July 06, 2001

I might have THOUGHT we were 'capping off' the family reunion with a barbecue (as stated in my last entry), but that wasn't what we finished with.

Let me paint a picture for you: Picture 17 people living under one roof for a week. Now picture 3 of them falling ill on the 4th of July. Now imagine a highly contagious 24-hour variety of stomach flu sweeping through a small, crowded suburban home.

In short, let me paint a picture for you with vomit. Of the 17 people in my home, fully 11 of us (myself included, as of July 6th at 3am) have hurled. Another 5 have shown other symptoms, like fever, or diarrhea. And one person has come through unscathed thus far--my 5-month-old daughter, who has been getting a steady stream of antibodies from the bosom of my wife (would that we were all so fortu strike that. Forget I brought it up.)

I'm getting better, and as the last to have fallen to this I've got plenty of healthy, sympathetic in-laws to manage the household for me, bring me Pepsi and Jell-o, and basically allow me to lie in bed and read (something I'm actually looking forward to). None of them can draw, mind you, but even with the chaos of 7 days of family reunion, I'm still 20 days ahead in buffer-land. You won't go without your Schlock fix as long as I can get myself back up to speed sometime before July 27th.

Yeesh. I hope you have a nice weekend. I think I'm going to be steam-cleaning the *ahem* 'paint' out of the carpets, and scrubbing the chin-prints off of the toilet bowls.