher took her, right in front of me.  He had just torn out her throat when I got out the door and fired.  There was nothing to do for Annie Blue other than hold her and sob over and over and over, "I'm sorry!  Oh, Annie Blue, I'm sorry!"  

The irony of it all is that I think I now know what the predator's been this whole time (helped out by an eagle a time or two):  this big fisher.  (Some call them fisher cats.)  That is part of what I want to write about in length some time . . . just not right now.

That and saying goodbye to Annie Blue, burying her, and planting a tree over her grave.  But I just don't have it in me at the moment.

To add insult to injury, I got sick last night with what I'm guessing is the 24-hour flu.  At first, I thought it was the accumulated stress finally exacting its revenge on my body, but now I know it's more.  

After spending an extra hour at my office last night . . . and then another, just 1.5 miles down the road, at my folks' (all on the toilet, thank you very much), I had an excruciatingly miserable hour drive home - inclusive of a visit to Mother Nature's lavatory (thank gawd for dirt roads and no traffic) - followed by a long, painful night of limited sleep.  This morning I ate the only banana in the house, a soggy old thing, and that settled properly on my stomach, amazingly enough.  The yogurt I tried this afternoon did not.  I should have skipped the small bitefuls of rice noodles tonight, too, and stuck to only the two pieces of toast I just had.  The 24-hour mark should be cleared any minute, though, and I can't tell you how much I'm counting on that!  (I'm not willing to accept that this could be a more-than-just-a-single-day bug.)


Now, the upstairs couch, my heating pad, and a movie are just what this doctor's ordering.