demon vanquished

A belated Happy New Year folks. Nine days in already and I finally sipped a glass of champagne today to welcome it. It was a only a small, cheap, complimentary glass after a late lunch in an Indian restaurant but it also wrapped up a weekend during which I ventured out of the house several times (shopping yesterday, museum & lunch today) without feeling like I might frighten children.

In other words, my conjunctivitis is just about all cleared up, finally. Don't think I had ever had pink-eye before but this case was way past any shade of rose, I tell you. Last weekend by this hour, the nasty bug had my whites entirely blood-red, I kid you not.

It had started New Year's eve, on what I thought was the tail of a little flu that had started on Dec. 27th, as our Christmas hosting was just about to wrap up (our guests began leaving on the morning of the 28th). By the 31st I had felt fine enough to spend the afternoon cooking for our one guest for the evening, Celia.

But by the time she went to bed at 11 p.m. (she's 89, a longtime friend of A's family who lives on the other side of Madrid and A visits her every weekend) it was clear I shouldn't be drinking champagne as the damn conjunctivitis that began in the late afternoon was progressing really fast and knocking me out.

Long story short, I didn't get treated that weekend since, short of going to the emergency room, everything was closed. But it was b-a-d by Monday morning so off I went to the clinic and got me some kryptonite drops. But by then my body's defences had been on overtime making lots of that fun goopy stuff and the congestion and  coughing had started and here I still am, congested and still hacking. Should be good as new in a few days and hopefully won't catch a cold or flu for another couple of years, as that's how long it'd been I think.

Anyway, that's my excuse for not posting before now and not having anything much else to say since I've mostly spent "this year" lying on the couch. Signs of life this weekend included boxing up the Christmas decorations, and baking some very yummy oatmeal cookies yesterday (or at least A tells me they are, I can still barely taste).

We also really enjoyed the Rubens exhibition we saw today (which did not include the piece I stuck in at top right, unfortunately!), particularly a series he did in collab with Bruegels. Afterwards we didn't stick around to do other parts of the huge Museo del Prado (we were hungry), but the visit made us resolve to get there more often, particularly during the get-in-free Sunday evening time slot. Next weekend we're going to hit Goya's Black Paintings, which we did peek at on our way out, and I can't wait, that is some eerie stuff!

Okay, yawn, I'm even boring myself now. Time for dinner, which tonight is a gift Celia gave Alain when he visted her today: two tortillas española (one has spinach, the other caramelized onion). Hope I can taste 'em, cuz while A's are good, hers are the BEST.