A stomach virus can be a real pain in the ass

Been awhile but been busy. Had my daughter down for most of last week and just took her home Thursday. It was nice having her around but wasn’t the best time we could have thanks to some kind of stomach virus running rampant through the family. Things started off well, picked her up last Sat, got home in time for dinner, went to the pizza place and played on her Wii for awhile. Still can’t beat the kid. Sunday was my brother’s birthday, the big 50, so we had family in for dinner and cake. He was hoping for Vegas but had to settle for that. As he worked Sunday we spent the morning running around picking up stuff for dinner. There I watched a master con man at work.

Since I’m still not driving we’re riding around with my parents to the various places we need to go. First stop is Target. While sitting at the exit waiting for my mother my daughter gives me the old, “I’m hungry, can I have some popcorn” spiel. As she skipped breakfast to sleep in, and it ain’t candy, I say OK and give her a $5 to go get some. She returns and starts to give me the change and I tell her to keep it. We have a couple more stops to make and I know what’s coming. Sure enough, we get to the next stop, a deli/bakery to pick up rolls and a tomato pie and she’s now thirsty. I look at her and tell her that she has money, what she is asking me for. I go over to the deli counter to pick up a sandwich for lunch and to look for some sopressato to munch n later and as I get in line to pay for it there’s my daughter standing in line with my mother with her drink on the counter with my mother’s stuff. On the way out I ask how come her mom-mom was paying for her drink. “She insisted”, goes my daughter and I leave it at that for the time being. We then head for the dollar store to some things my mother wants and she comes walking out of there carrying a bag. I ask what’s in it and she says streamers and balloons and things and my mother says that she got them so my daughter can decorate the dining room. Hah! My daughter has a thing for balloons and I smell a con job in there somewhere. Final stop is the grocery store to pick up the cake and some other incidentals and my daughter comes walking out of there with a couple of pies in her hands. When she gets in the car she starts munching on them and I ask where they came from. “Mom-mom bought them for me”, is the reply. “You had your own money” I say and my mother goes, I can buy things for my only grand daughter. “It’s a grand mom thing”, comes out of the peanut gallery. What a trip. My daughter pigs out and still has the change from the $5. Even better, I get home from work on Monday and find that one of my aunt’s had come over with her granddaughter and taken them out shopping and my daughter is showing me the new hat, sunglasses and necklace she got. Where did they come from I ask. “Cioci Anna Mae bought them for me”, comes the reply. Why, I ask. “I told you yesterday”, she goes, and “it’s a grand mom thing”. Oh brother, can this kid work a con or what?

Well, the birthday went off well but that was the end of the fun and games for awhile. Monday my brother winds up sick as a dog. On Tuesday the mother is laid low. Wed both my father and nephew are blowing chunks and on Thursday, lucky me. Don’t know about any others at the party but my family got ravaged by some kind of stomach virus. Luckily my brother had recovered enough by Thursday to drive me to get my daughter back to her mother. My daughter said she felt OK (found out from my ex that it hit her Friday) but the last thing I really wanted to do was make that trip. Nothing like making a 5-6 hour trip on limited access road when everything you ate the day before decides it wants to vacate the premises and the cry is “two exits, no waiting”. Well I was able to hang on until the trip was over before my system started serving eviction notices but the next 36 hours were not fun. I hate stomach viruses. It’s a bitch when you don’t know which end should be worshipping at the porcelain altar. Even worse is that wrung out feeling it leaves you with between the not sleeping, not eating and even the not drinking that it causes. Finally crapped out, both figuratively and literally, about 3 this morning and slept till 3 this pm. Was finally able to keep something in the stomach and looks like it’s over though I still feel like someone grabbed me by the ass and drug me thru the knothole backwards. Well, still have a day to rest up before I actually have to do anything so I’m just going to sit here and behave. May play some online poker but my head ain’t really in to it just yet.

Well, now that I’ve bored you all with tales of my illness I’ll leave you with a bit of levity even though I’ll probably get shot if my ex ever reads this. The other night while my daughter and I were sitting here watching the tube I couldn’t find anything on that seemed to interest both of us. Scanning the on demand selections I came across a special on anime. Now my daughter loves her anime and the rating was TV 14 so I figured, why not. The show wasn’t too bad, going thru his development of anime and different themes usually found in it. Well at one point they bring up sex. Now, being a student of things Japanese in my younger days I am fully acquainted with hentai, cartoon pornography, but as the show was rated TV14 I doubted they were going to get into that and while the term was mentioned they didn’t. It wad basically tame, explaining that the Japanese didn’t have our puritanical background concerning sex so that anime was a bit more risqué even when aimes at a younger audience. The next thing you know they show a clip from a show where two school girls are talking to a boy and the next minute on of the girls gets behind the other, starts massaging her breasts and saying, “see, her boobs were always a lot bigger than mine.” My daughter sits up, her eyes get wide and she looks over at me who’s trying my damnedest to look as normal as possible. The next thing you know is we both start cracking up, it was just so unexpected. It was one of those pregnant pause moments where, while both of us could probably handle it in other circumstances the presence of each other threw us both off.

Well, time to relax a bit. Thanks for your perusal