Tuesday. December 11, 2001

pastry ranch at the Four Seasons

"Nothing is work, unless you'd rather be doing something else".

James M. Barrie

I take a couple of Echinecea and go off to work, figuring I'll be low by noon. It's cold and rainy, miserable weather to be sick.

I am late to my first meeting. (I hate people who get to meetings late and then start talking like they know what's going on. That was me.) The second thing I have to do is talk on the phone to someone. I'm there when they call and get that done.

One of the groups that I work with has planned a Christmas pot luck today. I have inexplictably said I'd come and bring an appetizer. I had thought of making deviled eggs. But last night I didn't feel like going out or doing anything so I certainly didn't make them.

I go out in the cold and rain to the grocery store, thinking that any minute I'm going to feel bad again. I get some cheese balls and crackers and take them back to my office, remove the plastic from the cheese balls and voilà 'homemade' appetizer. I join in the feed, going through the line after a few folks had started seconds. There was a ton of food. I got a little brisket and a little turkey, green beans, etc. Then a little more. I put the weird-looking leftover cheese balls in the kitchen and got even more takers. I think if I'd gotten enough crackers that they would have been entirely eaten. There is so much food this time of the year. I didn't eat any sweets and there were many. Where do people find all that time to bake this time of year?

I keep feeling good in the afternoon. I work on my BIG project. The one that will never end. I feel good, working feels good. Cool.

At the end of the day, FFP calls and wants to skip the lecture we were going to downtown and just eat at Fonda. That's fine with me. The weather is still awful. It pours on the way home and Mopac is creeping along. Should have taken an alternative route. But I didn't so I just stick with it.

At Fonda, we have some queso and then I have a cup of tortilla soup and a spinach salad. They made the best spinach salad there.

I still feel good but at home, I'm a little tired. (Maybe it was the margarita and the glass of wine.)

I try to read but find myself dozing and dozing. Then I wake up in my chair and find the throat is hurting again. It's been twenty-four hours since I had a Dimetapp. So I take another one, figuring this will end the bout.

JUST TYPING
When you feel better.
It's like a high.
Better than better.
Getting over a cold is such pleasure.