Still Sick

It's Sunday, third day on antibiotics, and I'm still sick. Bleh.

I thought that some combination of 2 prescription medicines, Dayquil, Allegra and Benadryl would have done something by now. I guess it's a little better since a little of the congestion is released and I can now speak without coughing every time, but I was hoping for greater improvement with all the meds, fluids and resting over the weekend.

Of course, a restful night of sleep last night would have helped. I forgot to wear my fitbit last night (well, I forgot until I was already in bed and then didn't want to exert the effort to fix the problem) but I'm pretty sure my sleep efficiency was very low. I got up so many times between coughing fits and calf cramps, and in the middle, had crazy dreams.

Dreams including needing to send something from Midway Island and trying to figure out postage and part of it being Australian postage and part of it U.S. Somehow Vanuatu was also involved. Most of the dream has faded but I remember lots of running around and trying to get things done quickly, and weird shops and long lines. In another part of my dream, A was sharing an apartment with one of my younger cousins J (which makes absolutely no sense) and they decided to live in Washington Heights near the park (WTF?!). Whatever block they were on was really unsafe, but I was having a discussion about knowing people who lived in the area closer to the river who loved it (true). At some point someone was looking for brunch and we were thinking about Red Rooster or Sylvia's. Dreams all over the place!

Hoping for a restful Sunday to continue recuperating!

Sinus Infections Suck

I'm officially sick. Apparently trying to will myself to feel better was no match for this brutal sinus infection.

I spent almost two hours at Duane Reade for an appointment at the walk-in clinic and a visit to the pharmacy. The pharmacy worker told me to come back later and estimated that it would be 90 minutes if I decided to wait for my prescription. Since there was no line at the time and no one seemed especially busy, I tried to explain to her that these were antibiotics I needed to start as soon as possible, and that I would really prefer to wait instead of having to go out again later. She told the pharmacist who said it was fine, but 30 minutes later, I still had no meds. I went back to ask her again and she had no recollection of anything that happened until I related the entire history. At least my memory hasn't been compromised by this infection.

Unfortunately I can't even "enjoy" my sick day by sleeping and watching movies, since I have to do work. Bleh.

Rainy Dreary Days

Being sick is no fun. A is much more sick than I am, but it still sucks.

Rainy cold days are no fun. Rainy cold dreary days with strong winds that blow your umbrella inside out and push you down the block suck.

But... in an attempt to think positive, since optimism is an immune system boost (even if it's not, I'm going to pretend it is, power of positive thinking), there were some things that were good today:

1. I learned that last week Chipotle added brown rice to all the stores so now we don't have to go all the way to 18th Street to get it.

2. We're caught up on Survivor South Pacific. The Samoa scenery each episode is really gorgeous and makes me happy.

3. Suburgatory made us laugh (which was good since Modern Family wasn't as funny today).

4. I had wedding soup at lunch.

5. News broke that they are going to do a US adaptation of Misfits, a UK show I really, really like.

Yeah... not a very eventful day. Hopefully tomorrow feels better.

Back from Orlando

Back from Orlando and already (sadly) out of the habit of blogging. I was hoping to blog more regularly during our (short) trip but I didn't bring my iPad because we weren't supposed to have free wifi (according to the website for the place we were staying). It turned out that the villas did have free wifi, so I could have brought my iPad, but all that means is that now I have to catch up!

We went to Orlando to visit Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival which we are going to recap over on the food blog. We spent a little over 2 days at Epcot enjoying the food and drinks and going on a few rides. We also spent one day over at Universal's Islands of Adventure, mostly to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I like long weekend trips because they're a good break from work (and I was really getting burnt out). But one problem is that they're so short that it feels like vacation shouldn't really already be over. We were at the airport returning to NYC and I felt like vacation should still be coming up. I guess I need another one to look forward to, but there's nothing on our calendar. They say part of the health benefit of vacation is the anticipation and having something happy on the horizon to think about. Time to plan another one!

Fast Food Bubble

Hello from Orlando International Airport!

We're sitting in the main terminal food court and it's an almost perfect microcosm of the American fast food world (but not including fast casual). Carvel for ice cream, Nathan's for hot dogs, McDonalds for McDonalds/burgers, Panda Express for Chinese, Quiznos for sandwiches, Krispy Kreme for donuts, Chick-fil-a for chicken (our obvious choice) and Sbarro for pizza/Italian. I think all it's missing is a Taco Bell. (There is a Qdoba in the airside terminal with the Wendys but I consider that fast casual.)

