The blog gurus say that it’s a bad idea to blog about what you had for lunch or how your bowel movements have been lately.  Generally, I agree with this, but if I can’t write about how I’m doing I really don’t see the point.  (After all, a majority of the readers I have are mainly interested in the proper way to wear a certain specific Indian article of clothing anyway.)

So last night as I was writhing in hazy delirium in my bed with what I feel certain is scarlet fever*, I was thinking about how I’m a lot like Pa from Little House on the Prairie.  If you think about it, the comparisons are uncanny. 

Hard working, dark-haired, ever-smiling, chuckling husband and father of two daughters (granted neither of them, thankfully, are blind, but Anna’s previous years of thumb-sucking has produced a slight, Laura Ingalls-esque buck-tooth effect).  And just last week I was reading by the soft glow of candlelight.  Just last night, in fact, I was boiling water on the stove (because our filtered water had run out.)  Can’t say that I’ve saddled any oxen lately though…but maybe by next year’s harvest?

Being sick draws even more Walnut Grove comparisons.  In the throws of a fever, headache, body aches, and cold chills, I know I must tighten my belt straps and just weather the storm.  Those Xining bone-saw clinics won’t be touching me with their instruments…  St. Louis or Lanzhou (you take your pick) are a bit too far for a man in my condition to travel.  ‘Specially when chores still need tendin’.

Albert, run to the feedstore and bring back a block of ice.  We gotta get Pa’s fever to break!

So in the midst of weathering through this nasty little virus I’m trying my best to put on my best Michael Landon face.  It helps that I don’t have to tend to the fields or take a load of lumber to the mill, but then again, learning Mandarin is a much harder than shoe-ing a horse.  I’m sure Mandarin would have brought a few glittering tear streaks to Pa’s face…even if he did try to hide it by running behind the barn.  In the end it all works out though, right?

[Fade to young Laura traipsing through a field of daisies…]

*for the gullibly impaired–I really don’t have scarlet fever.  Don’t worry.