through the looking glass

the breakfast noodles had been brilliant, and the previous night’s dinner so good we’d waited to eat till we got back that night. she didn’t have much, so we had a menu repeat as well. in hindsight, that should have been a clue. a brilliant day, a brilliant tasting dinner. around ten, while sitting around the fire talking with the family, playing with the owner’s two little girls, trading stories with the american, my stomache started to turn. and turn again. I went to the bathroom, took some pepto. I went to bed early. two hours later I jumped up but didn’t make it to the bathroom. it wasn’t the water, I’m pretty sure it was the pork. hu agreed, food poisoning. to add insult to injury (men, you might want to skip ahead) my period showed up too, a week and a half early. hu showed immense kindness, wiping my forehead, cleaning up my mess, making me sip a little hot water even when I reaaaally didn’t want to. I felt better after throwing up, the poison was gone, but he insisted I stay in bed the next day, which was almost worse than getting sick, I wanted to explore, but I felt guilty disobeying the orders of someone who’d gone to such trouble to play nurse. he brought light food and amazing medicine, I slept and wrote and listened to a terry pratchett novel on my ipod. he wandered on his own, stumbling across a wedding party and getting invited in, I got a text message about it and later saw the photos. but by nightfall I was desperate to get up, wanted to move again. we decided to catch the bus to liping the next morning at 7.