I'm sure you're tired of hearing that I'm still sick, so I won't perseverate on that issue, except to shout that progress is being made and my sinuses are a fine-tuned machine.

Yesterday Tom and I went shopping for a futon sofa for his study, so now we have a place to house any friend who cares to contract this virus and/or entertain the cat at 4:30 a.m. If that's you, please don't hesitate to visit. I have plenty of kleenex.

We also took a walk to the fish market and bought the ingredients for the Portuguese seafood stew I raved about here a few weeks ago. I'm happy to say that it was just as delicious this time. Afterward we took a short stroll in the rain, and then we sat on the couch and ate cannoli and watched two episodes of Arrested Development and went to bed before 10 because that's what people do on Saturday night when they're lame.

Today, I suppose I will do housework. Probably I will go for a walk. I will read War and Peace and congratulate myself on reducing my ibuprofen consumption by half. Tooth nerve-pain management is hell. But then again, George Eliot wrote all of her novels with her teeth rotting out of her head. Maybe the next Middlemarch is in my future.