Recovering

It's been a long week.  We returned from vacation a little over 10 days ago, but it feels like we've been back for much, much longer.

I got sick shortly after we got back (this happens every time).  I had started feeling congested the day before we flew back to New York and the flight, of course, didn't help at all.  Although I did my best to fight it, taking decongestants and gently forcing myself into an earlier morning routine and trying to feel normal, I wasn't strong enough to beat it on my own.  By Wednesday night, I was at the doctor's office with a deep chest cough and sinus pressure that was so bad that I thought my face was going to explode.  I worked from home on Thursday due to my sinus infection, hoping the antibiotics would work quickly.  But recovery progressed very slowly and I still wasn't feeling 100% after the medicine was done.  On top of all that, last weekend was my 10th college reunion, which I agonized for awhile over cancelling but ultimately did (and now it remains to be seen whether we will see a penny of what we paid refunded).

Work has been insane.  I started working on a deal last Wednesday which really kicked into gear last Friday... because it needed to close by this morning.  A deal is doable in one week but on a lean team, it's not easy.  It explains why I was up until 3 or 4 in the morning this week, wrecking my sleep schedule and officially losing all the benefits Europe had left on my internal clock.  It probably didn't help that our client and everyone we worked with were in California, pushing the schedule later and more toward my natural timing.

After all of that, I was really looking forward to today.  End of the week, deal closing, over a week after I started antibiotics so hopefully I would be feeling better, etc.  It was a long day but at work, it wasn't so bad.  The deal closed.  Another emergency project took up the afternoon but ultimately was resolved to everyone's satisfaction.  I was exhausted and kept passing out, but decided to feel better by napping through the end of Team USA's crappy performance (despite the win) against Antigua and Barbuda in the World Cup qualifier.  I was able to see A for both lunch (kofta!) and dinner (salad box full of healthy vegetables from Maoz).  Finally, the week was ending.  Finally, I could try to relax and get some sleep.  Finally, things were looking up.

But Azure had other plans.

Azure is our car (yes, I named my car when I got her).  About a month ago, we accidentally left the light on in the car and it killed our battery.  We had to get a jump, drove the car for awhile (at least 20 minutes, which everyone told us was all the battery needed to get back to normal), and everything was fine.  The battery didn't seem to go completely back to normal, giving us little fits every so often, but we really didn't think it would be dead when we got to the garage today.

Nope.  Car wouldn't start.  Had to call our garage's person again for the jump (which costs $30 each time but we're in a garage and don't have another option) and then we were ready to go.  A released the parking brake and - boom - I felt my body drop straight toward the ground.  Not a good feeling.  Not a pretty flat tire either.  Not low.  Completely flat.

Off to the gas station and the free air pump (thank you Hess!).

Eventually we were on our way and then we hit traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike (shocker!).  It was for construction where they were narrowing all the lanes to one lane.  But the "construction" was less than the equivalent of one city block and the one lane traffic went for miles.  Seeing all that empty space was frustrating.

Also frustrating was that, with one thing after another piling itself on, the week just refused to end!

Almost two hours after leaving our apartment, we finally reached our destination.  It is finally the weekend (although I'm now sleeping 2 hours after I planned).  It is finally time to recover from a really long week.