Sick as a...well...what else?

So I pride myself on staying well as much as I can (control). I am not too Niles Crane-ish (or Warren Hodges-ish, for those of you who know and love my brother) about it, but I am generally packed to the gills with Emergen-C pretty much from September to April. Anytime anyone in the office even coughs, I grab one out of the drawer and fire it up.

So training was going along swimmingly well (well, except for the swimming), and I topped off the tank Thursday night with a nice little tempo run. 50 minutes total, and at a good clip, I felt good. It was right before dusk and we even managed to pass some high school rowers out for their cardio. Times were good. That all wrapped up at about 7pm.

By the time I had stretched, eaten, and showered, I knew. My body had That Feeling. Friday morning I went into work optimisitcally, jacked up on water, Emergen-C, and Esberitox. I met Dad at lunch to do a quick run to Blick and to get his (amazing, fabulous, no I am not just incredibly biased)watercolors that I am in charge of dropping off for the upcoming Spotlight on Art show mid-February here in Atlanta. By 1pm I was ready to throw in the towel; my head was clogged, my throat hurt, and I felt like I was on another planet. Once I set up a meeting in Outlook for some coworkers without a subject line I said, that's it, I am going home.

I did a quick change into jammies and then hit the couch. And then, the gift. The gift from Granny...a Little House on the Prairie back-to-back twofer. YES! For any of you who know me well, you know that Little House is my preferred tool for convalescence. Two episodes and then a 2 hour nap later, I was well on my way to at least not being taken down fully.

Saturday I got up and thought, okay. Working out is out, cleaning is out, thinking is out. What's something I can do that I would never take the time to do otherwise?

I took the girls to the spa, a place called That Dirty Dog. It's one of those drop-them-off or rent-our-tubs facilities, and let me tell you....the latter sure beats the gawdawful wet and fur mess that is left behind by bathing the girls. Tilley is a fast drier but Laika - honestly - could be leveraged to be some sort of water-retaining device for the drought-stricken Atlanta area if we could just figure out how to get the water back out of her pelt.

Tilley went first, then wanted to sit in the tub with Laika "to be there for her". Then it was dryer time. Laika enjoyed being on the table with the collar clip a la Best in Show, but Tilley took a while to get used to the hot beast attacking her fur. Though she did put up an impressive defense. We got home and the girls enjoyed their ice cream from the spa, and I was...back on the couch for another day and a half.

Since I couldn't work out any other body part without getting tired, I decided to focus on my fingers. So I knitted. Knat? At any rate, I did knit. I finished a scarf for my sister and started a second and I have to say...cathartic and addictive. My friend Amelia in DC turned me on to it and even took me to a knitting store near her house to stock up. It's a perfect (12th) hobby because it satisfies my ADD need to be productive while relaxing (I am my father's daughter, it's true).

The other thing I like about it is that you can pick it up and do it for 2 hours, or for 2 minutes, and still make progress. It seems like everything else I do (other than reading at bedtime) is a big "to do" and involves the committment of laarrrge blocks of time.

By Monday morning I was pretty normal excepting needing to stay on Claritin to keep things cleared up. I will say this...you know you are getting old when you do get sick on a weekend (once you get over losing many days of working out) you think, well, hey, at least I didn't have to miss 2 days of work.