I guess we can find comfort that at least all the people from abroad who come to visit Disney World can get a good representation of American fast food at the airport...

Flu Shots

Today they were offering free flu shots at work. I have been getting flu shots since I was about 10 years old (asthma), so I went to get one. The surprising thing about this flu shot is that I barely felt anything at all. If I didn't know better, I would think I hadn't gotten a shot at all. I think that should be a compliment to the nurse, right?

Usually I feel at least a pinch, and often it actually hurts while the needle is in. (I don't usually look because it would make my muscles tense up, but I can usually feel when the needle is there.) This time, it was quick, painless and my shoulder isn't sore like usual. There wasn't even any blood on the bandaid. It really feels like I didn't have a flu shot at all! Maybe I should have looked...

Not Ideal Wedding Seating

Last night's dreams were weird.  I remember two distinct threads, but have forgotten most of the story over the past few hours.  Luckily I wrote some random thoughts down after I woke up (before snoozing) to jog my memory.

 

In the first part, there was a lot of running around.  There was something relating to classes and videos, but mostly I just remember a lot of running around.  I wonder if all the running that I do in my dreams makes it so that I'm not rested when I wake up.  Anyone know if there is any truth to that?

 

In the second part, some friends of ours were getting married.  (They are a real life couple, so it's not like my dreams were telling me to matchmake.)  For some reason, the invitations went out electronically.  And for some reason, A was invited but I wasn't.  (They're technically his friends originally, so I guess we just thought it was weird but somehow made sense.)  We decided he should go so he RSVP-ed yes.  Apparently we then found out that the program sending the invitations was doing them in batches so mine arrived (much) later.  One would think that would be a good thing, except you were seated in the order you RSVP-ed, which put us clear across the room from one another.  That made me sad because I would want to sit with A at the wedding instead of a bunch of random people.  We figured the idea was for people to get to know other people, which we are totally on board with, except we really wanted to sit together or at least nearby instead of on opposite sides of the room.  If we had known about the seat-as-you-RSVP method, we would have waited for him to RSVP until much later.

 

So, I felt bummed.  And then I was jolted awake after not hearing 4 loud alarms at all.  Oops.  Really need to do something about that.  Wish we were headed to Europe soon to reset my sleep clock...

Quirky DVR

Our new DVR definitely does some things better than our old one (mostly, it works), but it does have some weird quirks. For example, it claimed to still be recording New Girl tomorrow. But Fox switched it up and extended X Factor another half hour so New Girl isn't on. The guide reflected that, but our recording list didn't update to remove it. Our old DVR probably would have told us "conflict!" because it would switch the recording to X Factor and it would intelligently decide that we must have wanted that 2 hour show. But this one acted as if New Girl were still there. I specifically reloaded that day on the guide, but no change. I had to remove it myself. Odd.

However, it's really nice to have the "show will delete in x hours" notice again. Our old DVR box didn't do that for some unknown reason and we never knew what it was really thinking about how full it was. It's nice to get the little red triangles.

It's also nice that there is only one hour to record tonight - Ringer (we have still only seen the pilot, so not sure if we are sticking with it yet). Can catch up on shows we need to watch on demand!

Cookies

Ninth Avenue food fair, 2010. I don't even remember who was offering $1 cookies, but I like to take photos of chalkboards advertising specials and/or menus. I don't know why, but I love them.


I remember going to the Ninth Avenue food fair with my parents when I was younger. I don't remember too much about the area but it was different from how it is now. It's crazy to think that now I live in this neighborhood but when I was little, people were really concerned about safety. How things change.

Although NYC has a lot of food fairs, this one stuck out for me because of the diversity of food. I remember getting empanadas when we went when I was younger. I remembered that there was also Greek food and all these other cuisines. The idea of going to one street fair and being able to get all of that was fun. I also remember doing sand art. We still have those bottles in the kitchen.

This is the one street fair we try to make it to every year. This year we had an evening flight to Geneva but we still went to visit the street fair for lunch. Even though there are only a few local merchants nowadays, it's still worth it to check those out at a sampling price.

Exhaustion

Why does every muscle in my body ache? Over this weekend, I never made it to the gym (A went to the one in our building) or to do C25K, but managed a little (very little) weightlifting and dance. Most of the weekend's "activity" was walking - over 21 miles for both days according to my fitbit - but does walking really make the body this tired? Is this some sort of fatigue? So tired that I keep forgetting to set my fitbit's sleep mode, which isn't even that difficult to do. What's wrong with me?