Of Dysentery & Dishcloths

Dear John,

 

I stayed home from work today. I woke up with the worst diarrhea I've had since salmonella in college. I had to call in from the bathroom. It's been going around at work - Abe must have breathed on me before they sent him home sick on Saturday. And it's moving backwards on me. It started as a lower-GI bug and now I'm starting to get upper-GI problems. I especially hate missing Mondays. I love Monday because there's always a huge stack of night-drops, and I enjoy processing those. Strange, I know. Jen was the same way when she worked there; she must have gotten it from me.

 

After I was able to be more than a few feet from the bathroom, I transitioned to the living room couch and watched an Animal Planet marathon. And I got my knitting out for the first time in months. It's odd that grief has included an inability to knit. But I have to knit now. When we were going through your mother's house, all of the women were talking about her dishcloths and how much they would miss them. So I have picked up dish cloth duty. Nobody knows that I'm doing it. But I've started working on them so I'll have enough to send everybody a few for Christmas. I'd like to get about thirty-five made by then. I'll need to go shopping for more crochet thread.

 

There's one more thing. When Jethro found Maggie, I was not thrilled. I couldn't leave the little creature out there to die; there was no question that I was going to bring her home and take care of her. But I didn't need another cat. Well, like Princess Buttercup, she's quite a winning creature. I have fallen in love with the little thing. I still wish Jethro would get a paper route so he can make a financial contribution. But I can't imagine life without her. She'd adorable.

 

So pass the news on to our mothers that I'm glad to have my third cat and I'm making dishcloths for the whole family. There should be relief all around. And please pray for me, that my tummy settles before morning. We need to stop passing this thing around.

 

Loving you amidst cat hair and crochet thread,

Joan.