As of this writing, I am surrounded by the man-flu. Travis and Tayden are both down for the count. Tayden is on day nine, Travis is on day five. Because it is man-flu, I know the precise onset of symptoms. It’s not like female-flu, or even child-flu, where we can’t precisely pinpoint the onset of symptoms. Man-flu is its own beast, where the sick person can pinpoint, sometimes to the minute, when he started feeling sick. Tayden can tell you that it was I history class on Monday, January 27. Travis knew which patient he was treating on Friday, January 31. He was already wearing a mask, so hopefully he doesn’t spread it at work. Travis was on call the weekend he was sick. Luckily, the call weekend was easy. I remember him telling the poor nurse who called to ask him about treatment for a patient, “I am sick in bed right now.” I wanted to grab the phone and exclaim, “He has man-flu!!! He could die! Corona virus has nothing on MAN-FLU!”

Like all medical professionals with school-age kids, we live in the hot zone. That zone comes from combining the germs from school with the germs from the hospital in our house, making the worst possible combination of exposure to potential illness. In fact, I mentioned to Travis that maybe he got the flu that I had had the weekend before He and Tayden came down with it. He immediately said, “Yours wasn’t like this.” Ummm, okay. I was in bed all weekend. And all week, I came home from work and took a nap before going back to coach. Then, I figured it out. I was happy just being left alone. I needed to complain more. Moan more. Be more dramatic…like man-flu. Although, if I’m honest, I didn’t have the cough that my boys have, so I’ll probably have my own less-whiney version of this man-flu in a week or so. So, I think that people should keep me in their thoughts, because I am trying to survive not one, but two man-flus. And I get to look forward to having this flu myself in the coming days. 

On an entirely separate note, now is the time of year where the snow and perma-frost occasionally melt to reveal the true condition of my yard, which is the dog latrine. The problem here is that my lazy chocolate lab, Roscoe, has decided that he only needs to step one half of a step into the previously snow-covered area before depositing his dropping. That means that he was actually still on the snowy edges of the walking path. With this weekends unseasonably warm weather (and rare appearance of the sun), the snow on the path melted, revealing the path of poo. In the past, I’ve discussed the melting of the snow and the revelation of just how much time has gone by since I have had to pick up the yard. This house allowed for a new, more disgusting revelation, since now the minefield was actually right where we were supposed to be walking. And, of course, I was the only one in the condition to pick up the endless dog detritus, since I was surrounded by the evil man-flu. And it’s extra pleasant, since the dogs are now relegated to do their business in the front yard, since our new back yard is the goose-poo buffet, which occasionally causes one dog or another to get sick in the house. So it needed to be picked up in case anyone not “in the know” on the dog detritus minefield (or path of poo, whichever you prefer) came to the house, since half the minefield was actually on the walking path. So my break from the man-flu whining was picking up poo in the front yard. Thank goodness Monday finally came and I could escape to work. 

Have a great week everyone! Humpday is here!