Ahh, food poisoning

I'm the only meat-eater in my vegetarian family, so like Sam Jackson says in Pulp Fiction, that pretty much makes me a vegetarian too. But from time to time I crave a hamburger. Not McDonald's, a real hamburger. So on Sunday when Quin picked up take out from Chilis he and the boys ate black bean burgers, but I had a real hamburger.
So, three days later...
It's a different kind of experience to be sick as a dog and yet still trying to be a caretaker to two boys who will do all sorts of things when they sense they are not being watched. Saying "knock it off" from the far end of the house really never exudes the sort of authority you think it does.
Oliver was very sweet. Everyone should have a 3-year-old for a nurse; what they lack in actual skills they make up for in genuine warmth. While I do believe that moral behavior is mostly taught, I think kids are born with a sense of the Golden Rule (every society has a version of it, so this can't be a coincidence). Oliver, seeing I wasn't feeling well (in that I was only half-conscious) brought me all of his favorite things because they always make him feel better. Then he thought a little deeper and scrounged up some of my favorite things too. I woke up from a nap I didn't realize I was taking under a mountain of security blankets, pillows, teddy bears, and basketballs. And he'd been telling me stories the entire time, not put off at all by the fact that I was asleep.
Aidan on the second day I didn't get out of bed much, "you're sick again? That's weird. Maybe you need to eat more healthy food." Because he's like his dad, no sympathy but lots of unsolicited advice.
So today I can finally move around without wanting to die, which is a good thing since the WOTF deadline is tomorrow. Luckily I had already done my revisions on Thordis, but they were handwritten on the manuscript so I still had to go over it all on the computer and print a clean copy. Then I find I have no envelopes, no postage, and the post office is only open for the incredibly inconvenient hours of 9 to 5. What are they thinking? Who goes to the post office anymore? 9 to 5, so one can neither stop off on the way to work or on the way home? Quin says he can take care of it, I presume on his lunch break, which is good since unlike most people we only have the one car these days. Our second car only runs about 10 days out of the year, and those ten days are never in a row.
On a higher note, I feel better about the shape this story is in than the last one that went out. I probably won't want to have it back the minute it is gone. It might take a day or two.

...and we're back

Louisa May Alcott, by why of the Jo March character, described it as "a vortex". I don't think I'm quite that bad, but I have been in a very writerly place the last month. I finished the short story I am looking to submit to WOTF, which is called The Saga of Thordis Thorgilsdottir, am nearly finished with another which is more fantasy than SF but there is an element of string theory in it (although none of the characters calls it that, of course) called Of Tapestries and Daemons. I'm also polishing off the... well it's really more of a novella than a short story, but the one that was a finalist in the last WOTF. What I've realized, now that there is some distance from when I first wrote it, is that I chickened out in the end and backed away from what I wanted to do. So I've lopped off the last 20+ pages and trying not to venture back into the realm of silliness. Ah yes, and that is called The Tao of Troth, which I thought was a very cool title until I realized it I would be required to, you know, explain it. Well, my next story title will have no T's in it whatsoever, I've decided.