the ocean

This morning I went out to the suburbs to run some errands with my sister and her kids. Admittedly, this was not a glamorous invitation, but our schedules this weekend did not align very well and this was the best opportunity I had to spend some time with them. And essentially, there is a lot of competition for these children's attention, so I need to get the face time in where I can. On this metric, the morning was an incredible success.

We started out at Costco, which I know no one can believe I have never been to before. And yes, it was an experience. I was frankly thrilled to see they had large wedges of cheese of the type that I thought only existed on Supermarket Sweep, and I got a free sample of some Feta that knocked my socks off. I saw a lighted patio umbrella that would frankly have been very tempting if I'd had any way of getting it back to the city, and it had the added distinction of being mere meters away from a giant package of Banana Republic branded t-shirts. And next to that, protein bars. Juxtaposition is everything.

That visit ended on a sour note due to the unavailability of some chicken finger samples hotly desired by the youths, but Kohl's was next on the scene. There were boys' shorts to be selected, novelty tops for the ladies, and an emotionally fraught return to be made. Also, I enlisted the children in selecting a mother's day card for my mother, since I'm not allowed to just draw one like they do. (Unfair.) Oh, and it turns out Kohl's has surprisingly cute picture frames. I may or may not have given them my email address for a 15% discount and regretted it immediately.

We rounded things out by taking my niece to the dance store, which she is adorably obsessed with but my nephew clearly feels threatened by. So he and I walked down the street to pick up Chipotle for the whole crew whilst the tights and leotards were selected. Well, not the whole crew. I have a giant box of Costco protein chips waiting for me, after all.

I performed my annual show last weekend. Here are a few highlights. And no, the quality is not bad, I just look blurry in real life.

This was our tribute to '90s music, which richly deserved it. Any decade with both an insane swing revival and a deeply closeted Ricky Martin has it going on.

Remember Y2K? It's why we're all dead now. No one was overreacting to any of that, obviously.Oh, we had us some scandals in the '90s. I was too busy watching Road Rules to notice for the most part, but they happened.

Ugh. So I went out to dinner with a friend on Wednesday at a place I'm not going to mention because I actually like it. But immediately upon tucking into my entree, my stomach started to feel a little bit weird. I didn't really think much of it because frankly I'm in my later forties and things feel weird now more often than they don't. But then Thursday I had fairly unrelenting stomach cramps, accompanied by some fairly eventful bathroom trips. So I had some concerns. And then overnight Thursday I did some rather gruesome vomiting, along with almost no sleeping. Which led to the unthinkable: I put on an out of office message saying that I was sick. And napped half the day.

Now, I started to feel a bit better immediately after the vomiting, but I did a telehealth with an NP on Friday just to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. She confirmed that with my symptoms it was likely either food poisoning or a viral stomach thing, both of which kind of just require a bland diet and some time to recover. So I've been eating rice and broth and drinking my weight in water all weekend. And I do feel somewhat better. But man, this was a bad one. Like, I've not been on a vomiting journey like this in years, and I do not hope to again any time soon.

Also, complicating somewhat is that I am performing my hourlong show this evening. That's exhausting even under the best of circumstances. But I'm sure the audience will lift me up, like I'm Sutton Foster in The Music Man. I am a man of the people, after all.

We woke up this fine Easter morning to the dog (Dolly) shouting at the top of her lungs at the foot of our bed. It was approximately 6 AM. She was risen indeed!

Fortunately, after Ian fed her she decided to just go back to sleep, which is basically the only level of victory we get with her. But even that ended when I got up to get some antacid, and the yelling started again. This is very much what I imagine living with Patti LuPone must be like.

I took her downstairs and for a while so Ian could try to keep sleeping. We flipped on Murder, She Wrote and worked on a puzzle. So yes, it is very much like I live in a senior living community.

We spent the afternoon out in the suburbs with the family. There were breakfast casseroles, Easter-themed Legos, and for some reason a deep dive on Flo the Progressive Lady's outside filmography and net worth. The children had a great time barely trying and rejecting different foods, as to be fair did I. 

Now I'm back and am flirting with taking the rest of the day off. It is a holiday, after all. Somehow it seems a little Mario Karting may be in order.