Couch Potatoes

I’m sick today. I’ve spent most of the day lying on the couch running a fever and the dial. The Baby Story, Bringing Home Baby, Jon & Kate Plus Eight—I’m in daytime TV heaven. I’ve seen a woman with 9 month adopted twins have a baby, another woman with 18 month twins have a baby. They were so much nicer than Jon and Kate, who bicker, but Jon and Kate have sextuplets and twins, and eight kids would drive me to do more than bicker. My back up show is QVC. I’m wondering if I could design the perfect QVC outfit. Jeans with an elastic waistline, animal print piping and bedazzling. I love daytime TV. For one day. If I’m still sick tomorrow, I’ll be disgusted with them and myself, and I’ll know it’s time to get up off the couch and drag myself back to work.

The best part of being sick is that the dogs are your hot water bottles. I should tell you that we also have a cat. We’ve had her for 16 years, but she’s always been my daughter Danielle’s cat. Misty doesn’t have much to do with me because I fraternize with dogs. Misty distains dogs. She runs from dogs. Dogs have no choice but to chase her. I swear she gets them to chase her just so she can get them in trouble. I see the smugness when they get chastised, although my husband points out that she’s a cat, and smugness is her natural state of mind.

Misty has been having a hard time without Danielle. She scolds us most of the time. We’re only allowed to pet her in the hallway; she looks at the dogs and her meows clearly tell us, “Get rid of them.”

This has been going on for months. Lots of meowing. Loud meowing. Late night meowing. You pet her. She meows. You talk sweet to her. She meows. You carry her somewhere where you can sit down and pet her. She runs away, finds a nearby spot and meows. None of this tempts me to become a cat person.

4 p.m. and TLC seems to go to another demographic. No more baby stories. The next two stories are about people who weigh over 500 pounds. Oprah’s a re-run. Ellen’s spending way too much time dancing: Today she has The Thunder Down Under male exotic dancers on, dancing without shirts, and I realize that I’ve made the mistake of getting sick during sweeps month, so I take a nap.

The dogs nap with me. Winston cuddles up against my legs, and Darcy’s at the end of the couch on the pillows. And finally, after months and month, Misty unbends. I wake up to see her lying near Darcy, sleeping away.

The thing about "A Baby Story," is that it films one of the most important days in a young couple's life. They usually show the couple's wedding picture as background filler, and the difference between how they looked that day and in the present is pretty jarring, and not just because the wife is 9 months pregnant. Life has started to wear. Then the baby is born, and it is mucky and semi-disgusting. They say they are happy, but they always cry, and I sense fear and exhaustion in the mix. It will get worse; just watch "Bringing Home Baby." Sleep deprivation isn't pretty. It's a good match when I'm sick. While watching it can be brutal, but you also see the joy, the hope among all the pain and yuck and delusion. It is a miracle.

My throat's still sore and my head aches, but I can tell I'm starting to feel better. Time to get up and pick up all the heaps of Kleenex. If all goes well, I'll probably be back at work tomorrow.