Better But Not Necessarily Good

Whatever it was—stomach bug, psychosomatic illness, food poisoning, malaria—seems to have largely disappeared. I would give my sensation of health a solid 80 on a scale of zero to one hundred. Yesterday, it was closer to 50. Thirty points makes a huge difference.

I felt well enough last night to pan-sear a small hunk of skin-on salmon, the one and only food I consumed yesterday. I should have steamed some veggies, perhaps, and cooked a bit of rice to go with it, but I wasn’t feeling sufficiently good to go that far. So salmon was it. I marinated the fish for a good ten minutes in a mixture of lime juice, minced ginger root, and honey, then seared it. I reserved some of the marinade before I poured it over the fish. After I cooked the salmon, I added a touch of soy sauce to the reserved marinade and drizzled it over the fish. It was quite tasty. But even that minor amount of cookery drained me of energy; I was wise to skip the side dishes.

The chunk of salmon was too big for one serving, so before I marinated it, I carved off a sizable piece; I’ll have that for breakfast this morning. I think. I have in mind making a nice little Japanese-inspired breakfast of salmon, rice, miso soup, and sliced cucumber. But that’s beginning to sound like a lot of work and too time-consuming; we’ll see. I may not have adequate time to shower, shave, get dressed, make breakfast, AND get to the grocery store by 9:00 a.m. to pick up the order I placed online yesterday. I assumed I’d be awake and alert far earlier than I was this morning; again, it was well after 6:00 that I got out of bed—two consecutive days of sleeping in much later than I like. I guess I’m in the throes of recovery from whatever it was.

After picking up my groceries and putting them away, I will take some magazines and a book to the rehabilitation facility where my wife is in quarantine for another week or so. I’ll leave the materials with staff, who will then take them to my wife’s room. Afterward, I’ll stop by the post office to pick up a few items placed in my P.O. box yesterday, then return home. I’ll spend the rest of the day occupying my time with boring but useful tasks like sorting paperwork and organizing various other aspects of domestic disorder. If it weren’t so bloody hot and I weren’t so damn inadequately up to the task, I’d power wash mold-blackened sections of the deck, douse the cleaned spots with bleach, and—once dry—sand the spots and do some touch-up painting. I’ve said before I need to leave that to others. But who?

I’ve let this post sit for too long. Time to let it fly where it will.