texas xmas

Quick update for y'all. Lest you feel alone in all your health problems, we had a bit of an incident here in Austin today. Lowell was feeling unwell, hurled his guts out, and then proceeded to pass out in the bath tub. Romy found him unresponsive and "extremely gray." He came to a minute later but pretty much had no idea where he was, pard'ner. At the time, Danica and I were traipsing about town like a couple of ne'er-do-wells, with my greatest care in the world being what color hand-tooled leather western belt to buy; but we arrived back at the homestead to the sobering (to say the least) sight of a fire truck and an ambulance on the front lawn. Joan and Dylan (Lowell's 6 year old daughter) were sitting on the swinging porch bench.

Turns out Lowell is ok - we think it's a severe case of food poisoning and that the passing out was a perfect storm of hurling, hot water, exhaustion and low blood pressure. The EMTs checked him out and said his vitals were good and he seems to be on the road to recovery via gingerale and saltines. Also, Joan had a small-ish fall, resulting in "ache, but not pain," which seems to have abated with a little of the blessed vicodin.

Meantime, Dylan has told me 1) that I am not allowed to have any cookies; 2) that I am not allowed to even SAY the word cookies (to which I responded, much to her consternation, "COUld you pass me the KEYS?"); and 3) that after everyone goes to bed, she plans to get up, eat all the cookies, drink a bunch of egg nog, watch movies and trash the house. And after all this instruction, she then brought me a cookie.