I'm sick but I'm pretty?

Friday, Dec. 12, 2003
5:12 PM

Hack, sniffle, cough, wheeze. I'm slogging through my second cold of the season, and it looks like it's going to drag on for a while. I'm waiting to see if my left ear develops an infection.

Luckily, Bosslady's hobby seems to be dispensing medical advice (note the sarcasm). "Make sure you cover your mouth with a tissue when you sneeze, so the germs don't go everywhere." "You need to take cold medicine continuously, so you have it in your system all the time. Otherwise it's just a waste." "You should be taking Robitussin for that cough." Imagine all that in a heavy eastern European accent and you'll have it. I managed to keep my response to quiet eye-rolling, but inside my head a voice is screaming, When did you become my mother?? But, not even my own mother treats me like that. The icing on the cake was today when she told me to wipe down everything I touched with Lysol. I'm sure her background in microbiology has something to do with that, but at that point I just mentally threw up my hands and started counting the seconds til she left.

When she remarked that she thought she was coming down with a cold, that voice in my head smugly said, "Excellent."

In spite of my plague-ridden condition, we have managed to make a decent dent in our Christmas shopping. We went out to run an errand yesterday, decided to go pick up a couple of things for my sister and then got on a roll. So we got a good start on that, which helps relieve some stress. Every year I have the best intentions of starting my shopping in October or November before Thanksgiving - every year I wind up doing it in the two weeks before Christmas. Guess I'm too much of a procrastinator to make good on those intentions. Oh well, I always manage to get it done and I have never had to go shopping on Christmas Eve. Our tree is in the garage in a bucket and I'm hoping we'll have time to put it up and decorate it soon. We had some free evenings this week but I felt so tired and crappy that being a couch spud was about all I could manage. Fortunately, I have Monday off so maybe we can get it done then.

I have a couple of small projects that I am making as gifts for people, so I'm hoping to find some time to work on those as well. I have plans for a new Twelfth Night outfit but I probably should make significant progress on the mosaic table project before I take the time to sew for myself. So we'll see if that gets done or not.

On a different note, I heard that John Sidgemore died yesterday. Many of you will probably not know who he was, unless you followed the WorldCom scandal closely (or worked there). John was at one time CEO of UUNET, was on the board at WorldCom and then stepped in as CEO when Bernie Ebbers got tossed out on his ear. The man was an entrepreneurial genius and pretty much single-handedly made UUNET the major player in the Internet industry. More than that, he was a regular guy who had a great rapport with his employees. I only met him once or twice, and I'm sure he didn't know me from Pete, but I remember that time at UUNET well. It's shocking to hear that he's gone, and I truly feel that this field has lost a giant. May he rest in peace.