ACHOO!

Achoo!  Last week I was feeling fine.  Then it happened.  You know, you wake up with a scratchy throat and wonder - is it a cold or did I just sleep on my back with my mouth open and annoy my throat.  Then the coughing starts - and you still hope it is a just a scratchy throat from sleeping on your back, but you are pretty sure it is not.  Once the sneezing starts and your nose is clogged...  My husband lives in fear of me having a cold.  He is a bit of a hypochondriac so he won’t let me do anything if I might “spread the germs” to him.  But he doesn’t want to do what he is not letting me do either.  Everything takes longer to do as a result and wastes time. Don’t worry - you can’t catch the cold.

He doesn’t want to cook (although he used to love to cook and is the better cook).  He doesn’t want to do the dishes. but he doesn’t want me to do either as I will get him sick.  The first night he made dinner - ham steak that we shared and a packaged macaroni with mushrooms - add to boiling water and let cook - and canned soup.  I did the dishes afterwards with disposable plastic gloves on.  One night he was on the computer with a client and I asked if I should make dinner or wait for him and he told me he was busy - so I made dinner and he ate it, but not happily.  Then the weekend came and cooking was resolved as we eat out Friday through Sunday nights.  This week he cooked dinner on Monday.  Last night as we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner a rain storm hit.  I mean A RAIN STORM HIT.  He received a warning on his cell phone - I did not, although my, no cell service for over a year as it was not working for Internet or phone service and I had to switch,  Blackberry received a notice.  (I keep it charged for it games and camera.)  We had major lightning and thunder for about 2 hours - remember I have fired a reproduction 18th century cannon - the thunder was like cannon fire.  We lost our electricity - one of husband’s other great fears.  We stood/sat with the front door open watching “the show” .  We live on a main road.  A UPS truck went past to the right, then to the left, then two of them passed our house, then another one and so on.  Assorted emergency vehicles passed the house in both directions with lights flashing - police, ambulances, fire trucks, a couple of electric utility trucks...  Cars kept driving in the mess, some would pull over a few minutes and then go on.  I am a pretty fearless driver (scared husband the few times he had to drive with me as the driver) and I would have pulled over.  Sooo, what will we eat?  I was thinking - we have rolls, peanut butter - crunchy and smooth, jelly - strawberry and Ikea ligonberry, American cheese, mozzarella cheese - no problem.  I suggested this to him.  NO!  We cannot open the fridge or his insulin would go bad.  (Well, technically if it got too warm it would still be good for 42 days, but I was not going to argue.)   Luckily the rain let up around 10:30 pm.  We got in the car and drove to a nearby supermarket and bought more rolls and cold cuts for dinner.  On the corner passed a 7-11 shut down do to lack of electricity, employees seemed to be sitting in cars in the parking lot.  We got home and were getting ready to eat and - the lights came back on.  Apparently we were in the largest outage area so we were put back quickly.  I honestly do not remember a thunderstorm with so much or such loud thunder with rain that heavy for so long.

Tonight we took in Chinese food - simple right?  Not really.  The place we took out from for decades (while I was waiting for the gas company to come and turn on the gas in our first apartment I went and took out from this place for lunch - I did not even have tableware, dishes, glasses, etc in the apartment - I did have a borrowed bridge table and 2 borrowed bridge chairs) has changed.  The original owners ran it for a long time - we knew their children, I remember hearing a car stop short in front of our apartment and the father coming running to the corner because his younger daughter had been riding her bicycle and just missed being hit by the car.  When he died his older daughter would come home from college on weekends to help her mom.  Then the son took over for awhile - even though he really wanted to be fishing - and the place often had fresh fish due to same.  Eventually the place was sold - to the son’s sister in law and her husband.  They were also nice and the food was the same and we kept going there.  Earlier this year we went there and the husband was not there and an older woman (I presume one of their moms) was cooking.  The food was not good.  We tried another place and were not happy with them.  We went back to them figuring maybe it was the change in cook.  But the last time we took out the soup was too salty to eat and all the dishes were wrong.  We don’t know what happened.  This is the place we called on our way back from our 5 hour trip in July, 2017 to get dinner made before they closed - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07/treading-water-5-hour-trip-to-nowhere.html So, we never know where to take out from and as a result we don’t.  We receive an assortment of fliers from take out places and I keep them.  One recently caught husband’s eye and he had been planning to try it - so tonight we did.  Very nice people and food.  Three street parking spaces in front of the 4 stores was the only parking.  Then, since I was sick, husband did not hand me the food to hold on the trip home, he put it in a plastic laundry basket we keep in the back in the car, he did not put anything against the bag to hold it.  Yes, the bag went on an angle and was soaked when he took it out of the car.  After dinner we had to wash the vinyl cover I keep in the car, the basket, and back of the car.  We will go back again - and I will hold the bag.


