Tony came home late Friday night, and woke me up Saturday by bouncing my side of the mattress. "Wake up, honey. It's Levee Day. Wake up. Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up it's TIME TO GO CLEAN THE LEVEE."

So we spent the first half of Saturday toting around huge garbage bags and those metal picker-upper-pinchers, fishing soggy cardboard and empty water bottles out of the wetlands around our neighborhood. In 95-degree heat, unfortunately. It was a volunteer thing, so we met some other community-minded folks and were treated to hot dogs after we finished. We all sat around and compared the weirdest pieces of garbage we'd found -- Tony and I came in second place with the discovery of an entire truck tailgate with the license plate still attached. No sign of the rest of the truck.

(First place went to a woman who found a whole bunch of plastic baggies of dog doo that someone(s) had thrown out into the reeds. Apparently they didn't mind scooping and bagging, but carrying the baggies to the trash can was just too strenuous.)

So, Tony's grandfather died last night.

They never had much of a relationship, because of a falling out between his grandpa and his dad. But we went to visit grandpa and his wife a few years ago -- on his 90th birthday -- and discovered an awesome man. Madly in love with his wife. Funny. Warm. And he loved animals. So we've been keeping a correspondence with them ever since, sending little gifts and notes and one of our Kenya videos, so they could enjoy the animals. It's been great... at least until today.

Today passed in a blur.

Something bit my forearm yesterday on the walk. It stung a little, itched a little, we put Itch Away on it and forgot about it. For a while.

When I woke up this morning it was red, about an inch across, and very painful. In the next two hours it grew to about three inches across and the middle started turning GREEN. Even worse, it was tremendously swollen and as hard as bone. The arm looked downright distorted. So Tony loaded me up on antihistimines. Lots and lots of them. I've been a zombie ever since, but at least it's smaller again.

Nasty.

The next time I say we're going to climb and have a 12-mile training walk on the same day, someone shoot me.

Please.

Haven't posted in a while because it turns out that I'm tired, also. Sorry.

Big weekend of Things Changing ahead. One sister is moving away to go to college. Another sister is moving to a new apartment. The third is staying put for the next few months, for which I am quite grateful -- change is tough.

Also going to a Red Egg party for a new baby on Sunday, so our climbing and walk training both have to happen today. Which means we'll be tired all over again tomorrow. Figures.

Turns out that Tony needed more like twenty more hours of sleep. He felt awful yesterday so he stayed home and did exactly that. He seems perky this morning, but we'll see where the day leads.

Me? I'm growly and snarly. Need Cocoa Puffs, ASAP.

Tony is exhausted. Too many early airplanes. We went climbing yesterday morning, came home after lunch, and he basically slept from then until this morning, only waking up for dinner and to watch Big Brother.

He feels great today, though. After my interview we'll either to a 12-mile walk to Palo Alto or head into the hills and do some real hiking on dirt. (Although after that I'm betting he'll grab another ten hours or so of sleep.)

So my virus and I are lying around honking and gurgling this morning when the phone rings. A nice writer from An Incredibly Popular Magazine (don't know if I'm allowed to reveal name here) would like to know if I'm available for an interview about the book.

"Urgg, yeah, err, awesome," is about the best I can manage. Surprised, nervous and flu are apparently not my most articulate combination.

She pretends not to notice. We set up an interview for Sunday morning, when I hopefully will be virus-free and somewhat more well-spoken. Hopefully.

As a direct karmic result of being

Those Horrible Wedding Guests Who Snuck Out During Dinner

I learned three things this week:

1) Never believe the dentist when he says "You don't need nitrous, this will be easy."
2) If you fall asleep in a shorty nightgown with a laptop on your lap, you will burn your thighs.
3) Stomach flu virus can pretend to be cured, hide for three weeks, then reemerge worse than ever.

Tony has been mostly spared so far... but tomorrow morning he must rise at 4am for a flight to Portland. Out of Oakland airport. And fly home tomorrow night. To Oakland. Yuk.

Climbing and a wedding on Saturday, big training walk and a cancelled party on Sunday. So it was a busy weekend. The wedding on Saturday had the ceremony at 2pm and the reception not until 6. We didn't anticipate such a long delay... meaning that we were forced to become:

The Horrible Wedding Guests Who Snuck Out During Dinner !!!

...because we had to come home and give Gabe his insulin by 7:30. We're so embarrassed but there was really no good way to handle it. Really.

Not easy for Tony to fly home from Cincinatti.

First, his ticket was issued for the wrong day.
Then his new flight was cancelled due to bad weather in Chicago.
Then his new new flight was delayed
Then he missed his connection

Now he has a new new new flight, coming home through Vegas (woo!) and not landing until 1:14 am.
If he's lucky.

I had a great birthday yesterday. Tony took the day off, we had a picnic with some friends and their kids, went hiking, ate ice cream, and went to a Cajun restaurant for dinner. I always overdo it on crawfish, so I am still bloated with the fifteen thousand of them I gobbled up yesterday evening.

Tony had to get up at 4-something this morning to catch a flight to Cincinatti. Awful, awful for him, and now I feel particularly guilty about eating leftovers and checking out Doom 3 this morning instead of writing anything.

Better get to work.