I meant to wake up today and go for my normal Monday ride, possibly get my beard trimmed, maybe even explore some new roads. But last night it took forever to get to asleep, and I kept waking up throughout the night. I was even woken up by someone else's alarm clock this morning, and realized that I was sick. My stomach was rebelling against me, my eyes didn't feel like staying open, and I had barely slept last night. I tried to go back to bed, but the stomach pain greatly reduced the effectiveness of the extra couple hours I could manage. Wake up, take two goes well enough, but then I realize that I am feeling strange, and immediately run to the bathroom and talk to Ralph on the Big White Phone. (Throw up everything I had eaten the previous night. Which was an entire pepperoni pizza. It hurt.)
Things go downhill from there. Despite my suffering, I am chosen to perform the ritual of picking up people, dropping them off at other places, then picking up other people, dropping them on the other side of town, and finally returning to the first people to take them to a third people, who then need to go home. And after that I have to get the ingredients for the evening's meal. This is all fun enough, and after some Van Halen, speeding and lots of fresh air I feel a lot better, which is precisely when I get a call saying that the maternal parental figure has to go to the hospital to be given an IV to thin her blood, which is dangerously thick. So I complete the ritual, pick her up, and drive her to the hospital along with a sibling to keep her company. Then I go get the food and go home. I have just started cooking when I receive a call from the paternal parental figure, saying that the IV thing will take considerably longer than previously thought, and the patient will be admitted overnight.
This means that I get to gather all the overnight things, drive them over to the hospital, where sibling #1 will grab them, run them up to the room, then report back with instructions. [stressful parking in a space that is way too small and way too difficult to get out of story removed] Sibling emerges, declares that he is riding home with me. [reverse of stressfuly parking maneuver story removed]
Home, finally, where I get to cook the food. Barbecue chicken with rice and pineapple chunks. MMmmmMM. But alas, sibling #2 failed to take care of the rice, and the rice hath burnt. So leave the chicken, cook more rice. This only takes 15 minutes, thanks to my stomach's little coup, I have had nothing to eat all day.
There's a big happy ending though. Food eaten, more food cooked, that food eaten. Watched the new Leno, laughed a bunch. Watched the "new" Top Gear, which I actually hadn't seen before. Drooled at Veyron, watched Jimmy Fallon slow jam the news, then typed this. In 5 and a half hours I get to wake up and drive the younger to school. Hooray?
