Sicky Sick Sickerson

I used to like being sick when I was little. It meant staying home from school, spending all day in my pajamas sipping Coke or slurping Campbell's chicken noodle soup, and watching old Bette Davis movies with my mom.

I don't much like being sick as a grownup. It means going to work anyway.

Tiffany, on the other hand, loves being sick. Well, she likes being middling sick--somewhere between scratchy throat and bedridden. She likes coughing in my direction until I look up from whatever I'm doing--

"Are you hearing this? I think I'm getting sick..."

--losing her voice--

"It's literally gone!" she croaks--

and generally playing up whatever ailment she has developed--

"Can you take my temperature?"

Luckily for Tiffany, she's adorable when she's sick.

"I'm sicky sick sickerson," she said to me a couple of weeks ago when I got home as she sucked on a cherry-flavored cough drop. "Sick sick sick!"

The next morning I left her tucked in bed while I went to the gym. But when I got home again she was up and moving.

"Get back in bed!" I said, "go!"

"But I want to spend time with you!" she whispered, her voice like sandpaper.

"You just want me to notice you have no voice," I said, fighting a smile as I pushed and prodded her.

"It's literally gone!" she croaked.

I wish I could tell you I rented a bunch of suspenseful black-and-whites and served Tiffany a piping hot bowl of chicken noodle. But Tiffany doesn't like scary movies and she had to make do with cabbage.

Rabbit Food

Tiffany and I recently left a head of cabbage sitting in our fridge for three weeks (don't worry--we picked it from the farm ourselves, so it was nothing if not fresh). Every time I opened the door and saw it, I felt it judging me:

"You are not creative enough to cook me."

It's true; I'm not inspired much by cabbage. I love sauerkraut, but sauerkraut takes several days to prepare and, even by my standards, our cabbage would have been old by then. Another choice, coleslaw, felt too summery for the fall weather.

One night we finally decided on cabbage soup because it's easy and we had most of the ingredients. When I say cabbage soup is easy, I mean there's nothing to it.

Like, actually nothing. I googled cabbage soup on my way home to make sure I had everything and all the top results were: DIET DIET DIET. A little uncertainly, I bought some carrots and leeks. My stomach growled.

When I walked in the door, Tiffany had already started making the soup.

"Smells good!" I cried, willing the soup to satiate me.

"I think I put in too much cabbage," Tiffany said, warning me away from the pot with her spoon.

"Impossible," I said. "Apparently cabbage soup is for people who want to starve...HOLY COW, that's a lot of cabbage, babe!"

"I told you."

"How about adding more water?"

"I did."

After we each finished a bowl, we looked at each other. Tiffany estimated it would take us each another three bowls to feel full.

"Or we could just have leftover pizza," I said.

And that is why there is now at least three weeks worth of cabbage soup in our freezer.