Plus & Minus

Since I'm a "glass is half empty" kind of guy, let's go over the Minus part first. I've managed to pick up the stomach bug that's been going around. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled by this one little bit. Luckily I don't think I have it as severely as I could. Yesterday morning at work my stomach started gurgling and I could feel my energy levels go down really quickly. I did make two false-alarm trips to the bathroom. By the time it was time to go home, my head was throbbing, I felt like I hadn't slept in 48 hours and my stomach was still upset. I crashed hard last night. Really hard. I passed out around 7:30 and slept solidly through the night. This morning Ken asked if I'd slept well, assuming I hadn't. I said I did. He told me he was sure I didn't because Ollie had me pinned in a very awkward position and he was stationed as far up my crotch as humanly possible without being inside my body cavity making it impossible for me to move. On a normal night, I wouldn't have slept well, but my body needed to be unconscious, I guess. I got up this morning and I felt at about 85%, but so much better than yesterday. I really didn't want to miss work today because it's my last day before vacation and I had a desk full of stuff I needed to get finished. I told myself that if I started feeling like yesterday, I would just go home. While I wasn't up to snuff, I did feel much better all day today. I could feel myself getting fatigued much later in the day than yesterday. I'm going to go to bed early again tonight. I'm hoping one more night of good, solid sleep will kick the rest of this bug's ass.

Being sick sucks, especially when I have family obligations like I do the next two days. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve at my parents' house. This was almost postponed because of weather. Our next storm arrives after midnight tonight. Three storms in less than a week. This one is starting out as snow, changing over to ice and then eventually changing over to rain. I was afraid the "changing over to rain" part wasn't going to happen, but since it is, it's going to be safe to make the trek to my folks' place tomorrow afternoon. They're an hour away.

Christmas Day Ken's mother is coming over. I was kind of hoping for a quiet day at home, but now we're entertaining. I went out and bought all the fixings for dinner (which I was informed I will be cooking.... This is Ken's mother, shouldn't he be the one to cook?) on Sunday. Last night she called and told Ken she went out and bought a pork roast (or something) to bring over to be cooked. Um, if this was the plan, shouldn't it have been made known to us more than two days in advance? Well, it's too late now. We're having turkey because I bought one, dammit.

On the Plus side, I found out something today that gave me a huge ego boost. Three years ago I quit the record store I had spent the previous fifteen years working at. I stayed on just part time for a few more months after that (only because I had vacation time earned and I wasn't going to lose that. I couldn't cash it in until after the holidays and I had three weeks worth. So I was there until March) and then quit altogether. One of the guys I worked with there works in Ken's office (as well as still at the store part-time). He and Ken were talking today about the store and Paul mentioned to Ken that when I left, the home office was inundated (Paul's word) with calls from customers pissed off that I was gone. Why this never came up in the three years since I left the store, I don't know, but it really pepped me up. He said this went on for a couple of months. I'm sure it was only a small handful of people who complained, but still. To think that I was important enough for them to complain (for me, not about me!) really undermines my lack of self-worth sometimes. Damn them! I guess after being a fixture there for 15 years, it was unnerving for some of the regulars not to have me there to hold their hands.

For my song of the day, I'm going to try something a little different. Earlier this month, I posted "River" by Joni Mitchell, one of my all-time favorite songs. I'm going to post "River" again, but instead of the classic Joni version, I'm grouping together all the other versions of the song I have. I have 15 other versions of the song. As long as I have enough space left on yousendit, this will be my song of the day. If not, there will be just a picture of a frozen river.

"River" - Various Artists