jimsjournal
| Under the weather -- 04/24/04 |
jimsjournal |
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I'd been fighting a cold all week long. On Monday and Tuesday I woke up with a scratchy throat but a glass of orange juice and a cup or two of coffee later, I would feel better. On Wednesday I knew I was really fighting off a cold and on Thursday I thought the cold might be winning. Friday was a rough day. I felt tired all day, with aches and pains (even though I hadn't worked out all week) and a sore throat and a hoarseness that just kept getting worse. I had a telephone meeting with my manager scheduled for four o'clock (telephone meeting because I work in Rhode Island and he works in D.C. -- just another example of how businesses are becoming virtualized). The meeting was mostly to discuss my IDP -- my Individual Development Plan -- that is, what were my short, medium and long-range career plans, what kind of training opportunities, etc. would I need to achieve these goals. (I would take this thing a lot more seriously if it didn't seem that everytime over the past two years that I've identified some training I thought that I needed, there would be a travel freeze or an expenses freeze, etc.) Four o'clock came and went. No phone call. Finally, somewhere between ten after and quarter after, I instant messaged him to ask if he was tied up. Yes, but he hadn't forgotten me and he would be with me in a couple of minutes. Wait a few more minutes. Twenty past. Send another instant message. "I'm wiped out. Let's reschedule for sometime next week." It turns out that next week he will actually be in my location, observing the beta presentation of a new three day class. So, we might actually get to sit down together to go over this stuff instead of doing in on the phone. Of course, he'll be pretty tied up with that class, but I'm guessing we can find some piece of time over those three days. I'm actually planning to be in the office on Wednesday and Thursday. (I have to... Thursday is my birthday and so I need to be their so I can be surprised by my co-workers when they bring out a birthday cake... It's kind of a department tradition. Except once, about five years ago, I was packing up to leave a bit early one day in late March when they began to tell me I couldn't leave so soon, I needed to stick around a bit longer... and then they brought out a cake and started singing. Well, that was a big surprise, since my birthday is April 29th, not March 29th... whoever was keeping track of birthdays had written it down wrong.) Actually, I am really guilty of overusing the word "actually" in this paragraph. I made some stir fry chicken and veggies for dinner last night -- just Nancy and Jill and me, Jeremy was working. I had stopped on the way home and picked up a movie -- Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. Wasn't expecting a whole lot from it, just a few grins and chuckles, but Nancy and I both really enjoyed it and, despite feeling under the weather, I was having a good time, laughing out loud. Nicholson and Keaton are both good, but I especially enjoyed Keaton's performance. Quick plot summary: Nicholson is a 63 year old business man (music business) who only dates attractive young women under age 30. His latest date brings him out to her mother's beach house in the Hamptons. You guessed it, Diane Keaton is her mother, a very successful playwright. Instant antagonism between Nicholson and Keaton which, of course, you know will turn to sex and romance (or romance and sex). (Nicholson and Keaton are about ten years apart in age, as are the characters they play but, interestingly enough, the characters are about four years younger than the actors' true ages.) Francis McDormand is marvelous in a few brief scenes as Keaton's feminist college professor sister, wish her part had been larger. Keanu Reeves, for some reason, is cast as the thirty-something doctor who is in love with Keaton. At first I thought it was an actor from one of those TV shoes (like St. Elsewhere or E.R.). It's a fairly long movie (for a romantic comedy) but entertaining and worth watching. It's been a long time since Five Easy Pieces and Annie Hall. Woke up this morning feeling horrible... and went down hill from there. I hadn't felt this sick in years. Aches and pains. Very sore throat. Very rough voice. Harsh cough. Fever and chills. Yuck! I spent most of the afternoon lying on the couch in my den, alternately reading Neal Stephenson's novel Quicksilver (the first in a trilogy: the Baroque Cycle -- book two -- The Confusion -- has just been published and the third, The System of the World, will be out in September) and napping. I think I actually did more napping than reading. Every once in a while I would wake up, wash down aspirin and vitamin C and zinc with cranberry juice, then go back to reading/napping. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and was covered with an afghan because of chills and shakes. A really rotten afternoon. I'm feeling better this evening -- or should I say, better in comparison to how I felt earlier -- but I'm still under the weather and I'm going to post this and pop some more vitamins and aspirin and go to bed. |
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