There are reasons the "nurturing" stuff is my job in the house

[xiphias]

I love my wife very much, and she does her best to take care of me when I'm sick. It's just that. . . that kind of thing isn't really her strong suit. I mean, she's working off of a default skill level, y'know?

So, Lis does NOT expect me to, like, cook for her and stuff when I'm in bed most of the day, so, when she got home, she said that she'd go out for dinner and bring me back soup. She was going to go to one of the Chinese restaurants we like, and bring me back a big container of their wonton soup, which is very good stuff when you're sick.

She came back an hour or so later, and said that she'd changed her mind and went to the sushi place instead, and got me udon noodle soup.

I opened it up, and felt slightly queasy. It's a fish stock soup, which makes sense because it's a sushi restaurant. I don't like fish at the best of times (except for a few things, and sushi is among the fish I like, but not fish stock, even at a sushi restaurant. I do like chowder, however, even fish chowder with a fish stock, as long as it has enough cream, butter, and potatoes in it. My food preferences are kind of random and weird). Anyway, while on a normal day, I'd probably like the udon noodle soup, tonight, I couldn't handle it.

The side dish that came with it was tempura shrimp. Which I don't usually eat, and really couldn't handle tonight.

She felt REALLY bad about this. "I failed my 'Get Soup For My Husband' roll!"

However, after that, she went back out and bought me ginger ale and Moxie, which makes up for it. And graham crackers. And she offered to go out to a different restaurant and get me soup, but it was already quarter of ten, and I couldn't see sending her out that late.

But, y'know, soup is usually fungible for me. But not when I'm sick. Normally, if I don't have one kind of soup, I'll have another kind of soup, and I'll like it, which is what Lis was thinking -- and she'd have been totally correct on a normal day. Most days, I would have really liked the udon soup. But, when I'm sick, and I want soup, I want exactly that kind of soup from exactly that restaurant.

So, I'm kind of hungry and soup-less. And Lis feels really bad about this, and I hope that, when she reads this, it doesn't make her feel bad, again. Because, most of the time, her actions would have been 100% reasonable, so I don't hold it against her.

She does so many things so well, and she is such a wonderful person. But, well, we both are aware that "taking care of sick people" is just not one of the things she's good at. But I love her anyway.

Comments

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Weird. I have the same relationship with my wife. Luckily, she's the one sick this time. I got the ginger ale yesterday, made chicken soup with home made noodles today. and convinced her to do a hot bath with some mulled wine to drink while she's in there. Nothing like mellowing out before a nice backrub and then sleep.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

We have mulled wine, but I don't think my stomach is really up to it.

However, straight rye is fine. Weird, hunh?

[cheshyre]

In my defense, you were so hard to pin down between chicken soup and wonton, that I figured you were more interested in something brothlike (as opposed to hot&sour or eggdrop) than any particular flavor...

[cheshyre]

Oh, and it wasn't too late to send me back out. I offered.

Mandarin Reading is open until 11pm, and I know of that place in Malden that's open until early am...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I know that you COULD have gotten soup, but I would have just felt awful sending you out TWICE.

Anyway, the wonton and the chicken soup from Mandarin Reading have the same chicken broth with different things put in it.

[cheshyre]

Darling, you felt awful anyway from the sick.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Oh, Mandarin /rˈɛdɪŋ/!¹ I read it as Mandarin /rˈidɪŋ/!²

(International Phonetic Alphabet:
¹ rhymes with "heading": city in Massachusetts
² rhymes with "heeding": see icon)

-- Dr. Whom

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes, short "e", rather than long "e". (Okay, I could argue that the "ea" sound in "present participle or gerund of 'to read'" is slightly different than the long "e", but, close enough.)

Lis used to work in North Reading, and the signs for "No Reading" always disturbed her. I mean, what kind of Philistine town would that be?

(And is that really a fair use of the word "Philistine", since those called the "Philistines" in the Bible are possibly the same folks called the "Phonecians"?)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Great icon.

"Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Never piss one off." -- Spider Robinson

Which, now that I look at them together, is even odds to have been the inspiration for the icon.

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Especially since that quote was Lis's signature on USEnet for (I think) years!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

http://www.librarianilluminati.org/

It's actually Lis's site. And she sells bookbags with that logo and that quote on it. (Yes, she got permission from Spider. And, I think, from MKK, too, since that was the character about whom it was said.)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

From Librarian Illuminati: Intellectual Property Notice:

"Librarians are the secret masters . . . " quotation used for merchandising through the kind permission of Spider Robinson, from his book The Callahan Touch.

Who's MKK? It's been years since I read the Callahan books. ... I was on alt.callahans for a while, though. Stumbled across it about 6mos after it opened. I was "SilverBlack, the guy with 50/50 black-and-silver hair". Still am, I guess. (In realspace it's down to about 20/0 now, though.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Mary Kay Kare. The librarian who took over the research to discover that the Internet had become intelligent and was now a patron of the Bar. In real life, she is a librarian and a regular in the fandom scene.

Her husband is Jordin Kare, who is a physicist who also appeared in a Honor Harrington novel as an astrophysicist who discovered a new, and strategically significant, wormhole exit vector.

This means that Mr and Mrs Kare are both fictional characters in different science fiction/fantasy universes, which is probably why they go to so many cons, since where else are they going to be able to spend time together?

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes! I knew that once upon a time. And I know Jordin ("Yes, as a matter of fact I am a rocket scientist" -- a T-shirt I've seen him wearing) well as a filker.

They may be Dr. and Mrs. Kare, though. Or Dr. and Mr. Or Dr. and Dr.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm not good at taking care of sick people, either.

Actually, I'm pretty good with sick kids, but I think that's because it feels more like parenting than nursing. If that makes any sense.

[florafloraflora.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear they still make Moxie. Not that I drink the stuff, but it brings back fond memories of driving around backcountry Maine.