the words in my head.

Today's been a rough day. After the week of the fastest sick ever, spending Wednesday at home sleeping, Thursday in meetings, and Friday driving around suburban Virginia in a trek to the biggest waste of time since, I'm gonna say, August, I celebrated the end of the week with dinner at the pub with Momola and a co-worker. We laughed about stupid people (see Early Morning Wake-up Call) and other folks who get on our nerves. It was a good way to end the week, but there was a lot of talking yesterday, and towards the end of the day my throat was a little scratchy.

Twelve hours later, when I woke up, my throat was still sore. Not a big deal, I made a pot of tea, and sat down with the computer and my DVR remote. My morning's are quiet, so it took a while for the blogs to make me laugh and the squawk of my throat to alert me to today's health development. I'd lost my voice. And not just kind of, in a 'let me clear my throat' kind of way. We're not even talking about the voice-loss that goes away at the end of the morning, leaving you thinking you just needed a warm-up. I haven't been able to talk all day. At all. Everything comes out as a whisper, and a sentence leaves me coughing - which is almost funny, because I'm not coughing otherwise.

It's occured to me today just how much I talk in a given day. Even on the weekend days I don't leave the house. I call Meredith and chat with the Dumpster, I call the folks to tell them random things, and I call to bug Christopher about getting together for Sunday brunch. Today it was me, the tv, and the computer - I couldn't even talk the that cat. Talk about stir crazy - if you can call it stir crazy when you're trapped inside your head.

Side note: I didn't do anything useful like catch up on e-mail, or sort through yesterday's mail. But I did join Twitter - that's right, I now tweet. Snarky one-liners all the day long. Sounds like fun, but if I can't talk tomorrow there's going to be some violence.

Oh yeah, and happy Valentine's day, or something. It didn't really occur to me that that's what today was, until my sick and sorry ass fixated on pudding and I wanted someone to run to the market for me. Yup, the only time I really regret the lack of a man in my life is when I want to pout and make someone else go by me some ice cream.

Sick girls shouldn't run for the bus.

Well, I wasn't wrong, this is a truly crazy month, and it just occurred to me that it's almost half over - how did that happen? Work has been busy, the weekend was busy - although much fun, as well - and then this week found me germ infested.

First this weekend, because bottomless champagne brunch and flip-flops in February are so much nicer to ponder than coughing fits and runny noses. That's right, in a sudden burst of sunshine, I went to Indian brunch with Bill and Anna, where chicken curry and palak paneer were simmering, the bubbly flowed, and conversation - well, Bill and Anna are never boring! When Anna and I stumbled upon the topic of mani/pedis and decided to treat ourselves, the day became a holiday in my book. We left the salon wearing the world's most uncomfortable flip flops, but our toes looked great, and I peer-pressured her into my favorite weekend activity, wandering through a bookstore. Even a little bit of work I had to do that evening couldn't dull the shine of my Sunday.

Wednesday, however, I could've done without. I felt fine Monday, and stayed far away from the germy-worms at the office, having dinner with Momola and Daddo that night before heading home to a glass of orange juice and an early bedtime - see, I was good! Tuesday morning I started to feel a little stuffy in the nose area, and by the end of the day I was pretty much crawling. So much so that when Momola offered me a ride home (a.k.a., told me she was driving me home) I didn't have the energy to argue. In fact, the thought of getting on the metro that day made me want to cry. The problem? Wednesday was a big day of meetings at the office - important meetings that I'd helped to arrange and wanted to be part of. However, when showering and walking around in a one-bedroom apartment for half an hour makes you out of breath and in need of a nap, you probably aren't going to be much use outside in the big, wide world. So I waved the white flag, sent the requisite emails, and curled up in a miserable ball. That was pretty much my day. I found enough energy to make tea once, and microwave some soup, and drink OJ. And I slept. A lot. I was glad to wake up this morning feeling much better, and nowhere near as exhausted. I even managed to get ready without feeling the need for a nap. I left the house ready for day two of the meetings I'd missed out on yesterday, and as I got to the top of the hill I saw my bus at the stop - a block away. So I hoofed it. And I made it. But as I sat down and suppressed the coughing spell that threatened to scare my fellow bus riders I realized that I could have waited for the next bus.

Although, maybe if I'd coughed all over the crotch of the man standing in front of me he'd have backed the hell up. I'd say that's a disadvantage of the bus, but on the train, where seats are perpendicular to the side of the car, guys lean their hips on the side of the seat, and you end up with crotch contact at your shoulder - contact.

At least on the bus you can hold your book at a poking height.

Sleeping sickness.

I was sick as a dog last week, coughed my way to a lone seat on the train coming back from New York, and it only got worse from there. I even stayed home sick one day - without having to use any sick time, which peeves me - but by the end of the day Thursday I was dragging. I made arrangements with my client to be available from home on Friday, but come Friday morning, even that wasn't an option. In addition to the cold that had exploded in my system, nose stopped up, throat raw, and coughing continuously, suddenly Friday morning I found mucus coming out of my eyeball. I know, it's gross, reading about it can't be worse than seeing it, particularly when you're seeing it come out of your own eyeball. A quick google search found conjunctivitis as the most likely cause, especially as preceeded by a sinus condition, such as a cold.

