May 2nd

"Alisa."
"Yes?"
"Tell Elias how much I loved him."
No reaction.
"I know you'll take good care of him."
No reaction.
"I just want you to know that I was never alive until I met you. Everything good in my life is because of you."
No reaction.
"Never forget me. But I want you to promise me you'll marry again. Life is for the living."
"Mike, stop talking that way."

I was pretty sure I was dying. So I figured I might as well get some mileage out of the situation.

I got sick five days ago. Since then it's been occasional fever spikes, the sore throat to end all sore throats (like, too sore to drink water), lots of sleeping and no appetite. I felt good enough yesterday to run a few errands, and I learned that the jokes I've been sharing with Alisa about being Australia's first case of swine flu weren't very funny to other people. Then it all spiked again last night, and I thought I was going to die for the second time.

It's so bad that I think I'll finally let Alisa drag me to the GP tomorrow.

And, of course, that's five days that I haven't been finishing up the last bit of work on Pelagic before we head up to the reef for the winter.
~~~
On a much brighter note, yesterday was Alisa's birthday. When queried beforehand, Alisa said that all she wanted was "a happy day". It did indeed turn out to be a happy day, and one of the things she enjoyed was the time I watched Elias so that she could finish up annual maintenance on one of our primary winches. Cruising dudes of the world, continue to eat your hearts out!

I managed to turn out a serviceable cake.

And her big gift, a photo book of our trip across the Pacific, was a hit.