palace of winds

I consult Yahoo! weather and it says, simply enough, 100. In an aside, Feels like: 108.

Somewhere in between there was my own temperature Thursday through Saturday, though it didn’t feel blistery and melty like this. For the most part it felt kind of shivery, actually, and I spent those days under a blanket on my couch.

Even though I definitely don’t ever get sick, I was definitely ever-so sick. Thursday morning I’d decided to go to the MinuteClinic even before the scary incident that involved lying on the spinning floor waiting to see if I’d be able to see again any time soon (I wasn’t; I made it to the kitchen through a sea of fuzzy white by touch and memory alone, where my fevered impulse toward water turned out to be the right thing). A shivering wait for the clinic to open at 7:30 and a rapid strep test later I was declared virused. I dragged my sorry, aching self to work and acted healthy and cheerful to meet a new client. The instant the door closed behind said client I begged to go home, and was sent off forthwith (well, after I ran payroll). I made it for a few hours on Friday too, but by noon sounded the retreat.

Other than my brief, brave stints at the office I alternately worked on becoming one with the couch, inspected the swollen back of my throat with a flashlight like an astronomer checking out a trainwreck on Mars, and tried to stop getting water up my nose while drinking. My parents (in two rounds, Thursday and Saturday) brought a mountain of food, many yellow flowers, a thermometer, ibuprofen, and two window fans. (They seemed much more concerned about the heat than I was, camped out there under my blanky.)

So that was my goodbye July.

I can’t believe I haven’t written since the eleventh. I intended to say so much more, about things like:

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(Sunday, July 2, 2006 — with apologies to Blake and Bryce for my imprecise memory)

“So what did you guys do yesterday?” Blake is sitting the wrong way on the picnic table bench, leaning his elbows back on the tabletop and looking up at us. In the chill dim of the hangar I am leant against Bryce, my arms tight around myself, huddled into my hoodie.

“We did grocery shopping,” I say; we glance at each other and back to Blake. “In the morning. We walked down to the produce market.”

“And World Market,” Bryce adds. “And Target.”

“Oh yeah.” I think about but don’t mention the battery we got at Target; the original plan to carry it in a pocket, and the revision after we found a handful of other things to buy.

“And BevMo, for sake and plum wine.”

“Mmm sake,” I offer.

“We stopped back at the apartment, then walked down to Mountain View to meet Allison for lunch. You know Spice Islands?”

“It was so good,” I say, hugging myself a little at the memory while Blake shakes his head. “It’s Malaysian, right?”

“And something else.”

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