Woefully Underprepared

I got well enough yesterday to actually manage some sitting and thinking. I made a list of things that could or should happen in this next book, and a few scenes started to come to mind. I'm feeling a bit better today, though I had a rather rough night, so I'm hoping to do more brainstorming work this afternoon. My pattern seems to go that I need to go lie down and rest a bit after breakfast, then feel well enough to get up and do something, then need to rest again, then have a few hours of feeling pretty good, and then later at night I feel really tired and that's when the coughing kicks in.

During this afternoon's up-and-at-'em phase, I'm hoping to make a run to Target and Kroger because I was woefully underprepared for illness. I was out of most of the cold/flu medication I usually keep on hand, and I didn't have much good "sick" food handy. Fortunately, I'd made a vat of vegetable soup a few weeks ago and had some in the freezer, but I didn't have any chicken soup or ingredients for chicken soup. I have this weird thing of not being able to eat canned chicken noodle soup, mostly because that's what they usually give you in recovery after day surgery as the test for whether you'll be able to keep anything down. Supposedly, it's gentle on the stomach enough to be given on an empty stomach. But I tend to have a delayed reaction to anesthesia, so let's just say that after they've decided I'm fine and send me home, things get unpleasant in the car, and that's now what I associate with canned chicken noodle soup. Now I can only manage to eat the kind that's dry that you mix with water, or else I do a mix of chicken broth and chicken stock (I find that soup made with just broth is too weak, but with just stock it's too strong) and throw some fine noodles and frozen peas and carrots in, maybe some bits of chicken breast if I have any handy. I also ran out of multivitamins, which I probably need to make up for not having much appetite right now.

My aim for this week is to get well enough to sing in this weekend's choir concert. We're doing a Schubert mass, and I've put a lot of work into learning it. I'd hate to miss yet another singing thing because of this illness. At the moment, I can talk for a little while without coughing, but singing is out of the question.

But brainstorming is going to happen today. I have a book to plot.