...but who's counting; right?

It is Monday morning, Presidents' Day, and I have just recently corrected the galleys of a new Gooney Bird bok, set in February, when GB herself points out that it is unfair for Abe and George to get all the credit—and the holiday—when there were OTHER presidents born in February. (She, of course, knows who they are)

That book, called GOONEY BIRD ON THE MAP, will be out in the fall.

As for me, even though it is snowing one more time, I am delighted to be up and sitting at my desk after three days with a nasty virus.

Day #1, Friday, I spent in bed wishing for a hasty and merciful death.

Day #2, Saturday, I lay on the couch, dozing.

Day #3, Sunday, yesterday, I was still on the couch, too miserable too be up and around, and too headachy to read, but had slept enough to last me a lifetime; so on Sunday morning at 9 AM I turned on the TV.

Except for Patriots and Red Sox, nether of which are in season—or impending blizzards or cataclysmic world events—I never watch TV in the daytime. So it was a day of revelations.

First, George Will. Is George Willl on every major network all of Sunday morning, or is that just an hallucination brought on by fever?  Listening to George Will talk in a monotone about collective bargaining is right up there with watching paint dry.

And am I just imagining this, or did we all have George Will as a classmate in seventh grade? The boy who gave oral reports on current events for extra credit?

Next: there is an Oprah channel. I have just discovered this. Desperately clicking my way through a hundred channels, I discovered that Oprah Winfrey now has bought her own TV channel and is able to pay homage to herself all day long every day.

Was it because I still had a pounding headache...or does Oprah really SHRIEK a lot?

Moving on from there, I watched an endless documentary about fundamentalist Mormon communitiies; and then I watched an endless documentary about the Amish; and after a while they becgan to seem indistinguishable, except for polygamy, which the Amish don't care for.

I vaguely watched a FLDS woman give birth to her seventh baby, helped out by her benignly-smiling three sister wives, who then had to prepare dinner for their 26 chillden; and then I watched an Amish woman sew, wash, and iron the clothing for her family—without electricity. Her children will not go beyond eighth grade in school because higher education is thought to be corrupting.  Watching, I thought: is there anything remotely to be envied about the lives of these women???

And my answer was yes. They do not watch daytime television.