Lose A Quick 10 Pounds On The LAID Diet…

The hell with all those gimmicky diet solutions that you can’t stick to, try the LAID diet… that’s the “Lying Around In Delirium” diet. All you need is whatever we’ve got and you won’t have a choice to slip up and overeat. Well, it’s 1 week today and I’m still not better… actually Sofia’s still not all the way better and she got it days before me and poor Mom just got it a couple days ago so she’s got quite a bit to go. I realize that when people describe being sick there is a tendency toward hyperbole but this one (flu?) is a monster. I was unable to get out of bed for 3 days and I’m still a bit blurry mentally as I type this between the hacking. I guess this says it all as the bug has had a very long week of her parents barely being able to acknowledge her…

I guess I’ll just post some pictures because all I could really talk about here is what’s been going on for a week now and that would be long drawn out descriptions about what a horrible virus? this thing is. No reading, no typing, no eating, no drinking, no watching a movie, no playing with your child, no making pottery, no anything except various types of misery. Of course running through my head whenever I’m sick and cannot even pretend to function are two recurring stories that must’ve had a tremendous effect on me because I always think of them. One is the Shackleton expedition to the south pole, or should I say toward the south pole. The entire crew survived almost 2 years on and in the frozen ocean near the southern pole. They went about 6 months at one stretch in complete darkness with and average temperature of -30 degrees F. I remember this because, well, really, what kind of wimp am I? I’m in a warm bed with central heating and working kitchen downstairs and electricity. A more recent example of the same thing with is more along the populist lines is… 1997 Game 5 NBA Finals and Michael Jordan is so sick that his teammates weren’t sure he was going to be able to get dressed. I remember watching the game and whenever they showed him, he looked just like I look when I’m sick (I mean, he didn’t really look like me… I do have catlike reflexes but the similarities end there). Anyway, he forced himself to play and in the last quarter played what could only be described as miraculously and that would be if had been well. So again, the sad, sick dad lying in bed with a repetitious delirium drumming in my head everytime I close my eyes… not much admirable about my coping when compared to these two stories, I not only couldn’t play basketball, I couldn’t button my shirt. OK, so that’s enough of that. Here’s another drawing before the illness kicked in…

Maybe a bit foreboding without even realizing it. So, this year I broke down and got one of these electric space heaters because our house is so unevenly heated. My idea was that it would warm the downstairs enough to keep the thermostat from kicking on as often, thus keeping the upstairs from being continually too warm while the downstairs is continually too cold. The final word is still out but suffice to say it didn’t work out as I intended but I’ll tell you who is happy about the addition to our climate control. The dog. Now one of the selling points for me on the damn thing was the ad shows a cat sleeping on it while it’s working meaning that it is not a fire hazard or a burn hazard for children or pets. I only saw this as a positive thing and never thought how it might swing to the other end of the continuum. The dog not only sits and stands in front of it, she actually sits/stands with her chin resting on it…

And when her chest gets a bit heated, she rotates like she’s on a rotisserie…

So I’m not sure about the effectiveness of this thing heating 1000 sq. ft. of living space but my dog’s chest, shoulders and back keep pretty toasty. Here’s some greenware from before my production was so rudely interrupted…

Here’s one that I just did because I wanted to, not highly functional or should I say, ergonomic but something about it I just like. I even have two pics of it…

Last but not least, yesterday the sun came out and it must’ve been in the low to mid 50’s. Sofia and I spent some time on the porch and the sun really did me some good. Of course, even though she’s still hacking through the night, the other symptoms have dissipated to being for all intents and purposes back to her normal ebullient self…

I really liked this picture because, quite by accident, the sun in the background made it look like the broomstick the bug’s holding like a samurai sword is actually enchanted like in all the Oz books we’ve read…

Here’s the obligatory long-in-the-tooth-bleary-eyed shot at 80% recovered, as you can see, Michael Jordan I’m not…

Tags: ceramics, clay, greenware, porcelain, pottery