Well, it's been an interesting two weeks. I don't care to be that interested again, thankyouverymuch.

James and I hacked and coughed and croaked our way through Wednesday and Thursday at work. I finished my antibiotics and I guess I felt better. Poor James sounded like a raven as he did calls for eight hours each day and more than one person on one of his calls noted that "You sound like you're breaking up." "No sorry, that's my voice."

He had to soldier on Friday, and I was so glad for my compressed day off. I slept in and slept well, with my brain reminding me repeatedly that I must, must get up and take the chuck roast out of the refrigerator (where I'd put it overnight) so we could cook it to bring to Hair Day tomorrow. However, sleep overrode everything for a while, and I didn't manage to claw it off until almost ten o'clock, and then had those pesty things like breakfast and dog walking come first.

And then I had, had, had to go to Kaiser, to make sure the final bill that we have gotten from Wellstar should be paid to Wellstar. (I'd intended to go several days ago to check on this, but had been so sick I couldn't). We have been on Kaiser since 1988 and in that time Kaiser has always been clear that we should pay no medical bills to anyone but Kaiser. So when the bill finally came from the hospital I was worried. What if I paid it and then Kaiser billed us? They will not reimburse us for third-party bills that we pay. So I get there and the business office executive (there's only one) is in a meeting. So I went to kill two birds with one stone: picked up two prescriptions and went to the bathroom, something that took no longer than ten minutes, and, in that time, he managed to finish his meeting and escape to lunch. At this point I was already feeling lightheaded, but I had to get this done. So I went to hang around Barnes & Noble for an hour because anything was better than sitting in that overheated waiting room (and knew I was still feeling sick because I didn't enjoy it) and went back, and found out, yes, the bill is ours to pay and when I got home, I did, but of course today the mailman came early. He never does unless I have something to go out. Screw it. (We put it in the box Saturday. It's gone now.)

On the way home I stopped at Publix to get something for me to eat, but since I was there anyway, I might as well get all the twofers, right? This included cranberries, but I didn't get everything because I had a coupon for one of things on BOGO. I'll need to come back. We ate supper in, but that was okay, because it was the second and final night of the most fun Jeopardy Tournament of Champions ever, with Adam, Buzzy, and Austin the goofy bartender. Last night they did a coordinated intro where each contestant pointed to the next person and then finally to Alex Trebek; tonight they did "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil." Alex commented dryly, "I seem to be in the company of monkeys." No one guessed Final Jeopardy—well, I did!—and Buzzy won because he just pulled away with a zoom tonight.

So, anyway, the chuck roast didn't go in the crock pot until four, which means we had to cook it on high, which I didn't like; it comes out much more tender at low, but I wanted us to be in bed at a decent time. James was pretty fuzzy with congestion, so I concocted a vaguely oriental sauce that was supposed to either be teriyaki or orange, and we got it packed up around 10:30 and then wandered off to bed. James coughed and wheezed and sneezed his way through the night and then woke up at five all congested, so I cranked the back of the bed up. He went off to sleep, but with the bed in nearly upright position, the only way I can sleep on is my back, and I don't sleep on my back. If I sleep on my back I'm either terrified of something or I can't breathe. So I retreated to the spare room, only to not be able to lie down because my own nose was so clogged. I ended up sleeping the rest of the night propped up.

Needless to say, not a happy waking for either of us on Saturday morning. While James was getting himself together, I walked the dog and then loaded the truck. Yep, it was that time of the year again: Free Electronics Recycling Day. Time to get rid of old fans, the old receiver, the old tape deck, and our flip phones that have been shoved at the back of the laundry room, and a bunch of other crap.

It was a nice day for it, sunny and in the 40s. James sniffled and coughed through the wait, but it was a pleasant half hour, and we just talked or breathed in the nice cool air. It was silly for us to have to wait, though, because 75 percent of the people in the line had yellow stickers, which meant they were waiting for paper shredding. I don't know why they don't just shunt these folks off on their own. If they have a mixed load, that's different. It's silly to wait a half hour, only to have someone say, "Oh, you only have electronics?" and have them detour you off to a station where everyone's waiting for something to do.

Finally off to Hair Day. James sat in a corner and interacted germlessly. He could only get his hair cut, because Sheri was not comfortable working near his face with his cold. We couldn't blame her; her husband has had two surgeries and still is not recovered; all he needs is to get is a cold, too! So James still looks a bit like the wild man of Borneo. The chuck roast came out well; the sauce tasted neither of teriyaki or orange, but a nice unique taste all its own. Ron made two kinds of potatoes as a side and it was a nice meal.

We made our excuses early, and went home; eventually both of us fell asleep in the living room and didn't wake up until 3:30. Had more leftovers for supper; I have not been hungry at all because of the post-nasal drip. Everything tastes bad. Good diet, but don't recommend it. Ended up watching The Great Escape on WPBA in the evening, but missed the very end tragedy with Richard Attenborough and his compatriots because the cold front whooshed through in a great gust of cold air and pouring rain, not only knocking the satellite feed off the air, but knocking WPBA off the air period (yes, even on OTR).

The cold front meant we had a good long sleep this morning, although James still woke up sounding like a frog. We still had to go to Kroger, so I perambulated the pooch and grabbed some milk before we went off to the store. We sort of sleepwalked through Kroger—it's so cluttered that it's confusing making your way around it when you don't feel well—picking up other things we needed, but all their turkeys were too big, so we ended up going back to Publix anyway. The smallest one we could find there was thirteen pounds. I've named it Monty and for now it's living in the fruit dish. Tried some "mint chocolate chunk blended" Greek yogurt, which was a pale green and indeed recognizably minty. The "chocolate chunk" was the size of glitter.

At home I finally sorted out all the groceries, leaving James to relax. With a little bit of effort everything got put up, the pills were sorted for the week, the bed got made, and James bucked the cold to make himself more burritos. I put them in snack bags for him and they were pretty well put away as they were finished.

Really enjoyed the season finale to The Durrells in Corfu. Leslie really came into his own in this episode; I quite liked him here, and he was very unlikable in first season especially. A very fecund episode, as it were!

And now it's time for a Thanksgiving episode of Alaska: the Last Frontier.

God help me on the freeway tomorrow.

Labels: books, events, food, friends, health, shopping, sickness, television

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