In the middle of all this I had to go to Manhattan to a client for work - I should have gone last month, but she had a cold (could I have caught this cold over the telephone :-) ).  So I went yesterday.  I packed a zip lock bag with sucking candy, lots of tissues, and an old prescription bottle with one dose of the cough medicine I am taking.  In another zip lock bag I had a small bottle I filled with water.  Did I mention the temperature yesterday was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit?  Luckily I did not need any of the items. 

As a result of this normal housework and keeping things in order are only done if absolutely needed.  Instead of changing the bedding, I changed only my pillowcases.  I suggested he change his, but he said it was okay to just leave them until next week.  I had to talk him through changing the hand towels. We were in the downstairs bathroom - “Where are they?” “In the cabinet under the sink  - see those 2 whiteish towels?  Take them and the green dish towel below them.”  (I put out a green dish towel each week in that bathroom to use for quick clean ups of water around the sink - it matches the bathroom.)  Upstairs?  “Which towels?”  “The yellow ones.” (I figured yellow was bright and he would easily see them.) “You mean these yellow ones?”  They are the only yellow ones we have. 

Last week I had washed and dried the clothes the night before I got the cold.  A load of jeans were in the dryer drying overnight.  So we had clothes for the week.  I did not wash the towels or the bed linens.  Good thing I have 2 weeks of towels plus one extra set for up and down.  I was trying to figure out how to mention to him about the laundry when he brought it up.  I put the clothes in to wash.  He will put them in the dryer - with me talking him through it - and then bring them upstairs afterwards.  He brought up last week jeans load when I put in the load to wash.  He says he will fold the laundry.  I normally pull out his shirts as I put the clean, dry laundry in the basket to take upstairs so that they do not need to be ironed, as I put them over the top of the other clothes and if he does that, and sorts mine from his, I can deal with my clothes and he can deal with his or leave them in the basket and pull them out as he needs them. 

Hopefully either this cold will be definitely over with or he will give up by Monday so life can return to normal.

On the other hand, I had some extra time in the office as we came home quicker in the afternoons.  I managed to shred all of my 2008 records - other than few I kept such as the checks written that year for our income taxes - 3 tall kitchen bags plus, worth of shredding.  I then packed my 2017 records into the same box, relabeled it, and put it back in the closet - ah, room to fit papers in file folders again. 

I also had time to transfer my 2017 computer files to my archive file and make 2 DVD copies of the revised archive files.  I still have to change my back up files so that the old files are gone from them, but that will happen as I make backup files.

I went through an assortment of old computer instruction manuals sitting on a shelf in the office - why?  I needed space for 2 magazine holders.  I pulled a number of the manuals - mostly from programs or hardware that I had - and I will put them out over a couple of weeks with the recycling.  I still have a stack for husband to go through - understand this are DOS or pre Windows XP software and hardware that I cannot figure out what or where it is.  The magazine holders fit nicely in the shelf now with room for the manuals for computer things we are actively using.

The office floor is a mess due to my cheapness in not wanting to waste extra garbage bags when doing shredding and pouring from one to another - as well as throwing handfuls of shreds from one bag to another.  I had planned to vacuum up the shreds - but then caught this cold - maybe tomorrow I will get to vacuuming.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One gets ill.  It happens.  I am glad that it only a cold so all it has been is inconvenient.  In the larger world it is nothing, just an inconvenience. I am happy that is not serious and by next week either I will be better or he will give up trying to do things for me so he does not catch the cold.  (I have never pointed out to him that I touch the light switches and so does he.) 

Try to do as much as one can without overtaxing one’s self - this will vary based on what is wrong with one.

I leave you with a final achoo!  If I rambled too much - will, hey!  I have a cold! :-)