saturday night, being me, i ate curry at around 8pm.

at around midnight i made the pronouncement, "i don’t feel so good".

that thought and slight variations of it, were the dominant thoughts and slight dreams i had from 1am-7am. sort of like a Christmas card with "happy Christmas" written on it in every language known to man. it all comes down to the same thing. for me, i had a mouthful of saliva (always ominous), sweats, and had to prop myself upwards. and cramps, upper gi ones, sharp ones, that woke me up from my dreams every 20 minutes or so.

at 7am sebastian skipped into our room and said, "let’s wake up! tomorrow is Christmas!" and i said, "charles, i cannot go to church. cannot."

magchar looked at me, as i briefly explained my symptoms and as he drilled me on the date of my last period i could tell he was thinking ectopic pregnancy but the dates didn’t fit and AS IF we could ever get pregnant naturally anyway. and then he pressed down on my stomach and (dramatically i might add) lifted his hand up. i was so alarmed at how my stomach jiggled when he removed his hand i did a sharp intake of breath. "oh boy" said magchar.

i clued in.

"i don’t have appendicitis."

"but just then when i pressed in…classic sign, tess"

"i was disgusted with my lack of muscle tone, i am a fat sloth. but i am not a sloth with appendicitis."

he did it again and i stayed silent, this time refusing to look at my stomach. and my personal physician agreed i did not have appendicitis.

i stayed in my room and writhed in bed for a few more hours. after church my angelic, almost pope like husband took the kids to the club for lunch and i writhed some more. the diahhrea, or as it is commonly known in our house, "poo juice" had started earlier in the morning. but i still felt vile. and the appalling egg burps were killing me.

at 2pm, the cramps were so bad that i took a swallow of some mint flavoured mylanta. ten minutes later, 18 hours after i had eaten the curry, and 30 seconds before my kids walked in the door, i realised it was time to play deja vu with the curry. i was no where near the bathrooms.

but i was near the kitchen sink.

the kids were very impressed to see green peas coming out of mummy’s nose. i was very glad i hadn’t eaten chickpeas.

while recovering and wondering how i could ever get this taste out of my mouth, i noticed the mylanta had expired in 2005.

and now poor Charles is sick with the same thing.

i’ll write about Christmas in a couple of days, but in the meantime, thank you to everyone who made it so great.