Weekend in Review

I have a couple stories too good not to share.

Saturday
After P90X that morning, I went outside to read a little bit in the fresh air and enjoy a warm cup of coffee. My neighbors' son and son-in-law were in the back, enjoying some not-so-fresh air, so I sat on the front steps.

First: Geography and Backstory.

My apartment is arranged so that the front door faces my neighbor's front door, both opening into a long corridor. In the front, steps lead down to the parking lot. In the back, the steps go down to the grass. This is grass, I might add, where even the angels fear to tread. Every dog owner in the complex lets his or her dog evacuate its bowels here, so you cross at your own risk. I don't understand why. Poop bags are cheap. The dumpster is near. I guess it's too much of a hassle for some folks. I think not picking up after your dog is the worst thing you can do. Or not do. I'm not sure how the grammar works there.

My neighbors are a middle-aged couple with a teenage son who still lives at home. He's often on the back step with his high school friends, indulging in certain extracurricular activities which are now legal in Colorado and Washington. They have a daughter, probably mid-twenties, and a son-in-law. These two have their own place somewhere, but they visit often with their toddler. The son-in-law likes to talk sports to me. I love talking sports. I've spoken to every one of them on numerous occasions. I don't know any of their names, though, because I am a bad neighbor.

Saturday morning, as I sat on the front steps, the son and son-in-law were sitting in the back, partaking in extracurricular activities, coughing, and talking in nasally voices. The daughter came out of the apartment, put a bag in the car, then walked past me to talk to her husband. It was then I noticed how extremely pregnant she was. I've been in this apartment for 9 months, which means she's been pregnant the entire time, and not a chunky monkey like I thought.

She walked back and talked to him for a moment. Asked how much longer he would be. He told her just a few minutes. She sounded irritated. She stomped to the car, started it, backed it out of the spot and sat idling in front of the apartment. They have a Mustang, by the way. That should explain everything.

After a few minutes, he walked out to the driver's side of the car. She rolled down the window and they got into a little tiff. A spat. As married couples are wont to do. At least, that's what I hear. He sounded scattered. She sounded angry. He told her just a few more minutes, then turned around and walked back up to the apartment.

He blinked at me with two bloodshot eyes. We spoke.

Me: How's it going?
Him: We're having a baby today...
Me: Congratulations!
Him: It's a girl, we're going to name her... (I don't remember what he said.)
Me: That's very exciting!
Him: It is exciting... so exciting I just have to be stoned...

He returned to the extracurricular activities with his teenage brother-in-law. His pregnant wife stared at me from behind the wheel of the Mustang. It made me feel uncomfortable, so I went inside.

Long Story, Short: New Baby in the World! Very Exciting!

Sunday
My birthday. We had a laid back day. Aine made breakfast after P90X. I made lunch. We went to Barnes and Noble and I spent most of the day reading. Before dinner, we went to Picadilly (a liquore store: liquor stores are open on Sundays here) and bought two beers (you can buy them by the bottle at Picadilly). I got an IPA and Aine got a brown ale. I fixed dinner and we drank our beers with the meal to celebrate my special day. We watched some Parks and Recreation, then went to sleep. We are party animals and we will not apologize for it.

Monday
I felt off during P90X. Just not myself. Less energy. I blamed it on the 12 ounces of ethanol, water, and tannic acid to which my body is no longer accustomed. After breakfast, my stomach felt weird, but I went down the hall to work.

It was important that I went to work. For one, Mondays are usually crisis days. For two, by some weird scheduling anomaly, everyone in my group, including my manager, took vacation this week (except for me and one other person).

Most of the morning, I had a headache, chills, and nausea. I thought maybe it would go away. No. That afternoon the puking commenced.

The beautiful thing about working from home is that you don't have to call in sick. You can puke for a little bit, then write some emails. Curl up in a ball on the floor for a few minutes, then work on formatting. Dry heave and weep into the toilet bowl, then do some publishing.

When you up-chuck, you have a few moments of relief before the tide of queasy starts to crescendo again and build to another ralf. I used one of these down times to go pick Aine up from school.

Then we had a snowstorm. I could see maybe 15 feet in front of the Yaris. This made the drive to campus seem really long.

That night, before bed, Aine took my temperature. I knew I had a fever all day, I didn't see the point in verifying it. Plausible deniability. She took my temperature anyway. It was 100 °F, which is only halfway to the boiling point and brain cells don't start popping like popcorn (State Snackfood of Illinois) until 106 °F, so I went to bed. Did you know that popcorn reaches an internal temperature of 450 °F before popping with the force of 135 PSI?

It wasn't only me, though, I just had it worse. Aine felt queasy all day and Bojangles yakked twice.

I have pictures, but Aine said it wouldn't be appropriate to post them on the blog. I don't see why. If you want to see them, just ask and I'll include them in the next post. I know you're curious to see what half digested craisins and peanut butter look like.

Tuesday
It snowed again. Also, my fever broke and I was able to eat for the first time since Sunday night. Most importantly, I got all my work done. My record remains mostly pristine. In the seven years I've been there, I haven't taken more than two or three full days of sick time (the last time I had the flu, I worked two half days). I have used less sick time than anyone else in my group. Some of us care more about formatting and publishing than others. So, next time you buy a new gadget and throw the user manual in a junk drawer without reading it, just remember: someone might have worked through a stomach virus to ensure that the layout looked pretty.

Wednesday
It's still snowing. We've skipped two days of P90X. I almost feel normal again. It was bad planning on my part to have a stomach virus the first Monday after Spring Forward when my entire group was on vacation. I take full responsibility.

Moral of this Story
Dulce et decorum est pro occupatio vomitere.