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Also in 2003: Mary Poppins is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

When the song “I Love to Laugh” from the Mary Poppins soundtrack begins, Paul hurriedly forwards on to the next song. Sage applauds.

Todd, to Sage My mom loved that song. I don’t know why you and Paul can’t stand it.

Sage It’s creepy!

Todd How can it be creepy? It’s about laughing and happiness.

Sage No, it’s about a nanny who takes the children to see her ex-boyfriend in the bad part of town, where they all proceed to get high.

Usually when I sit down to write an entry, I open my palm to see a long list of entry notes I’ve made over the course of the past few days (though they aren’t always helpful; I’m still trying to puzzle out “trees or bushes”). This time the notes are all pre-flu, and because I don’t think you want to know the specifics of what it was like while I had the flu, I’m at a bit of a loss.

Or maybe shell-shocked would be a better way to describe my state. After spending the duration of Paul’s bout with the flu barely sleeping and constantly on the edge of tears, telling myself I was being overanxious and neurotic, I found out that children in Colorado have died after contracting this particular strain.

When the nurse practitioner diagnosed Paul with a staff infection, he said it was probably contracted after Paul got something on his hands, then put his hands in his mouth. So we’ve all become obsessive compulsive hand washers (which probably would have made a significant difference at the yurt, where we were all constantly sick). Kite, who grew up in a time where washing hands seven, eight times a day was de rigeur, said that she thinks a generation that was brought up with antibiotics and antibacterial soap is under the impression that basic hygeine has been rendered obselete. That anything can be cured, so why bother with general prevention meausres?

Before Todd arrived in the Ozarks, Sage and Todd were playing online backgammon.

Sage When Kite was growing up there were no antibiotics, and they sweated out their fevers.

Todd In winter, on the way to school, uphill, five miles each way?

Sage No, I”m being serious. It’s making me grateful for what I do have, even if I hate using antibiotics and Tylenol for Paul.

Todd Absolutely.

Sage Anyway, I’m reading a Queen Victoria biography. When she was a baby her dad got a cold, and the next line is “A struggle erupted between the Duke’s iron constitution and the medical treatments of the time.” I mean, basically the man would have been fine if he hadn’t been rich enough to afford doctors, but as it was he died.

And here are these parents in Colorado who think, oh well, John’s got the flu. Let’s give him some Dimetapp and call up Peter Falk to read him a story or two. Then three days later…John’s gone.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I didn’t know otherwise healthy young people could die from the flu. Not in the Western world. Not in 2003.