Illness and Twilight

Well, I´m not better :(. Luckily, Dr. Head is still here; unluckily, he watched me struggle through Billy Blank´s Ultimate Ab Bootcamp last week and has concluded that the pain in my stomach is primarily muscle soreness. Because that would give me a fever and keep me from standing up. I´m on antibiotics for a possible UTI (too much information? sorry...), something for gastroenteritis (or something that starts with ¨gastro¨) and NO PAINKILLERS because nothing works for me but Ibuprofen and that is apparently a stomach-irritant.
I tried going to shift yesterday, but got sent home early in a taxi. It was pretty cool, though, while I was there. A few volunteers and the Head family went to Santa Lucia, where they had prepared a huge meal for us. The kids all had their hair fancy and were dressed up nice. It was so cute! I´ve never seen more well-behaved kids. They sat at their tables, absolutely still, waiting for their food for almost 20 minutes while the workers served our group first. Then when they got their food, all the older ones helped the little ones. It was great to see how well things work out when the kids are split up into families like they are at Santa Lucia. They really bond with each other.
On Friday, when I was still happily on Ibuprofen, we went on a city tour of Quito and discovered that this really isn´t a destination city. I mean, it´s beautiful, but there´s not a TON to do. Still, we went to some cool churches and checked out Old Town, which is a beautifully renovated section of town. We also got a Christmas tree! Well, actually, it is a shrub. One of the kind people make topiaries out of, so it´s perfectly shaped. It´s pretty big, too. We wanted to get a pine, but they were a lot more expensive, so we settled. I think we will hang pine air fresheners on the tree to make it feel more right.
While I´ve been debilitated these past couple of days, I have been reading the Twilight series. Kind of. I started Twilight a while ago, but couldn´t drag myself through all the talk of Edward´s beauty and Bella´s hardcore desire for him. I think I threw up in my mouth a lot, actually. But down here, everybody kept talking about the series, so I decided to finish Twilight. I discovered that, buried in the back of that book, there is actually a plot! It was a lovely twist.
We do not, unfortunately, own New Moon here in the house. I heard that nobody really liked that book anyway, so I just skipped it. I don´t think I actually missed that much. Props to Stephanie Meyer for making her writing dispensible. I will read it sometime. I´m sure it was delightful.
I thought Eclipse was way better written than Twilight. Not as mushy. I´m almost through Breaking Dawn right now, which I was worried about reading because everybody made it sound like a Harrlequin novel/porno description. Honestly, I thought Twilight was a lot raunchier. Maybe I was just expecting a very detailed account of the wedding night. I was planning on skipping over it, but I never found it. Because it doesn´t exist. I was relieved. That subject is awkward enough without Ms. Meyer and her obsession with describing Edward´s perfection.
But I do like the series. The last 2 books have had a lot more plot and I think the writing has gotten better. Also, I like being able to discuss it with other people...it makes me feel like I´m part of something. A cultural cult.