Yesterday morning, I prepared myself a nice bowl of chicken soup to take for lunch. The thought of that soup was the only thing that kept me going after eleven o'clock, so you can imagine the look on my face when I finally went downstairs to my office and discovered that the soup had been left behind on my kitchen counter at home. I remember the very first time I ever read the word "crestfallen" in a book, and just the sight of that single word made me want to cry in sympathy for the character's sad state; what a heart-wrenching word! Well, the sight of the empty refrigerator shelf yesterday left me feeling more pitiful and, yes, crestfallen than I can ever remember feeling.

I ended up going down the street for Chinese food. "What's the hottest thing on the menu?" I asked the waitress. I intended to blast the cold out of the water.

"Szechwan chicken."

"Can you make that extra, extra hot for me? And lots of fluids...er, water."

Well, I don't know how hot the dish ended up being, but it would have needed to be much hotter for me to have even tasted it. I'm sure they did their best, though. Later that afternoon, on my way home, I stopped by the drug store and tried my luck once again. "Excuse me," I called to the pharmacist. "Which of those cold medicines out there would you say is the strongest?"

She looked at me appraisingly. "Do you have any heart conditions, or any thyroid problems?" No. "Do you care if it knocks you out?" No. She still seemed hard-pressed to decide, but finally pointed me to the Sudafed, which I gladly purchased, along with some Neosporin for my badly chapped nostrils. The way I see it, even if we did manage to conceive this cycle, I still have at least four days before the little one would implant, so a few drugs during these short days shouldn't hurt anything, right?

I went home, took my drugs, and hopped into bed, where I passed out for a few hours. Eric came home and made dinner (after, of course, I promised that I would make dinner tonight in exchange), and after eating I went back to bed, where I remained until about eleven o'clock this afternoon. I now feel much better, except for the fact that my ear keeps doing the pop-and-squeal number, sometimes staying closed for as much as fifteen seconds before clearing. My aunt sent me an email suggesting that I toast a rock, wrap it in a towel, and hold it to my ear. Always game, I gave it a shot, and it felt surprisingly good, even if it didn't really clear anything out.

The children's librarians huddled over one of the building plans right after we got the news. We were shocked; we'd been allocated even less space than we have now, even though there could have been plenty of room for us. The director acknowledged this as well, and was just as upset. It was too late to do much about it, so we sighed and decided which play tables would have to be put into storage and which parts of our collection would have to be housed in the storytime room for the year.

Other than this little mix-up, things over there should look awfully good. In fact, they might be a bit too good; I was informed, in confidence, that we would be leaving the floor tiled in the main part of the building instead of putting in carpet so as to convey a feeling of TEMPORARY to the patrons. Otherwise, I've heard, they may not want to leave when the year is over. It's a great space, supposedly. I'll be seeing it for the first time on Monday, and I'll let you know what I think.

In an effort to pare down our collection before the move, we've stepped up our collection weeding efforts, and have been putting the discards onto a "Free Books!" table by the circulation desk. Yesterday, we learned that out juvenile paperback collection would have to shrink quite a bit, or else be put in storage - rather a pointless idea, since these are largely "popular" books that nobody would want to see a year from now. We decided to get rid of most of our duplicate titles. I'm sure that some little girl will be thrilled out of her mind to find waiting the entire American Girls collection for free.

(Not that we've been torturing her over the trimmings. She's only been hurt once with the clippers, when she jerked her foot around just as Eric tried to clip. We apologized, but she's still holding the grudge.)

We recently made their habitat a much happier place with the addition of a second little wooden house. Originally, they were sharing a single house, which made for some tense moments when either Eric or I approached and they both wanted to hide. Perhaps at one point, they were both small enough to fit into the house, but when they try now, somebody's butt ends up poking out of the door, and a little nose winds up waving through the window in confusion.

Now there are two homes. This caused a mighty confusion at the outset, but they've grown accustomed to the situation now, though they haven't managed to decided whose home should be whose yet. There are moments of madcap, Three-Stoogesish comedy when both pigs rush for one house, then turn and rush for the other, bumping into each other in frustration.

I think the decision to expand was a good one, though. Hey, I wish people houses were as easily obtained and as easily moved!

I also think it's time to go back to bed. My cold medicine is kicking in again, and it took me ten tries to write that last sentence without typos.