I'm still sick. Yesterday I did manage to rake some leaves and hang some laundry. I made chicken stock and sewed on my dress and ran some errands, but I did it all at half-speed, amid coughing and sneezing and sighing and squinting and blowing my nose. I feel like I'm half-human, half-slime mold. On the bright side, the timing is good: I've got a slight respite, work-wise, so can enjoy my life as a rotting mushroom without guilt.

Ugh.

Anyway, I've got time to read, if I could understand what I was reading. Last night Tom asked if I'd like to play cribbage, and I told him I couldn't pay attention long enough to get through the game. I'm significantly dumber than usual, and all I wanted to do last night was sit on the couch and watch cartoons.

Thus, I will turn to my far more intelligent children for news and comedy. Believe it or not, my younger son has managed to pick all four teams in the NCAA men's final four. Among the millions of people who make brackets on the ESPN site, he is in the top .046%. Did I mention he also goes to art school?

And my older son pulled off an extremely fine April Fool's prank. My phone rings, the ID comes up as "Unknown Caller," and I of course let it go to voice mail. Later, when I check the voice mail before deleting it, I hear a grainy version of a song . . . and wait, it's my least favorite song of all, the Eagles's "Hotel California," and now it's turning into a clip from The Big Lebowski, the moment when the Dude asks the cab driver to change the station because "I hate the fucking Eagles" and then he gets tossed out of the car . . . and now I know this has got to be a son playing a joke on me. It was a good one, and cheered me up considerably in my mushroom gloom.