Breakfast of champions
And that is mostly what I did all day on Saturday: I laid in my bed, blogged a ton, tried to eat when I could, and drank tea and herbal water. In the late afternoon, I did feel well enough to take a slice of bread with a tiny bit of jam out to sit in the backyard. The two Maries were out there on lawn chairs so I joined them on a rocking, long chair with a book, and munched and read in the fresh air. Lionel came out soon after that and upon seeing me, bent down, put his hands on his knees, and in a baby voice said, "oh la, la pauvre!" (Ohhh, the poor thing!) Yea yea... he then brought out a fizzing cup of beta something or other and said that when he heard I had a stomach virus, he went right out to the pharmacy and bought that for me. =) Did I mention being blessed?
Dinner was the real test of whether I was getting better or not: to eat or not to eat? I decided to eat, but very lightly. I enjoyed tonight's soup terrible: it was the french version of chicken noodle soup. =) AKA: it was perfect! That went down well enough that I decided to take at least a little bit of the rest of the meal. I had a half slice of the provençal, herbed chicken and a small pile of baby-greens salad, and I put a small spoonful of preserves in my yogurt for dessert. The yogurt actually felt really great going down. Plus, I had cushioned all of this with plenty of bread; when it felt okay to eat.
I skyped with my family for a while after that so they could get an update on my stomach status. After talking with them, I did a little bit more blogging and figured it was time to go to bed. I was finally getting hunger pangs, though, and snuck downstairs to steal a hunk of fresh wheat bread with peanut butter on top. That helped but I didn't got to bed with a completely normal stomach tonight.
Sunday: My stomach was hungry enough that I came down for breakfast after I woke up this morning. I had a cup of vanilla tea instead of coffee, and two slices of bread with just jam and no butter. Today was the day that Christine's parents were taking off and also the day that our next house guest was arriving: Vittorio from Italy! He also works for L'Oreal and is moving to Paris just like Kathy will be doing soon. He's in the same language program as she was so he will also be with us for about 12 days. So during breakfast, Christine was running around like a mad woman mopping the floors, putting things away, and just getting everything ready for Vittorio- all in her bathrobe.
I was actually feeling pretty hungry by lunch time so I decided to eat with the family. I even had enough energy to get myself all dressed and make-upd and whatnot beforehand. Since it was our last meal with the grandparents, we started lunch off with an apéritif of various different drinks and little shrimp-flavored rice puffs.
I had a very very small glass of Muscatel
After that it was meal time: cucumber salad, baked chicken, potatoes, cheese (none for me), fruit (Christine brought me an apple sauce), coffee (or herbal water) and chocolates.
This is always refreshing
"No sauce for me, please"
Cute! Except Guilhem moved
Lionel was very proud of HIS (not Christine's) flowery apron
The lovely coffee tray.... and my herbal water. =(
After coffee, we killed time chatting as we waited for Vittorio to arrive. I'm not sure why, but it was important to Christine's parents to not leave until they had met him. Well, he arrived, we all shook hands, and we figured out refreshingly quickly that he speaks more French than Kathy. He has a very strong Italian accent and he messes up verb tenses all the time but he can speak enough that we can actually communicate with him in French. He also speaks English and Spanish- so when in doubt, we'll find a way to communicate. lol
A little more chatting later, it was time for the Maries to take off. It had been such a pleasure to meet them and spend some time with them, and I made sure to tell them that. I got a wet kiss on each cheek from Marie-Hélene and a friendly au revoir and bonne chance (good luck) from Jean-Marie. It all made me feel good.
Aww, they're empty chairs now...
When the house was quieter and Vittorio had settled into his room a bit, Christine proposed taking him for a walk down the Boulevard de Pyrenees. I was still feeling tired so I turned them down, but Vittorio was surprisingly up for it after all that traveling. I spent the next few hours getting the rest of the way caught up on my blog. By the way, I'm incredibly proud of the progress I have made in getting caught back up on the blog. It's been so frustrating for me to be so behind, and for so long! This day (Sunday) was just yesterday... the 27th. Whoo hoo!
For dinner tonight, I ate light once again. I think I pushed it a little much at lunch today, because I was starting to feel a little bit icky once again. Tonight's soup was spectacular and it was probably incredibly easy to make: it tasted like zucchini and herb soup in a chicken broth. Mmm mmmm that made me feel better! And then... the main course came out. Oh how I chuckled and scoffed to myself: cold veal, pork, chicken loaf. If you can't picture it, it was in the shape and about the consistency of a chunky meatloaf and looked like something that would turn my stomach even if I wasn't feeling flu-like. Parts of it tasted bland and others tasted mysterious enough that I had no interest in knowing what they were. I only took half of a baby slice, thankfully. I had a fair helping of baby-greens salad again and more bread to try to fill my stomach as much as I was able to. Then we had our usual dessert and I made sure to take my favorite preserves- tonight's mix was raspberry and pear, which is much thicker than the one with red currant- just to please myself.
After dinner, I went up to my room with another bowl of hot herbal water to skype with my family. I made a mistake almost instantly upon getting online with them: I asked my dad what he had made for breakfast (they had just finished eating). "Oh you know- scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon..." blah blah blah. Slobber slobber slobber. I hadn't realized until that moment, and even with a sick stomach, how much I had been missing American breakfast after all of the bread, jam, butter, nutella, and coffee. Oh la la... ;)
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