Good News, Bad News

Woody was sick this week. He began to feel terrible on Monday and by evening ran 100 degrees of fever.  He went to bed and had a sleepless night. Tuesday, he started out in bed, but insisted on doing pre-recording his radio interview that afternoon at this office, over all my objections and pleas. He came home at 3:30 very sick again and went to bed.  I made chicken soup and that made him feel a little better.  He got back in bed and slept through most of the night.

The next day, Dale took me to my doctor’s appointment in Orleans, taking the opportunity to do some shopping while I was inside.  It was good of him to do that.  Woody stayed in bed and we finished off the chicken soup that evening.  On Thursday, he got up feeling better. He hadn’t had any fever since Monday and the coughing had eased. He decided to go to Hyannis to get the Subaru checked out, since we’re using it heavily this month.  He still was weak and coughing but not as much in the evening.  Friday, he took me to Hyannis for my glaucoma tests. While I was in Opthalmic Consultants of Boston  [OCB], he did the week’s shopping. He felt fine—little or no coughing.

I had bad news. My eye doctor said that my glaucoma is progressing in a dangerous way. There’s no cure for glaucoma and it get worse with age. She prescribed a new eyedrop that I used last night. I go back as soon as I can get an appointment in 8 weeks or so to check if the new drops are helping.  I was very depressed: if it continues the way it’s gone the last year and a half, I will be blind. That scared me seriously and I couldn’t sleep last night.

It hasn’t really rained here for more than a month.  Some plants have died and many are showing signs of stress. It’s tourist weather – sunny and never rains. The tomatoes have slowed down to a crawl. I watered what I could while Woody was sick, but I can’t do much of it.  Now that he’s back on his feet, he started watering yesterday when we got home and will do some watering in the late afternoon today.

Melenie and Jay were supposed to visit, but they are nervous about Woody’s sickness and don’t want to come in the house. I understand as Jay has his one-person play in New York next weekend and getting sick and coughing a lot as Woody was doing is not a complication he needs. So, I will not be cooking the lamb dinner I had planned for tonight and won’t be spending tomorrow afternoon with Melenie.  She is getting the manuscript of her memoir to me to read. She read THE HOUR OF MY DEATH before I sent it in to my agent.  She was very helpful especially in finding repetitions Dale and I had both missed.

My agent liked the revision [6tth draft] of my strange book well enough to send it to Knopf. My editor retired last December, so this is a new editor. I have no idea if she will be open to a work of zuihitsu or just think it’s too far off mainstream American works.

I haven’t caught what Woody had – so far. He has no idea where he caught it – he’s out and about a lot – and how long the gestation period is before you exhibit symptoms. We’ll see. I’m planning to try to get us both the new covid shots and flu shots asap.  I’ll try to get an appointment for us next week.

Gigi came over this week and we had a pleasant and illuminating time together. She is one of my dearest friends. I just got in the mail yesterday information about another’s friends memorial. So sad. So many gone.  His wife had been ill but he was the one who died. Of course, I feel terrible for her.