Been a while since I've updated.

I've been sick -- really sick. My mom had me stay with her for a few days to recover; I was worried about exposing my grandmother and giving her what I had.

Which was diagnosed as some viral thing. Whee virii.

I've got all sorts of medications, including an inhaler for when I have trouble breathing. "When you can't breathe, just take a deep breath of this." (How does that work?)

And some nasty nasal spray stuff, and some pills that make you dizzy. Bleah.

Anyway, on Friday I GMed a bit, but I think I did a really horrible job, because I was very severely out of it.

I got home at about 2:00 AM. Went to sleep. Woke up at 8:30. Puttered around a bit, took some medicine, and then went back to sleep. Woke up at 7:00 or so, and saw that the house was on fire.

Yeah.

The house was on fire.

Well, apartment, really. I was having trouble breathing -- didn't know what was going on. So I took a shower, hoping the hot water would clear my lungs up, and remembering that the doctor said the inhaler was kind of potent, and should be used only as a last resort.

After cleaning up, I got out, and smelled smoke. So I dressed as quickly as I could, opened the door (thought about testing the knob to see if it was hot, but didn't actually do it), and saw that the upper half of the room was flooded with smoke.

Now, my grandmother has an incredible penchant for burning food. Does it all the time, in fact.

So I looked at her, to see if she was okay, had passed out, was injured, etc.

She was watching the television, about fifteen feet to my right. About five feet to my left, a pot (a metal pot. A METAL POT) was on fire.

I grabbed it and flung it into the sink, immediately turning the water on, and then ran to the back door to open it and provide ventillation. Then I set up the fans to clear the air up, and set up the fan I use in my room (to keep smoke from my room out of the rest of the house). There was a brief interval where I repaired my grandmother's fan, and she asked me what was going on. I stood up straight, even though this meant my head was surrounded by smoke, and said, "Grandma, there was a fire."

She looked at me incredulously, and then looked around at all the smoke in the room, apparently just then noticing that she had left something on the stove.

I checked the contents of the pot once it was out (and it was ruined, but I wanted to know what it was -- maybe I could figure out how long she'd just forgotten it on the stove). She had been boiling some beans for soup. But the pot, which is about eight inches across, was filled about two inchest deep with water, and a quarter inch with beans.

It'd been on the stove long enough for every bit of water to be evaporated and the beans to catch on fire. Apparently the smoke that spilled around the edge of the pot lid bore some atomic bean-components which then stuck onto the lid and caught on fire, which is how the pot itself burned.

I'm guessing she'd just forgotten about it for an hour. Not fallen asleep. Forgotten about it.

I'm way too sick to deal with this kind of stuff, and it's depressing. But it kind of shows that my suggestion that my grandmother move into some kind of assisted living situations is not entirely unfounded.

So now I'm sick and depressed.