Matters Domestic & Living with Mountain Man

• Everyone in the house is now sick with sore throats, stuffy chests (must be a Barbara Windsor joke there somewhere), fever. I am the chief tea dispenser, bed fluffer-upper, movie deliverer & brow-stroker. This morning I made french toast with challah, with blackberries.
  
• Bean, the puppy, is apparently a ratter. Thank the Lord. Because Dotsie sucks at ratting and we live in Los Ratticus. A small black rat (dead) has been laid proudly at my door this morning.
• N is craving chamomile tea. It makes me nostalgic. As a baby he had a very sore tummy and on the advice of the pediatrician we'd give him little bottles of weak chamomile tea between meals to soothe it. Funny how that works, isn't it?
  
• The dogs are suffering from massive lack of exercise, only getting about half an hour a day. I stumbled out at sunset yesterday, the great big orange sky behind us, and galloped down the Betty Dearing trail eastwards in the hope that if I ran fast they'd get more exhausted. But guess what? Only I did. The sky was so beautiful in the evening light that I stood by my favorite tree, the one where they've taken down the swing, the one where the owls sometimes sit, and said a big thank you to the world. I mean, a house full of sick people, feeling crummy, anxiety in the world, and then there it is, this big beautiful stillness just sitting there, waiting for all of us to walk into it. Wow.
  
• After seeing The Reader, Minks can't believe that I have an ancient copy of Chekhov's The Lady with the Dog on the shelf next to my bed. I found her fingering the pages, staring at it in awe.
• J is growing a beard. I don't know where this Grizzly Adams obsession comes from or when it will go away, but I am, for the timebeing, for all intents and purposes, married to Mountain Man. Observe the following conversation:

J: Does this look bad
Me: Yes, terrible.
J: No, seriously, should I shave it off?
Me: Yes, immediately.
J: No, SERIOUSLY, baby, does it look OK?