Losing the Fight -- 01/03/00
I said yesterday that I was fighting a cold; it appears as if the cold is winning.

I did manage to crawl out of bed at a reasonable time this morning -- 5:42 am. Well, okay, I suppose one could debate if that is truly a reasonable time, so let's just say a reasonable time for completion of my morning tasks.

Task Number One, of course, is Feed the Cat. Tiger wants his wet food. Tiger needs his wet food. Tiger is a poor starving cat. Well, at least that is the way he acts, twisting himself around my ankles as I attempt to open the can, looking up at me and meowing. Once I set his dish down he will gulp down food for a minute or two and then be after me to open the door into the garage so he can check things out. I've taken to calling this his Dawn Patrol. I suspect that a field mouse or two may sometimes be in the garage because sometimes he just patrols, being sure to leave cat pawprints on our windshields, but other times he seems to be actively hunting and seems fascinated by the area between the back wall of the garage and a bookcase that holds the usual kinds of junk that accumulates in garages.

Then I make coffee. While the coffee is dripping I fix Nancy's lunch (two bottles of water, a container of yogurt, plastic spoon rolled up in a napkin, two granola bars, and an apple or perhaps a baggie of orange slices), set out her vitamins with a glass of orange juice, pour her a cup of coffee and bring it up to her and make sure that she is awake. Then I need to bring in the morning newspaper, toast a cinnamon-raisin bagel and wrap it in aluminum foil for Nancy's breakfast on the way to work, and fix her a travel mug of coffee. In the meanwhile I also fix my daughter a cup of coffee and bring it up to her even though I know she will take one sip and go back to sleep and I will have to wake her up again in ten or fifteen minutes. Also knock on my son's door to wake him up although it will take another half an hour before he actually comes awake enough to get ready for school. All of this, of course, is done in autopilot mode. If anything changes in the routine I would be totally thrown off balance.

By the time Nancy is on her way to work I have finished my first cup of coffee and get to sit down with a dish of cereal while I read parts of the newspaper. Then I have to make sure that the kids are up, take a shower, grab my lunch, gym bag, travel mug of coffee, laptop, etc.... I used to drive them to school on my way to work, but I bought a new car a couple months ago and I gave my old commuter car (Honda Civic with 150,000 miles on it) to my daughter, so now she drives herself and her brother to school (they're both in the same high school).

This morning, however, once I ascertained that they were making reasonable progress towards getting out of the house on time (around 7:30), I took two aspirin and another vitamin C and went back to bed for a nap. I felt terrible. After a 30 - 40 minute nap I still felt lousy but not quite as bad, so I got up and showered and dressed and came to work. Which is where I am typing this while eating lunch.

I see that I am not alone in beginning the new year with a cold. Jen is complaining about having a cold in her January 2nd entry. And Todd says in his January 1st entry that Sage and Paul both have colds. And I just had to pause in typing to answer my phone -- it was a friend who has just left my company and is just starting his new job today, and he has a bad head cold...

Nevertheless, I still feel pretty rotten. I have stuff I need to do, mostly concerned with some courses I should sit in on and determining what courses I need to take, etc. (Attempting to learn Java programming, also need to learn about UML, etc.) I think once I find out what my schedule may be like for the next month or so and make travel arrangements and enroll in classes, I will head for home... which might still keep me here all afternoon, but if all goes well maybe I can split by three o'clock...

Fighting a Cold -- 01/02/00 (yesterday's entry)

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