Eating in, eating out, fever up, fever down

I am now contemplating pesto recipes--with basil, with arugula, with almonds. This is not how I have typically spent my evenings, but cooking has taken on a new priority in my life. I speculate the following reasons: first, with the baby, I am at home more in the evenings; second, I now have a garden which makes cooking more exciting since I can use my own homegrown ingredients; and third, maybe I am just getting older.

Yesterday I ate out for both lunch and dinner, work-related events where I could not fully appreciate or pay attention to the food because I was having conversations with potential employers. Both were in funky locations: lunch at the (apparently) famous tuba museum in Okemos, and then dinner at Traffic Jam and Snug in Detroit. I chose the latter and was proud of myself for finding it online, after trying various Google approaches to "Detroit restaurants," hoping to weed out the overpriced Italian and touristy pizza joints. Any place that makes both its own beer and its own ice cream is worth trying. I tried the oatmeal stout under the watchful eyes of a giant deer head.

I came home feeling somewhat ill. The food was good, but I think I have gotten out of the habit of eating restaurant food--or maybe I was just exhausted from almost four hours of driving and multiple interviews in one day, including worrying about Baby O, who developed a fever in the middle of all of this.

The fever continued for 36 hours or so. We think it was just from teething, but since she had never had one before, in all her 10 months, it was cause for drama. We gave her dropper-fulls of vile cherry-flavored acetaminophen, which contains frightening ingredients like sucralose, things I would have hoped to avoid having my child consume for at least another year or two.

Finally, just an hour ago, she woke up for her late evening nursing, and clearly she felt better. Lo and behold: her fever had broken! Now we hope her normal temperature holds. I stayed home from work today, with the rationale that she needed to nurse while she was feeling poorly, but I need to go in tomorrow.

I wish that such a speedy recovery could visit the other members of my family whose health is under attack: my father and my aunt. I learned that yesterday afternoon, while I was reading the ingredients of cherry-flavored acetaminophen, my father was visiting the emergency room. I believe his symptoms are side effects from the latest of his many medications, but the investigation continues. He is back home, with a possible surgical procedure to be planned and other vague solutions.

My aunt in Texas was admitted to the hospital this weekend with pneumonia, a very serious condition for someone with her combination of health issues. She has never met Baby O. I still hope she gets to.