Bad cold. Bad, bad cold.

Okay, so...I was taking decongestant and tylenol every 4-5 hours yesterday, which mostly kept it at bay. What do you think happened when I went to bed?

Why, yes. I did not take pills whilst sleeping. And I woke up about four and a half hours after I went to sleep, aching and stuffed up. Took a decongestant, 45 minutes later no effect. Came downstairs, drank water, and slept on the floor down here so I could toss and turn and be restless.

For a good part of the night, I would wake up when the blanket slipped. If it was over my nose, it got too stuffy and I couldn't sleep. If it wasn't over my eyes and temples, they got chilled just enough to start aching oddly. Either way I woke up....

My throat hurts, my head hurts, I'm stiff, I'm tired. I'm not going to work.

I called my boss. He answered. I said, "Hi, it's Laura."

He said, "Hi. You sound like you're going to stay home this morning."

I sound about as bad as I feel maybe even a bit worse. Jeesh!

*sigh* Yes, I'm sick.

I decided I could, nonetheless, run two errands: get stamps (post office is a couple blocks away, easy walk most days, but it's chilly and I'm sick: car time), and drop off coat to be dry-cleaned (dry-cleaner one block away, between me and post office).

Nice, easy trip, right? Simple little things?

Well. It went really well at first. Got to the post office, got the stamps. (I have carnivorous plant stamps. They amused me. This, I may regret when I feel better....)

Headed out of post office, over to dry cleaner's. Parking was short, I got into a slot, and double-checked the coat's care instructions to be sure my memory was correct.

It was not. This is not a dry-clean item, but a machine-wash line-dry (THICK LINING) item. Ugh. With no indication dry cleaning is okay. Maybe I should just throw it out.... (It's been in storage two years. It badly needs to be cleaned, before it can be used. But I have nowhere suitable to hang/line/drip dry something that large, thick, and heavy for as long as it would need.)

While I was checking the label, some random guy wandered up and asked if I had a dollar (no - literal truth, too, I live on my credit cards - though I suppose I had several in the car, in the coin tray, in quarters - not that I'd've answered differently if I'd thought of them). On my way out of the parking lot, I ran over the edge of a curb around a planter with both right tires.

On the other hand, I have stamps, I'm home, and the only thing injured was my ego....

...argh.

I got called by my ISP.

They wanted to know if they could change our IP addresses as they were restructuring.

He was very surprised to learn we were done yesterday.....

Yikes.

Stupid cold. Apparently something similar has taken out folks in our Bay Area offices for up to a week. YIPE.

I laid down, briefly, at about 5. I got back up at 7. And I'll be in bed again within the hour, if I'm smart, based on how I feel.

I need to go to work tomorrow: I have a candidate coming in to take a coding test at 1. If I'm really feeling dead, I'll unlock the drawer, snag the test, and hand it off to someone else to administer, but I'd really rather not. I think if I feel like shit in the morning, I will go in late, see if I can be there for that. It would be nicer.

I was working from home today. I had the laptop.

I am trying to decide how to charge my time. We're supposed to charge time spent. However - I spent an awful lot of time staring helplessly at the screen, struggling with concepts. Aie.

I did spend about 30-45 minutes reading and occasionally replying to emails. I can charge administrative time, and maybe 15-30 minutes of coding time, if I think of what I actually accomplished. Closer to 2 hours if I charge what I spent.

Either way, basically a sick day. I hope tomorrow is at least half not-sick day. Ugh.

My laptop....

...is now theoretically in the queue of things to be configured and shipped. Estimated ship date is now the 16th, meaning I should get it the second week of my vacation as long as that date doesn't ship too much.

I've called customer service to protest the misspelling of my first name (reversed two letters) and last name (clearly intended as mine, but plainly misspelled, not just typo-ish), despite my having spelled it aloud for the guy who sold it to me. And protesting that they're shipping it to the wrong city, right address.

Neither of these things is likely to prevent my getting the laptop; I live in a zip code that has about 4 cities. (I've never investigated, but I think it used to be a blob of countryside that slowly got annexed into various city/suburb type areas.) They chose the "default" one, which is only fair. Of the four it serves, one is the default, and two more are considered no-longer-acceptable (in that they were swallowed whole into the city which is the default - but somehow they still turn up, and even on occasion are used!!), and one more (mine) is considered acceptable by its true city name (as we are NOT part of the other city), but not default.

Oh, yeah, it'll get here.

But fix it anyway, guys, especially my name. Jeesh. ;) ;)

Laptop!

*eyes time* And now it's time for me to go falldown gosleep.

Well, actually, it's time for me to go have a nice soak, then go to sleep, but you get the idea.

Wish me luck and aliveness tomorrow.