My tummy hurts.

I did not sleep well last night, again, but this time I can blame it completely on illness. The cold seems to be more or less finished, just leaving me with a snotty nose that requires blowing from time to time. No, I have had diarrhea and stomach cramps, actually starting on Sunday night when our good friends were visiting. I can�t blame it on supper at Shalimar since no one else seems to have gotten ill, so I guess I�m just harboring a virus. I even forewent belly-dancing last night, since the idea of gyrating my hips while feeling the need to void my bowels every half-hour or so didn�t appeal to me.

Yesterday�s little adventure didn�t help matters either, considering one of the first reactions to the fight-or-flight syndrome is cessation of digestion and emptying of one�s large intestine. You don�t really want to hear about this, and that�s why I�m couching it in as refined language as I can muster. Suffice it to say that I awoke during the night with pains in my gut, the need to empty it, and then returned to bed, heard thunder approaching from the west, so ran around the house closing windows. Then I shut my eyes and feigned sleep, so that when the rain really started, it was Hubby who arose and inspected said closed windows. I admit, I didn�t get them all, just the ones I figured would be most adversely affected.

So I would put last night�s total unconsciousness at perhaps five hours, when I really need eight to nine. Patsy has suggested that this could be a symptom of perimenopause, as well as being totally exhausted but unable to sleep. She didn�t mind at all that I was backing out of baladi last night, since she had wrenched a knee shoveling dirt in the garden.

We are also still having hot water problems. I called Maurice yesterday and he told me to empty the water heater, but never having done this before I�m not sure where to start. Also, his French is so regional and accented I had a really hard time understanding him. I would find myself a bilingual electrician, but I think Maurice does really good work, and he�s the guy who originally wired the house when it was under construction. So I trust him. But I don�t understand him.

Anyway, I was going through the Bushop�s classics website and found this photo of someone near and dear to me, which I thought I would post for her enjoyment:

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