Realization of the Day (A Two-Parter):

Always check CNN when you wake up in the morning:

I don't sleep through the night very often. I usually wake up in between my two sleep cycles completely awake and ready to start my day....at 3am. Kevin has gotten used to me rolling out of bed and wandering around the apartment like a ghost until my body says: "hey, it's 3am. This was a dumb idea." I usually check my email around that time as well as CNN. After 9-11 it's just a habit I've gotten into; I like to make sure that all my loved ones are accounted for and I can rest easy. After I make sure all my duckies are in a row, I grab a sleepy cat and join my sleeping husband for the rest of the night.

That's why it was such a shock when I clicked on CNN and saw that a bridge over the Mississippi had collapsed. "Mississippi is big," I thought to myself. "I'm sure it didn't happen in Minnesota." When I saw that it had, I quickly called Kevin (who, thankfully, answered right away) to make sure all his family were accounted for. They are, but for a brief moment my heart leapt out of my mouth, as I realized that I was too far away to do much of anything.

I'm going to be sick on my birthday. Boo.

Being sick continues. I still have a fever in the evenings and now some deity who I will forever be pissed off at decided that I should lose my voice. As the Brits would say: It's all gone pear-shaped. I went to work for a 1/2 day today until my constant coughing, sneezing, and wheezing made my boss come out from her cubicle and told me that the rest of the office didn't want what I had. At that point I stopped feeling guilty that I hadn't come in for the past few days and hightailed it out of the library to the drug store (known as the Chemist in these here parts).

The pharmacist I spoke with said that she thought it sounded like an infection, so I'll be going to a free clinic in Soho tomorrow morning to (hopefully) get some antibiotics. I'm looking at all this as a birthday present from whatever deity who gave me this damned flu in the first place. Alright, alright. I will experience the seedy underbelly of the British health care system! Woohoo!