February 2, 1965
Boy, was I sick today! My temperture was 102 so I had to stay home - but I wasn't alone! T stayed home, too! I slept alot and it was anything but fun. I missed alot of work, and still don't have my books home. We have an exposition to write in English and I don't even know what it is! Boo hoo! I have a sore throat and everybody's calling up and yakking for hours. I hope I get to go back tomorrow - Report Cards!
February 2, 2006
Staying home sick was a real challenge in our household. Mom was a nurse and impossible to con with fake coughs, thermometers held over the stove and other clever ploys. When I was little, staying home meant opening up the green Castro convertible couch and watching game shows, old movies and cartoons all day. By 1965, the green couch was long gone, and the only place for an invalid to sack out was in bed. Being home with no access to school books was evidently NOT GOOD; making up work was never any fun.
February 2, 2023
The last few times I have been sick enough to stay in bed (a thankfully rare occurrence), audiobooks have kept me company. My soother of choice is Jane Austen - I have all six of her novels narrated by various British women. If I just need a few hours of rest, Emma is perfect, at under six and a half hours. If I really need to conk out, my least favorite Austen , Mansfield Park, gives me fifteen hours and fifteen minutes of tedium. That’s unfair; when I am well, the Crawfords and Aunt Norris are the delightfully horrible counterbalance to the bland, timid “heroine”, Fanny Price. For anyone desirous of adopting my sick day practice, here are my other recommendations:
Emma (6 h, 22 m) Perfect for sleeping in when waking up with a headache (sinus or hangover, especially.)
Northanger Abbey (8 h 17m) Too funny to sleep through. This is my choice for bouts of sciatica.
Persuasion (8 h 13 m) Slipping in and out of consciousness but never completely under? This subtle yet powerful story is the only one that reaches my subconscious.
Pride and Prejudice (11 h 58 m) Since this is the one I could recite in my sleep, it’s my go-to when I am bone tired but my mind is still bouncing around. Usually I am out before Kitty starts to cough.
Sense and Sensibility (12 h 52 m) Same as Pride and Prejudice, but I want to dream about Alan Rickman.
My brother and I tried the heat register trick. I remember seeing Our Gang comedies where kids tried to fool their moms with fake measles, but we knew she wouldn’t fall for that. She didn’t fall for the register thing, either.
I give my mother a lot of credit for letting me stay home on a day when it was obvious I had held the thermometer up to a 100w bulb… I think it was 116F. (I couldn’t read the mercury until I was an adult — visually confused by it).
There were weird ways in which she did listen to us!