And then there were none

The Husband is down with the cold now too, as is my dog! Lewis has the canine version of whatever we have, lethargic plus stomach wonkiness (I won't go into the disgusting details). B, who brought it into the house and was home for eight out of 10 school days in a two week period, is happily out and about, while the Husband, Lewis, a and I are wallowing in our misery at home.

It is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that I had started re-reading Stephen King's The Stand right before B came down with fever. If you haven't read The Stand, it's about what happens when a flu epidemic kills 90 percent of the world's population in a two-week period during the summer of 1990. It's actually the inspiration for that television series that you know that I love so dearly: Lost, the island being the equivalent of the post-apocolyptic world depicted in King's book. Like The Stand, Lost brings together disparate people who might never have spoken to one another in real life (Lost demonstrates this by showing their paths cross without notice), gives them a chance to choose to trust or not to trust, to exist in their new society or to choose to act outside the bounds of society, to try on new identities, to escape their pasts (or not). Like Lost, The Stand has a one-hit wonder rock star, a pregnant girl, a good man with leadership qualities, a fat guy, a guy who is unable to readily communicate (in Lost it is because he speaks onlyKorean, in The Stand it is because he is deaf). And ultimately, in both, there is the battle of good versus evil.

But I digress. I don't think that my family has Tube Neck or Captain Tripps or The Rales. But still, it's eerie to be reading about a deadly plague that starts out like the common cold, when you're lying in bed with the common cold.

On a sadder note, my parents' dog, Fergie (Dutchess Sarah Ferguson of York), a teacup Yorkshire Terrior, passed away last night at the ripe old age of 16. As old as she was, it is still devestating to my parents, who were with her when she died.

I guess I should stop there, in honor of Fergie.

YC