add a couple of insults to injury

This past weekend I threw my lower back out while over-exerting myself a bit playing frisbee. Well, round about the same time my food poisoning decided to come back [the bacteria and/or virus wasn't really gone - even though I felt ok for a week.] So now not only am I back on a liquid diet with my stomach churning, but also most movements I make that involve my lower back [which is almost ALL movement] are excruciatingly painful. When I woke up this morning I felt so crappy I just wanted to call work and tell them I wasn't coming in. However, since I've already got all my time off planned for pretty much the rest of the year, I don't have much leeway there. So I went in to work. It wasn't long, however, before I realized that I really shouldn't be there. I figured that one out due to the fact that I was spending more time in the bathroom than I was at my desk working. And of course the one day I can't eat anything, and the one day this has ever happened since I've been working here - they were giving away free ice cream in the cafeteria!

So I came home at noon, made myself some chicken broth and am now going to sleep the rest of the day. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow.

sick in Boston, but a cash haul is always nice...

going back a little bit...

On the Tuesday after Labory Day I flew out to Boston for a few days on the Cape [in Provincetown, MA] and then a few days with Clark and family in Framingham. Well, something I ate on Tuesday gave me some pretty hardcore food poisoning, so a disproportionate amount of my trip was spent lying in bed/sleeping during the day/subsisting on a liquid-only diet/and generally feeling like puréed tarnation...

On my first day of seeing Clark and Benjamin I did manage to get my camera out and take some pictures... here's a few of them





I did manage to get out and swim in Walden Pond, as well as go to the site of "the shot heard round the world" [the beginning of the American Revolution.] And the important part was getting to see Clark, Guinevere, and Benjamin and hang out with them, so mission accomplished. Oh yea, the last evening I was there [on Clark's birthday] Guinevere made a SUPERB clam chowder, and since I was luckily weaning slowly back on to solids by that time I got to eat as much as I wanted. :) They also gave me a really funny birthday card and my favorite present - COLD, HARD CASH! Which was just the start of the cashflow... :)

When I got back to Dallas I got another birthday card from Lady and Schteve, with MORE CASH! So, SCORE! Then at work they were going to have cake for my birthday, but the lady who was going to get it had a flat tire, so they just gave me the money they would have spent - so, SCORE! Then our sister department happened to also be having "birthday celebration" that day and had enough cake and ice cream to go around, so we ended up being able to have some after all - AND I kept my cash! SCORE! :)

Then today I went to the Fort Worth Bird Mart and sold off a few birds, and most of the excess cages that I needed to get rid of, so I came home with a wad of CASH, so again, SCORE!