The Week that Was

Cleaning House
This was supposed to be Spring Cleaning week. I had grand designs of scrubbing our home till it shone, of dusting, mopping, vacuuming, and organizing. Every time I walked through the downstairs for the several weeks beforehand I brandished a helpless fist (I was usually holding Owen or a trumpet) at the stack of unanswered mail on my desk and swore that I'd get to it over Easter break week. Every time I ran a load of laundry down to the basement I'd look over at the tottering and unsorted heaps of CDs atop the music files and think about the hours some evening that I'd finally put them all away. I was going to vacuum behind furniture. I was going to put away the last of the Christmas decorations. I was even looking forward to scrubbing out the toilets.
A Home Depot trip ensured that I had everything I needed to get started. I brought back a new hose and bucket, lots of dangerous-looking chemicals, paint, primer, rubber gloves, new sponges, even some grout cleaner. "We don't have any grout in the house" said J. "There's a little in the tile around the tub" I answered. "If you try to scrub around the tub it's going to take all the paint off and then you're going to have a worse mess than the one you started with." "Well, now I'll be ready if we ever put in some some tile somewhere else in the house."
I made some good progress, especially on Tuesday. Most of the downstairs was dusted and swiffered, and at one point all of our laundry was done. I got behind some of the furniture, and had one coat of paint on a hanging closet door. Then tragedy struck.

Getting Sick
J sensed it first, and she knew she wasn't feeling well. I took James and Owen down to Wegmans to pick up some Pepto-Bismol and ginger ale while she rested on the couch, and I could tell by the time we got back that she was going to be done for the night. As I worked to get dinner on the table and keep James on the potty according to his schedule, I noticed that I was feeling a little ache in my stomach as well.
The first assault hit us just as we were putting the boys down to bed. There will be no need to give details, save that for the next seven or eight hours we kept up a twisted game of "whose turn" to the bathroom and then shivering back to bed. I'd pull the covers over my head with my teeth chattering, hoping to catch a few minutes of sleep before the next wave hit, and I eventually started falling into fitful, obsessive dreams about whether a word I'd read earlier was spelled "sepelierunt" or "sepelierent" or "seplierunt" or "seplerient." The other dream was about trying to get a bunch of files in the right order, over and over again.
When light started to break in the next morning I looked weakly over at J, and we attempted to make a plan for the boys. We agreed that we would let James watch TV all day if we could just keep him from hanging out in our room and picking up the germ. We found out as soon as we entered his room that he'd caught the bug as well.
It was then that we called Mom. It's hard under normal circumstances to say enough about the remarkable woman who is my Mother, but the fact that she willingly walked out of her office that morning and drove to a house of plague to carry around a screaming infant for four hours while we lurched around trying to keep down wheat crackers and water further confirms that she is a saintly woman. Owen was thoroughly uncooperative for her, and we basically just kept on trying to launder whatever James was throwing up on. (There were lots of things that went through the laundry, including George and Steven.)
Around naptime we all seemed to reach a point when we are all definitely convalescing, and I feebly tried to resume cleaning the house. I think I dusted for a few minutes in the downstairs living room, then feebly laid down on the carpet, curled up, and admitted defeat. We went to bed early for the next few nights, trying to save up energy for:

Bill's Wedding/Easter
J had not only a wedding, but three Easter services to plan in which she was wearing the hats of orchestra conductor, librarian, personnel manager, gig contractor, pianist, choir director, secretary, taxi, and breast-feeding mother. I was in the wedding party, and had my own three services to do, though, mercifully, I was only directly responsible for the music in one of them.
We made it to the rehearsal dinner on Friday at about 85% health, not having eaten a full meal yet since being sick, but anticipating that we'd be able to get through the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal went as such things usually do, and the dinner afterwards was pleasant enough.
We were in an odd position at this wedding of knowing lots of people there in an odd secondary sort of way, but only knowing the groom with any sort of intimacy. For example, James' pediatrician officiated the wedding, and I chatted with Owen's pediatrician in the cocktail line. The wedding was held at LCS, and one of my students was out on the dance floor, whose uncle (also in attendance) worked at a church related to GPC and was in a band with old quintet-mate of mine. Two GPC attenders were there who brought up the groom through Boy Scouts. A former student of mine (who I brought in to play piano with my jazz band) was the last bridesmaid in the wedding party. It was all very odd.
The wedding day itself was wonderful, though. I had fun traipsing about with the six other burly, gun-firing, conservative-voting groomsmen, and even got to drink a beer in the LCS parking lot after the ceremony. Bill was what every groom ought to be--terribly nervous, then ecstatically happy and in love with his bride. Owen did well for the part that he was present for, and then we shipped him off home with a babysitter. The photographer took great shots in Mt. Hope Cemetary, on the Susan B. Anthony Bridge, and in City Hall.
Once J and I were able to sit together we made lots of small-children talk with the other couples at our table and then I danced badly and envied Lux in the beautiful Harro East ballroom. We probably went home too early, but Easter morning still rolled around way too quickly.

We were risen, indeed, but Sunday night we descended unto sleep rather heavily.