If people don't die of colds, then what I have is probably ebola

Now I can say it for sure: One of the all-time worst ways to spend a Friday night is lying on the couch in a near-delirious stupor from a dangerously high fever. Friday night was one of the weirdest and worst nights I've had in quite some time, which was inconvenient, since early Saturday morning we were throwing a combined garage sale with my parents and my friend J.

Noah—Lord bless him—tended to me and to Ethan, who during the night woke up twice unable to breathe through his nose, then spent eight-plus hours in the sun earning us a little over $100, YEE-HAW!

What we will do with this small fortune has yet to be decided, since I think it's best for me not to make decisions when I'm recovering from malaria. Or whatever it is that causes your tonsils to swell so much that they're visible from the outside and makes taking a gel tab of cold medicine tantamount to swallowing a stale kaiser roll, whole. As an added bonus, I finally figured out what my dinosaur name would be: Cold-a-soreus rex. Somewhere beneath the hideous explosion of viral herpes (non-sexual) is what was formerly known as my face.

Mom very kindly came over before 7 a.m. on Saturday to take care of me and Ethan while Noah managed the sale with Dad and J. I tell you this A) So you can congratulate her and nominate her for sainthood, and B) So you know there was a credible witness to what I'm about to tell you.

On Saturday afternoon Ethan, in his underwater-chipmunk-with-sinusitis voice, said he wanted to go see Poppy and Daddy at the "gaj sale," so we walked around the corner to J's house to visit for a few minutes. He was wearing his airplane pajamas and no shoes, and he wanted Mommy and not Nana to carry him, a grueling task for a woman who had just survived the highest fever in history and that was made harder when he stuffed both his arms in front of him instead of wrapping one around my shoulders.

"Ethan, can you put your arm around Mommy's shoulder?" I asked sweetly. And, I kid you not, he replied: "Ahm not gonna do dat. Iss my loife." (Translation: "I'm not going to do that. It's my life.")

So, how was your weekend?