i don't experience gradations of illness. meaning, i don't go from being healthy to not so well to under the weather to sick to deathly ill. i go from fine to not fine. those are my two settings. what? you expect me to be beautiful and hearty? that's a rare combination my friend.

this latest illness lasted almost exactly 48-hours. i know because i sat down at my desk sunday night at 9pm to check my mail for the day and felt fine. at 10pm when i rose, i should have gone to my bike to exercise but instead i fell into bed where marty was reading. i was fast asleep within five minutes (aided by a super-awesome marty back-scratch). in the morning i was wrecked. then tuesday night, i sat at my desk at 9pm feeling dismal. at 10pm instead of moving to my bed as i feared i would need to, i passed it up and went to my bike and had my 10pm spin. put me back in coach.

below i'm posting the picture i planned on posting sunday night. but it's better here because i can give you a larger version of the photo. this was from a few weekends back when the family went paddle-boating. this is one of the several neat city features that is within biking distance of our home. although this particular activity is slightly brutal given the fact that you bike a couple miles to the place, then you paddle a bunch of humans around a couple of miles around a network of ponds, then you're back on the bike peddling the couple of miles back home. on this particular day bella and alex were saying they wanted to get two boats instead of one. marty thought it was an ok idea. something told me i was going to get hosed in the deal. i told the kids we could get two boats but they each had to peddle their share and if they didn't, we were turning around. they agreed. as you can see by this photo, marty scored both of our peddle-abled children and i got stuck with the guy who shoves his mucus coated finger up my nose when i'm sleeping. you don't have to spend much time with three year olds to know they intentionally build them this adorable. none would survive otherwise.

that said, it turns out my troy-getting-hosed spidey sense is working just fine.