Flew to Oklahoma City on the morning of the Fourth. Traveling early seems to be the way to go; I made it in time to go see the fireworks, and on the trip back (also in the morning), I had decompression time before going to work… if I had gone to work as planned (more on that below). I dislike both air travel and early rising enough that motivating myself to get out of bed to go to the airport is a bit of a challenge, but I somehow managed it.
My friends and I sat on the Robinson bridge across the Oklahoma River (still seems funny to call it that; it was the North Canadian when I grew up there) and watched fireworks. There was a professional display over the ballpark in Bricktown, but that wasn’t what we were watching; the amateur pyromaniacs were out in force, and they kept some pretty impressive fireworks going more or less constantly for over an hour. Gary remarked that there were small towns around whose professional shows couldn’t match what we were seeing from the folks by the river.
Anyway, I got to visit with my mom and with Paul a bit, got the brakes fixed on my mom’s car, and got her PC beaten back into shape (Windows updates, Firefox update, reinstall the firewall, scour off all the adware, etc.) All in all, a pleasant visit. I also got my mom to try Indian food, and she liked it. (Gopuram on NW 23rd; highly recommended.) Finished it with movie night at Leonard’s, where the theme was Dinosaurs. (There are actually a few good dinosaur movies out there. Those aren’t the ones we watched.)
Just before leaving for Gopuram, I started to feel a bit off in my stomach. (Thus, the restaurant was not to blame for what followed.) I ate too much, of course — it’s a buffet for pity’s sake, and I am but a weak-willed mortal — and left feeling stuffed. The stuffed feeling stayed with me all through Dinopalooza, and left me restless all night. And I started to feel an ache in my lower joints, which is my body’s way of telling my I have the flu.
Still, despite the restless night, I was feeling semi-human in the morning, so I packed up and took the flight home. I got home, plopped my bags in the hall, and after checking in with my mom by phone, laid down to catch up on sleep; I felt like crap, but chalked it up to lack of sleep. But waking up hours later, still feeling like a reanimated corpse, I realized that the damn virus wasn’t done with me yet.
Woke up during the night with chills. Teeth-chattering. Got it together enough to turn the airco off, add an extra layer of shirt, and get back into bed. When the chills eventually passed, and it got close to time to decide whether to call in sick or not, I took my temp: 101.6. Who knows what it had been earlier, when the virus was riding high?
Even without the fever, work would have been a dicey proposition; I was wrung out. I emailed an out-sick notice, and crawled back under the covers, and spent all morning and half the afternoon asleep.
Anyway, I’m better (even if my digestion isn’t quite right yet) (don’t ask), and I did a day at work without incident.
I suppose I should go unpack now. But Livvy-kitty has decided that my bag full of dirty clothes is her new favorite pillow, and I don’t think I’ll take it away from her just yet.