Category: Injuries & Illnesses

Tasty, mild aftermath

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I was hoping for a quiet couple of weeks following my return from Europe, but that it not what I got. There’s been stuff keeping me busy (in a good way, like a conference or lunch with a friend or visits from family) but also distracting me (a cold, everything in the house breaking at once).

Right after I got back I had a couple days’ work sprint and then went right into a conference — here in Toronto, so no travel, but it definitely consumed all of my intention for 2+ days. Always good to meet new people and re-gain some perspective (and have a nice dinner at Cafe Boulud), but the re-upping of the work to-do pile really made it feel as if I’d never even gotten back from vacation. I did wrap up the week over lunch with Matt at d|bar though, which was great.

Another consequence of that conference is that I developed a cold, my first in over a year as far as I can remember. It laid me low Monday through most of Wednesday. Fortunately it had mostly faded by the time brother #2 and sister-in-law #1 arrived. They were here for a visit, partially with us, partially with their daughter who lives just east of Toronto. On Friday they retrieved said daughter and we all had dinner at La Paella…

  • Medjool dates wrapped in bacon, stuffed with goat cheese, glazed with a guindilla sherry reduction
  • Croquetas
  • Tiger shrimps, garlic, guindillas, olive oil and sweet sherry wine
  • Artisan Sourdough Bread from Petit Thuet
  • a Paella which is not on their menu but which contained an extravagant amount of pork (ribs, pork belly, chorizo) along with red peppers, green beans, and butter beans

…followed by heaping bowls of ice cream procured from Craig’s Cookies, of all places.

Yesterday the three of them went to OssFest, then we played a game of Pandemic before they drove my niece home. We were all a bit tired, and the weather had turned to rain, so we just ordered some pizza and drank some wine and had a quiet final night together. This morning Bianca finally decided they were worth hanging out with, just as they were about to leave.

I could do without the cold or the work backlog, but I’ll take a nice family visit anytime. See you next year, guys!

Highs and Lows

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The week started off well but got progressively worse.

Last weekend Lindsay’s brother #2 arrived for a week. Always fun when he’s in the house. I’d just completed my WSET3 week 3 tasting (more on that in some other post) which meant there were a bunch of delicious white wines available. We ordered Thai and drank grand cru Alsace Pinot Gris and Tokaji for dessert.

On Sunday night we went to White Lily for dinner, and stopped at Chez Nous on the way home.

On Monday I met someone for a work drink at The Chase, then hustled back home for dinner at Wynona with Lindsay and Laura. I don’t remember exactly what we had, but I think it was something along these lines:

  • Grilled focaccia
  • Ontario burrata, forced rhubarb, wild fennel, brown butter & pistachio vinaigrette
  • Honey roasted carrots, chermoula, tahini, pumpkin seed dukkah $20
  • Ramp tonnarelli, Manila clams, Calabrian chili
  • Ziti, braised shortrib, mustard greens, Parmigiano-Reggiano
  • Blood orange posset, white chocolate & thyme ganache, salted honey crumb, meringue
  • Bottles of Nero d’Avola and Syrah

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly unremarkable, but by Wednesday evening I was starting to feel sick — sort throat, stuffed up, etc. No one else in the house was sick even though we’d done everything together. It was probably too soon to develop anything I’d picked up the day before at the office, so…I guess it was that work drink on Monday? Who knows. Anyway, Thursday was very tough, and by Friday I was barely able to work. We had reservations for the three of us at Ricky + Olivia’s but I was so sick I had to bow out. I was in bed by 8:00. Today hasn’t been much better; I’m definitely scuffling.

As always, the lone bright spot about being sick is that I sit still long enough to catch up on some TV, so I’ve watched all of S1 and half of S2 of The Bear.

“Come on. America would never elect somebody like David Duke, President of the United States of America.”

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The lone upside to being sick, by which I mean have-to-stay-in-bed-for-entire-days sick, is bingeing TV shows. I finished the last couple of seasons of For All Mankind (interesting concept, but in season 4 it’s feeling strained), the entirety of Black Earth Rising (which was excellent, and I would have watched much sooner if I knew what it was about), and S3 of Slow Horses which was predictably excellent and took all of an afternoon. I also incorporated BlackKklansman (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at some point, not to mention a bunch of other movies I’ve seen a million times but just needed to fall asleep to something.

I seem to be mostly out of the woods…maybe back to like 70%. So as much as I want to go see Dune 2, this weekend is probably going to be about work catch-up.

Norovirus

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About two hours after writing my last blog post I came down with the most violent stomach bug I’d ever encountered. No doubt I got it from my mom, who’d suffered through a 24-hour onslaught while we were at the farm. Right around the time I barfed my guts out, brother #2 texted to say my niece was sick; a few hours later brother #1 relayed that he was also laid low. Best guess is that it’s Norovirus.

