Saturday mornings are a special time for me. I remember a song from my childhood called “On Saturday Morning.” It’s a time of coffee, relaxation, maybe some NPR on in the background. I have always loved Saturday mornings.

This one started badly. My night had been full of nightmares. I had a dream in which water was pouring in through all the windows of a very strange room, and when I got up from my bed to investigate, I found that the inside sheets as well as my body were completely covered with tiny biting crickets. A formal dinner was being held downstairs, and they were eating a torn up and still bloody horse. The faces, morphing and shifting, concentrated for a microsecond on me like a collective intelligence. When I attempted to leave the house, the walls started glowing and pulsating – I woke up in a sweat.

And in pain. The two-year-old remnant of poison ivy on my foot was throbbing again, a raw place that magically reappears from time to time. My back was on fire where I had been clawing it in my sleep. I pulled a muscle group on the upper left side of my back a few days ago, and that was aching. When I sat up in bed, it seemed as though every bone in my back cracked and moaned.

My son has the croup, his doctor thinks, although it is possible that the foot-mouth-whatever disease that’s erupted in his preschool might have hit him. My hubby is in a black mood – between treatments, he is vulnerable to infection. The first thing I do is go around disinfecting the doorknobs.

Normally we hug and kiss and cuddle on a Saturday morning -this morning it’s just curt good mornings all around. I give Ben a dose of cough suppressant and children’s motrin. Then I finally get my cup of coffee and head outside to the deck to have my morning “wake-up time” alone. I am deep into my new Peter Straub book – Shadowland – when nature calls. I wrench and limp and hobble inside, do what has to be done, and return.

Finally, I relax. It is a beautiful day. The sun has come out, it’s in the 70’s. Because of the rain last night many more leaves have fallen, and although it’s nothing like a (beloved) New England fall day, it is very pretty. I take a few deep breaths and enjoy the view for a moment.

My coffee is almost done. I’m thinking that I have successfully adjusted my outlook and attitude as I take the last sip.

Looking into the cup, I see a green fly, drowned.