July 22, 1999
Dear Everyone:
Status update on last week’s cold:
I think I’m going to live.
It was touch and go there for a while.
I had forgotten how sick being sick can make you feel.
By last Thursday afternoon, I had realized that
there was no way I was going to be able to sit in a dentist’s chair for
an hour with people sticking their fingers and things into my mouth that
Friday. So, I called the
specialist’s office and they graciously rescheduled me for this week,
since there was no way they wanted me and my viruses coughing and
sneezing all over their office either.
By Friday morning, I was contemplating taking the
Trip to
Lourdes. But then I
realized that I wasn’t even feeling up to taking a trip to my office,
which is much closer.
Instead, I threw myself on the mercy of a couple of coworkers and got
them to take care of the few critical things that I had originally
planned to do.
On both Thursday and Friday, I called my
Voice Mail and
croaked a message that I was out of the office for “the day”.
I must have sounded frightening enough because no one so much as
left a message. They
probably just jumped away from the phone and started spraying it with
antibiotics.
Other than that, I just followed Mother’s advice
and hung around on the sofa, watching TV and using up
Kleenexes.
(Mother kept sending email notes that read, “Lots of rest…lots of
fluids…lots of TV.”) Killed
six boxes of Kleenex by Sunday.
However, by said Sunday, I was beginning to feel a little, tiny
bit better. I was also
getting sick and tired of being sick.
I even made a half-hearted offer to drive up to
“Jeannie’s” place to whack her hard drive for her.
Instead, we were able to get it going over the phone by my
talking her through taking the case off the
CPU
and “gently tapping” the hard drive with the handle of a screwdriver.
(I hope everyone understands that I’m talking about the
hand-me-down PC that I gave her.
The hard drive freezes up from time to time if you don’t turn the
machine on at least once a day.)
I was also thoroughly tired of watching boats and
helicopters endlessly quartering the waters off
Martha’s
Vineyard, searching for
John Kennedy’s lost airplane every time I stopped the
VCR.
Changing channels didn’t seem to make any difference.
It was either that or stock footage of a three-year-old
making a salute with no idea why he was doing it.
So I went in to work on Monday, although I probably
should have stayed home one more day.
Killed four more boxes of Kleenex so far this week.
But I’m definitely on the mend and made it into the dentist’s
office to get fitted with the infamous “night
guard” which may or may not fix my
TMJ
(Totally Messed-up Jaw; or more hopefully, Temporarily Messed-up Jaw).
And I fully expect to be feeling great by the time
we leave for
Ashland next week for our annual pilgrimage to the
Shakespeare Festival.
Been looking forward to it all year.
Love, as always,
Pete
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