That's right, I had pink eye.

It was 6 o'clock in the morning when I woke up to this mess, and I couldn't call my doctor until after 9am. It was a miserable three hours spent carefully wiping my eye with cotton balls, washing my hands, and calling Momola to yell at her for giving me the grossness. (Note: that's not actually confirmed, but it turns out two people in her office floor were contaminated, and she saw them more than I, and the day before I had noted her red eyes. Also, I didn't actually yell, I merely guilted her into packing up and heading for the doctor herself.) I finally got in touch with my doctor's office and made an appointment, which required I rol into sweatpants, and a hat (bed head only affects me when I want to leave the house without showering) and head for the bus - I'm sure the folks on the bus were pumped to see me, coughing and blowing my nose, with one eye red, puffy, and half-closed.

My doctor is a taciturn man, whose occasional attempts at humor are those you'd expect from a doctor, "oh, you work for the government, you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me, eh?" Except imagine that in a toneless deadpan. He seems generally unimpressed with any attempts for the patient to demonstrate knowledge - as he told me how to care for my eyes as if I were a small child I stepped in and told him I had been doing just as he said, and he just looked at me for a moment before continuing as if I hadn't interrupted. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, just a little short on the people skills. It actually freaks me out less than the doctors who are overly cheerful. I walked away with a prescription for eye drops and an admonition that I was highly contagious for 5 days and told to stay away from the general population. I got back on the bus and headed to Target, where I was told that they didn't have my eye drops in stock. Thinking that if I had to get back on the bus and go to the hospital pharmacy I'd be really annoyed (and already annoyed that I was going to be housebound for 5 days) I headed to the worst CVS ever. They had the eye drops... and every crying baby for a mile around. Here I am feeling awful for standing within six feet of any small person and risking passing the pink eye around, and these mothers keep crowding closer to me in line, cause it's a good idea to stand closer to someone whose eye is slowly closing. While the prescription was being filled, I headed back to Target to stock up on amusement for the next five days.
I acquired:

• new holiday pajamas (complete with holly berries)
• a penguin t-shirt
• a new wrap sweater that I never did get to wear, because they've turned the heat on in my apartment, oh, but it's wonderful
• penguin underpants (they came in a trio with holiday ornament underpants!)
• Arrested Development Season 2
• cold drugs (because when I cave, I cave absolutely)
• enough food to tide me over until the next day's Peapod delivery

And so I've spent the past five days at home, and until today, sleeping. We're talking all but six hours of the day sleeping, and they weren't consecutive. Even yesterday I was afraid that going back to work on Wednesday would be rough, but today I have been awake all day, nap-free! I put up and decorated my Christmas tree (penguins!) , wrapped some presents, did some online Christmas shopping, and even did some laundry - yay, me! I'm sure a full day tomorrow is going to wreck me, but I'm really excited about leaving the house tomorrow!

Oh yeah, and there are pictures of the tree - I'll post them later.

Trick or Treat

Thursday night found Momola, Meredith, and me in a discussion of Halloween costume glory. Little Dumpster was Buzz Lightyear, and having a great time with it, too. I was surprised to see him wearing the hood last night, though. Earlier in the week, when his parents took him to Disney for Halloween, he was not having any of it, and I kind of like that picture better:

Ha Ha! He's doing his very best to rip that bad boy off his head! Momola was feeling the Grandma-Guilt for not making his costume this year, and Meredith's feeling the Mom-Guilt for not making his costume, as Momola did so well when we were little. There was the princess that became a dress-up staple for a long time afterwards, the Hershey's Kiss, and I remember an M&M... Ironically, years later, without access to a fabric store in the city, I would go to Target, buy a Barbie princess costume, and rip it to shreds in order to make myself into a cosmopolitan - complete with a lime-wedge hat. I couldn't find a picture of that one, but both Momola and Meredith like the irony of going from princess to destruction of princess hopes for another little girl in pursuit of alcoholic fantasies. I say, No Comment. I couldn't find a picture of that fabulously fun costume. What I did find was the year I remembered being a princess, and more importantly, how Momola made me a crown with cardboard and aluminum foil. I emulated her creative genius to fashion a giant pair of tweezers and became a life-size Operation game. I picked up a doctor that year - or at least, a man dressed up as a doctor... in all honestly, he was a lame duck, all long phone conversation and no initiative. I hung up.

This year? I waited without really thinking about going out or fashioning a costume. I made last-minute plans to steals a friend's old costume idea (I'll refrain from mentioning it here, because in future years, I may still steal it). All my laziness paid off, however, when I got sick and spent Halloween in my comfy pants watching tv. It wasn't too shabby. Hope you all had a Happy Halloween. Me? I guess I'll start thinking about costume's for next year.

no baby love.

