Well, this was a weekend that turned out so much better than the week that proceeded it!

Tuesday started out fine, except that my sinuses were hurting. That's usual when it rains as often as it has this summer. However, when I took my lunch break the physical pain turned into an annoying post-nasal drip/runny nose situation. By bedtime I couldn't breathe through my nose at all, despite the hot steamy shower, and had to retreat to bed with a fresh box of Kleenex. My mouth was so dry that I was up every twenty minutes for a sip of water. I was so desperate for relief about three a.m. that I went into the bathroom and pulled out the jar of Vicks Vap-o-rub and stuck my nose over it, hoping that breathing in the fumes would clear my nose. Fat chance. I couldn't even smell it! When your nose is so clogged you can't smell Vicks, that is pathetic! By the time the alarm rang I calculated I had about two hours sleep. So I slept on, sort of, for another three hours, and then went into work. I swore after I worked during most of the flu that the next time I was sick I would stay home and get well, but there's too much damn work to do. I hate working when I'm like this because I have to move so deliberately; things that take me five minutes when I'm well took forever because it was so difficult to think and I had to juggle keyboard and tissues. And it was so hot: 80 degrees in the office that afternoon. It was very hard to breathe.

I had a low-grade fever on Tuesday night, but it was gone by Wednesday morning, or I wouldn't have gone in. It was back by the time I got home, and it must have spiked during the night. I was shivering and so cold after my hot shower and used the comforter Wednesday night, and every time I woke up I felt like I was on fire. By the time morning came, it seemed to have burned itself out, but it was still a struggle getting through the day teleworking; I really needed an extra hand for the tissues! It helped that it was cooler outside and the ceiling fan was going.

Thankfully Friday was my compressed day off. I slept in a little and did a little housework. I had planned to assemble the Gnedby units we bought on Sunday, but there simply wasn't enough air to breathe, and most of the time my right hand had a Kleenex in it. We had supper at Panera and the hot soup tasted like that legendary ambrosia. One walk around Barnes & Noble exhausted me. But I did pick up the autumn "Cottage Journal" to cheer myself up, and the new Lady Emily Hargreaves mystery.

We had a nice surprise on Friday: I got a Facebook message saying our friends Clay and Maggi were going to be in town this weekend on a Home Goods/Ikea expedition. So we made plans to go out with them to dinner, but in the meantime we slept late (and I was finally sleeping now), and then went to Costco looking for spaghetti sauce because I wanted to make more pork and gravy. We came out with a lot more because I decided to use the rest of my performance bonus to buy a new camera. I wanted a longer telephoto lens, so bought a Panasonic Lumix with a 60X optical zoom. The instant rebate on the camera ended on Saturday, so it was fish or cut bait. I've been debating on this for months and finally decided to take the plunge. I also bought a book about World War I.

My favorite part of the trip was going into the cold room where they keep the milk. It was the first place I could breathe properly in the past five days! I could have stayed in there all morning.

Anyway, we got the milk home, and then tried to find a scooter store James thought he saw around downtown Marietta. We couldn't find it and finally consulted Google Maps. Good luck with that! According to Google Maps the place was in the middle of Glover Park. Say what?

So we got home and James did a long delayed cleaning of the stove while I tidied up and vacuumed yet again. I had just finished when Clay and Maggi showed up. Now, we were very interested to see what Tucker's reaction to visitors would be. Willow was the world's best Omega personality, but she always barked at visitors; we called this "the Ritual Barking of the Dog." But Mr. I'll-Tackle-That-German-Shepherd accepted visitors as fine because Daddy let them into the house. Snowy was fine with it and sang for the entire evening and most of the morning, too. I believe he enjoyed having his own flock.

Of course he ran them ragged for the rest of the night, as neither of them suffer from allergies, so he could jump into their laps to his heart's content.

They had been to Home Goods and were planning on going to Ikea tomorrow, so we asked if they wanted crash space. This they accepted, and they treated us to dinner. We went to Giovanni's, where we feasted on various Italian delicacies (I had lobster ravioli; it was still delicious, but they didn't used to glop so much cheese on it). James' pork marsala was made from a big cut of pork; he brought more than half of it home. We went by Bruster's for dessert and treated them to ice cream.

Again slept in this morning, and am waking up finally feeling mostly normal. I hope this is a good omen for the week; I really want to crank out some work! I was up first so I took Tucker on his perambulations. At ten o'clock it was warm, but there was a nice breeze and the dew was still glittering on the grass. All his "good dogs" done, we returned to find people straggling awake one by one.

Clay and Maggi headed off for Ikea about eleven and we headed for our usual Sunday sojourn at Kroger. We were so hungry we just bought our food and skedaddled after James got gasoline, in the process forgetting to get a newspaper. Once the groceries were put up, we decided to go to the Petco at Town Center to see if they had Tucker's favorite dog food, the Pro Plan "shredded chicken." We went via IHOP and ate off the senior menu, and then picked up the dog food and some dog cookies and headed home, stopping only to get a newspaper at the QT. Once we got home, we ditched the truck and took the car to Kroger for gasoline. Finally we were done.

Had the chicken legs we got at Kroger this morning for supper; cooked them all and still have another meal and a couple of legs for lunches as well! Watched Friday's episodes of Make Room for Daddy, and then this week's Tiny House Nation. This couple seemed a lot more sensible and they got the cutest little 220 square foot house; it was on wheels because the young woman was a mobile nurse and worked in different parts of the country. Nobody abandoned their cats. They showed another tiny house in the process where the people actually owned books!

Labels: books, dogs, electronics, food, friends, pets, sickness, television

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