hippies and fanatics

Mags is a bit under the weather. Not COVID-related. Just the other things in life.

"I kept feeling like maybe I had a fever,"
I touch her head. "But no."

"No. You don't," I agree.

"Not that I will ever know, because you only use your hand. And then God forbid we get a real thermometer and don't just take temps in this house with the soap thermometer and subtract four," she says.

"Well, that's assuming I am at a resting 98.6, really..." my mind wanders off and she rolls her eyes. Then rests her head back down by me.

It makes me wonder a bit if Maggie thinks my insistence on the meter of the Universe as my guide in most things is a little kooky.

I think of myself telling Bess this morning that I may be getting sick.She asks about my symptoms and I have none.

"But," I told her, "I had a nightmare last night," and it is a testament to how long we have worked together that she accepts that as a reasonable thing to say. God bless her for not acting like that sounded like the free-wheeling-craziest logic ever.

"But I'm not being a baby." Maggie says behind closed eyes. "I don't need to go the Super Weenie Hut Jr."

"Of course not," I pat her head.
And then I say low, by her ear, "But don"t think we don't know how to weeeeeed 'em out!" And the cup of her laughter runneth over.

Hippies and Spongebob fanatics. That's all we've really got going on over here.

~originally published September 2020