So I spent a pretty good chunk of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day isolating in a basement bedroom, watching Die Hard and Lord Of The Rings. Thankfully, there were cute animals there to keep my spirits up (Lindsay’s mom’s cat is pretty sleep-disruptive though) and Lindsay’s taken care of me without getting herself or anyone else in her family sick. Just to be on the safe side I stayed away from her grandparents.

Last night we drove to an engagement party and then to her dad’s house in St. Margaret’s Bay for a lovely dinner. That house is also full of dogs and cats, and one in particular — a deaf, fluffy, 16-year-old cuddlebug named Maya — completely stole my heart. It was a brutal drive back on a rainy, foggy night, but we’ve arrived downtown to check into our hotel for the final phase of our trip.

Der plague

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From last Sunday’s blog post:

“Today’s been a bit better, but I’m still feeling pretty wonky. Two COVID rapid tests have proved negative, but it sure as heck feels like it. I’m hoping I’ll feel nearly back to normal by tomorrow, my first real day of vacation.”

Narrator: he did not feel nearly back to normal.

Whatever this was — a third rapid test confirmed it wasn’t COVID — laid me out most of the week, save a work-ish drinks thing on Thursday at Chez Nous. Actually, I took a bunch of DayQuil just to make it to said drinks, which was a mistake, because I don’t remember the second half of the evening. Anyway. Being this sick has allowed me to catch up on a bunch of TV, like season 4 and part of season 5 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I’m all caught up on Ahsoka, Billions, and Only Murders In The Building, and we’ve just started Painkiller. We’ve even caught up on a ton of backlogged Last Week Tonight eps.

Still, I’d rather feel like I could breathe normally.

Like gross, gross clockwork

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It’s long been a pattern with me that, as soon as my body knows it can relax, it stops fighting off whatever bug or virus might be knocking at the door. And so it was that after I finished work on Thursday I began to feel the effects of whatever bug Lindsay had been fighting all week.

And when I say “after work” I mean immediately after work. As in, I couldn’t have been more than ten minutes from the office when I first felt some throat irritation. By the time I pulled into the garage I had a legit sore throat. By that night I was feeling the effects of a full-blown cold.

I wasn’t too bad Friday — I was able to wrap up what little work I had left (more on that later) but it destroyed me Saturday to the point where I spent pretty much the whole day in bed. Our tickets to the Leslieville Beer Fest went to waste too. 😦

Today’s been a bit better, but I’m still feeling pretty wonky. Two COVID rapid tests have proved negative, but it sure as heck feels like it. I’m hoping I’ll feel nearly back to normal by tomorrow, my first real day of vacation.

Retro booster

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We finally got our bivalent boosters on Friday. We were scheduled to get them back in October, but then we got COVID again so we had to wait six months for this. I felt relatively okay Friday night and even first thing Saturday morning, but by noon I felt gross. By mid-afternoon I felt sick. By evening I felt real sick. A good measure of how sick I am is how much work/puttering I did that day (absolutely nothing) and how much wine I drank (absolutely nothing). I was flat out on either a couch or a bed the whole day, watching most of season 2 of Borgen and all of season 1 of The Good Place.

Today I’m feeling somewhat better — I’ve already cleaned up a disastrous kitchen, done some laundry, gone to Shopper’s Drug Mart, and answered a dozen emails; I’m also pretty sure there’ll be wine later — but ended up not driving down to Hidden Bench for their wine club release day. Couldn’t handle the idea of the drive, let alone lose another ~3 hours.

The unwanted comeback

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Welp, I have COVID-19 again. I had a bunch of social events this week — a meeting downtown, a two-day offsite with my whole team, a dinner out — and then, a few days later, I tested positive.

So far (I’m on day three of the symptoms) it hasn’t been as bad as when I had Delta, pre-vaccinations. It just feels like a bad cold. No lung stuff. No body aches. Yesterday was pretty brutal. and I slept for nearly all of it, but so far today doesn’t seem as bad, touch wood.

To be honest, I’m mostly pissed at myself for not booking the second (biovalent) booster sooner. We dilly-dallied on it; if we hadn’t, I might have been vaxxed all the way up before this week. So let that be a lesson to you, kids.

One year ago

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A year ago today I tested positive for COVID. I’d felt bad for several days, then felt better to the point of being pretty surprised at testing positive, and shortly after the diagnosis went through the worst of it. Our neighbours and their neighbours were a few days ahead of me; Lindsay was a few days behind.

We made it through okay, obviously, but it’s pretty freaky to think about.

“You British don’t have a monopoly on snobbery, you know.” “Well, not a monopoly. More of a controlling interest.”

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It seems that all my outings last week led to me getting sick. Not with COVID, but with the bug that appears to be going round. I took most of Tuesday and Wednesday off this week, which means I’m even further behind on…well, everything than I was before.

I did manage to watch a couple of movies while sick, like Tenet (imdb | rotten tomatoes), The Mauritanian (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and The Power Of The Dog (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Apparently I had a real hankering for Benedict Cumberbatch.