Last Sunday after hiking with Mark, Marcia, and Stephanie, I felt a burning sensation in my nasal cavity right above the palate—as if a morsel of food had gotten stuck up there (and was trying to slide down). Or perhaps that chili cheese dog I had before walking across the bridge wasn’t such a hot idea.

All week I felt out of it, especially at night, but always decent enough in the mornings to get to work. Thankfully I wasn’t alone. Andre, Andy, and Jonathan were also in various stages of sick. By Thursday I’d developed an annoying cough. Friday I finally threw in the towel.

When I woke I felt like I was swimming in my head, and the consistency of mucous I was coughing up (thick and mustard yellow) impressed even me. I stayed home from work. Didn’t get much extra sleep, but I spent the day in bed trying to make sense of the differences between a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA. We’ll see if I made the right decision in 2040.

Yesterday evening the coughing was intense. I couldn’t take a breath without triggering a reflex cough. Watching a few episodes of The Office helped, as did several puffs on an albuterol inhaler leftover from a similar cold Stephanie had earlier this year. But man, last night. I’d forgotten to take cough syrup because I felt ok when I went to bed, but all night I suffered through a semi-conscious state of sleeping, coughing, and trying to breathe. At 6am it finally woke me (and Stephanie). I took some cough syrup, and slept until after 10am.

Things seemed better this morning, so we went out around noon to do some errands, including dropping off my bike (which has been out of commission since spring) to be overhauled at Lombardi Sports. On the way my body felt like jelly. I’d alternate between feeling hot, and having cold sweats. I thought I was on the mend. We grabbed some nighttime Nyquil liqugels, some frozen fruit for smoothies, some frozen pie crusts for a quiche, and headed back home.

Stephanie’s napping right now. We toyed briefly with the idea of going to see snowboarders catch mad air at the AT&T park, but I think instead we’ll head out and try to grab tickets for Borat (which was sold out last night). But first dinner: