Recovering

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes and prayers. My eyes and lips are still swollen but the breathing is much improved. Am on prednesone ... the steroid that I usually depend when I have severe asthma but which I hate because after weaning off, my feet and hands swell. Withdrawal symptoms are awful. Anyway the allergy is not totally gone and I still need a couple more days to rid it from my body. Am feeling terribly nauseous all day.

But I was very grateful to my friend who came to help me. He lives across the street. He got the taxi and brought me to the hospital and stayed till I was admitted. Called me later in the night to see if all was ok and this morning wanted to come over to visit me. This evening his family asked me over to their house. His mum was worried and asked how I was. She'll cook me msahan tomorrow which I particularly like ... she really does it well. It's a typical palestinian dish of thick taboun bread in olive oil, onions and sumac (red sour spice) with roasted chicken. Love it. Now I hope I'm not allergic to onions and sumac.

Mr. Bird enjoying
the flowers

Meantime it's not all rest for me. There's still work in the library to do, feed the canaries and Mr. Bird, who got all upset when I left him alone yesterday. Tore his cage apart and littered my room with his food. Mr. Bird is very people-oriented and needs company otherwise he gets very destructive. Now I keep him in the big cage with a couple of male canaries to keep him company ... they steal his food but he doesn't mind. He talks to them in his gibberish arabic and squawks.

Mr. Fish died yesterday. Old age. He was probably 4 years old and for a siamese fighting fish, that's normal.