Monkey On My Back!

It was such a lovely Spring day here in the great state of Maine...what? Oh, it's January. Well, excuse me! It's fifty degrees, for crying out loud! How am I supposed to keep track of the seasons when the warm breezes are a-blowin' and the grass is still green in places? Cut me some slack.

Where was I? Oh, yeah...the warmth. I couldn't quite seem to get a handle on why I was so darned chilly all day. I chalked it up to the watery blood of the aged and went merrily on with my routine.

My knees, hips, elbow and other assorted joints were a bit on the achy side. Well, again: I'm hobbling towards the golden years. And the workouts have been filled with great gusto of late, what with my holiday fudge guilt and all. Who wouldn't be a little sore?

And the headache? Hey, I teach, for goodness sake! Who wouldn't have a throbbing noggin after hearing for the umpty-gajillionth time that you are the most unfair person to ever walk this planet?

There was the itchy feeling in the throat, but that could easily be chalked up to some sort of fruit allergy. I've been eating fruit steadily for three days now as part of the salute to healthy eating. I am not set up for the fruit eating. I am clearly having some sort of reaction to it. That's all...

But wait! What was that? Did you hear that? There it was again! It's...it's...a sneeze!!!

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I've been pretty lucky so far during this school year. I had one brush with the snufflies back in the early Fall, but that was it. Every other precursor to misery was quickly fought off by my ever alert squadron of white blood cells and the added defenses of my flu shot. I was feeling a little on the "invincible" side.

Bad call.

Thanks to a couple of student absences, I was able to leave the classroom in the capable hands of my staff and head home a bit early. Knowing that the last workout of the week was going to be a washout, I stocked up on flavored water and a nice, big turkey sub on the way home. Protein is your friend when you are feeling punk, you see. I was home while the sun still shone, wrapped in flannel p.j.'s and clenching a thermometer between my chattering teeth. Happily, the temp. was just under 100 which is workable for me. And it's dropped since then, so we are thinking this is not a return of the dreaded '06 Monkey Pox.

The whole "laying on the couch and seizing from fever" experience has left me with a paralyzing fear of sickness and the like. I'm probably a bit prone to the over-reacting at this point, I suppose. But, 5 months of Monkey Pox/pneumonia was memorable. And not in the scrapbooking kind of way. The kind that lets you see long-gone childhood pets gamboling in the light at the end of the tunnel and then affords you the opportunity to write many, many checks to doctors whom you never actually saw in person.

So, I'm taking it a bit on the easy side for the next couple of days. I'm planning on going in to work tomorrow, but will head home early. Other than a visit with The World's Greatest Stylist on Saturday morning to deal with the hair that wants to be twenty-something again, I'm planning on a quiet weekend. I'm guessing that there will also be some progress on sock #2. I'll have some time on my hands, after all.

Me 'n The Monkey will be in for the weekend.

SA