Somehow I managed to not just catch the cough-flu that’s been going around, but I got the stomach-flu at the same time (a double-bonus, I suppose), so the past few days it’s been really tough to find anything to eat.  Tea, broth, a bit of palak paneer, and a few spoonfuls of farmer’s cheese are all that have sounded good to me.

Added to my under-the-weather feelings, my two foster cats haven’t been feeling well either.  Vasia, the crazy English shorthair with the wicked yellow eyes has been particularly ill, and the news I received at the vet today was not positive.  Right now he’s recovering from a nasty flesh wound and an infection, but it also looks as though he has an aggressive form of cancer.

Ugh.  A day full of sick for as I’ve been trying to keep Vasia’s wound clean in between bouts of nap for me.  I don’t know if I’m more physically or emotionally exhausted at the moment.  Both, probably.

After thinking about every possible combination of food that might possibly sound good to eat, I settled on an old favorite: peaches and cornbread (sans ice cream this time–there’s no way that I could stomach that level of richness right now).  So I ran a quick errand to the market to buy the makings of that meal.  While there I also picked up a head of broccoli.  Because it just looked good to me, too.

It wasn’t until after I got home and was unloading the groceries that a memory surfaced from more than 25 years ago.  When I was a cancer patient and had those nausea-chemo days when nothing sounded or smelled tasty (at all), my uncle would blend up either a concoction of fresh peaches (from his garden!) with semolina or a mixture of broccoli with cheese, and bring them to the hospital for me.  I never grew tired of either of those, and they added a lot of calories to my diet when I most needed them–back in those days when I weighed 70 lbs and was so thin that even sitting in a chair was too painful on my spine and tailbone (because there was no padding between skin and bone).

The cornbread is cooking in the oven right now and smells wonderful…*

*update: it smelled better than it tasted to me, but I was able to eat a serving.  Now, back to napping…