That baby is too sick to come make his Auntie sick. That is some serious dedication to illness. He's got his momma missing her high school reunion, visiting with her family, and catching up with friends. He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be hearing about this for years. We're all bummed, of course, but mostly hoping he gets better soon. In the meantime, I'll just have to content myself with this image. Change the sippy cup to a longneck and I see that kid in twenty years. Ok, ok, we all know it won't be twenty years, but his momma reads this blog.

I was looking forward to hanging with Meredith this weekend, I was going to go camp out at the Folks' for maximum Meredith and Dumpster time. Daddo was none too impressed that kittay was still at the house (and she's still there). Now I get to arrange a kittay fetching and, gasp, clean my apartment?? I love that Dumpster to death, but what a time to get sick. Little loveable jerk.

is it the debate or the food poisoning?

Yup, I ate some bad oysters during my stay on Martha's Vineyard. They didn't get me right away, but in the middle of the night, right before we were supposed to get up and pack out, I woke up running to the bathroom. I spent the rest of the night trying desperately to sleep in between kneeling to the porcelain and the gurgles in my gut. Oh, it was awful. I had to listen for when Momola woke up and call out to her on the stairs, "I'm going to be less than usless this morning." There's nothing quite like being almost 30 years old, rushing out of the shower to stand, dripping and towel-wrapped, retching until tears come and having your mother have to come hold your hair. I made it through ferry, car, plane, and final car rides without losing anything else, but really, there was nothing left to lose. I arrived at my parents' house completely undone. I spent Monday napping at their house with the cat lying at my hip. I ate toast and broth.

Today I went to work. It was decided early on that I had no interest in my opera ticket for this evening, so that was given away. Shortly thereafter I decided that a full day might be too much for me. First I had a meeting to go to. It ended with a pizza delivery, and despite the hunger the smell awoke, the mingled smells of tomato sauce and jalapeno peppers quickly chased me out of the room. It wasn't too much longer that I was on the phone with Lady, telling her I had to pack it in soon. She listened briefly, and then announced, "you're about to become the girl who stops the train. I'm coming to pick you up." I assumed she was referring to the fact that Metro shuts down whenever someone sniffles, not stopping the train by falling in front of it, Anna Karenina style... She kindly drove me into the city, where I promptly fell asleep.

I'm awake now and watching the debate, and I'm so glad that McCain wants us to achieve peace in the world - he said so. He also tells us every time he's on tv that America has the best workers, the most productive and the most innovative. I'm not so sure about that these days. It was India that gave us Scrabulous, after all. And tell me more about the greed, excess, and crony-ism in Washington and Wall Street, old man, tell me more. Act like you never heard of the Keating Five. Also, I think Palin is rubbing off on him, because his sentence structure leaves something to be desired tonight. Way to side-step and ignore Darfur, you old jerk, you didn't even say the name. I should probably stop now.

Here's to some food with flavor tomorrow, assuming the politi-speak doesn't keep my stomach turned.

Three strikes, but not out

I came home early from work today, because I felt like crap. I thought this morning that aside from the sore throat that I was just tired - my weekend was a blast but not exactly restful, and last night I literally ran all over the city (see below) - but as the day progressed my head got fuzzy and I could feel myself tuning out. So home I came. I napped, did a little work, and am currently curled up in bed with kittay and faffing about on the internet.

So my company does its own version of Amazing Race to race money for a local animal shelter, and teams go all over Arlington, VA and DC. My team involved myself, a guy from my pub trivia team who telecommutes from Michigan and is in town a couple times a month, my office mate, and a friend of hers from college. We were G-MEN: Globally-Motivated, Extremely Nerdy. The only downside to our team? I don't drive in the city, Daryl is obviously an out-of-towner, and Karen and her friend live in VA. Since the key to the race was getting places fast, we were at a disadvantage. But it was a lot of fun, we made a lot of people stare as we ran down Metro platforms and city blocks. Our biggest mistake? We went to the Russian embassy at one point instead of the bar called Russia House - that slowed us down. I think the first time one participates the thing is a little more stressful than fun, but it was interesting, and we learned strategies for next year... watch out!

It was a chilly, rainy night, though, and that didn't help me resist the germs I was exposed to during my visit with the Snot Bucket (I swear, Dumpster generates more snot than any kid I've ever seen!) - I think his mucus production rivals Clara's early spit-up issues! So Auntie is sick again, and trying to recover without getting hit too bad - I've got a busy couple of weeks at work! This is the third time I've visited that baby and gotten sick after, hence the post title, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to see him all the time! But, it's Claudia's birthday this weekend, and I need to be ready to dance Friday night! I am looking forward to it! And there are more pictures from the weekend (we took about 100!) but I don't feel up to dealing with photos and a fuzzy head, so they'll come soon.