It's you... Not Me

Whew... Being sick is something I don't think any of us enjoy. (Perhaps we get some simple pleasure from the fact that we can't go to work, but that is quickly overcome by whatever pain we are experiencing.) I just went through what felt like an eternal bender.

Last fall, J & J and Steffi and I took a trip to Chicago for some shopping and fun. J & I ended up going out that night to the Signature Lounge (at the Signature Room at the 95th) to enjoy a few cocktails and the night storm that came in (I wish I had a real camera to take pictures of some of the show that the sky gave us). What started as a few cocktails turned into a few too many. Most of my drinking days have been had in towns where cocktails are ridiculously watered down, so I had no idea what was coming at me when I ordered my favorite: double gin tonic (I think it was Tanqueray No. 10 that evening). Well, after too many drinks and far too many laughs, J and I closed the lounge and finally headed back towards the hotel. J's natural instinct when he's been drinking too much is to order fast food at some typical we're-open-24-hrs-a-day-to-stuff-your-arteries restaurant. McDonalds it was. After giggling uncontrollably while the server looked at us like we had just walked in off the moon (we were obviously country folk in a big city, at a food joint normally reserved for street walkers of a different kind), I finally composed myself and ordered a large chocolate shake and a double cheeseburger. Just what the doctor ordered - milk and grease to go with that gin. mmmmmmm.... yum. After drinking 1/50th of the 2 gallon shake and eating part of the cheeseburger, we were on our way. I tried to give a homeless guy a few bucks and ended up almost handing him $50. He gave me a hug for the fiver I gave him anyway. I shoulda' given him $50. It's amazing how bad I feel about that to this day. I don't care what he would have done with it. J and I had just blown close to $150 on drinks and I was going to worry about what a guy from the streets of Chicago was going to do with $50? There was a 50/50 chance that he would have done something good with it - and that is better than what I can say of what we did with triple that.
Anyway, I think it was the cheeseburger that put me over the edge. The next day, I felt like someone had poured acid into my stomach and was waiting for it to dissolve through my abdomen and flow down the front of me. I don't get headaches from hangovers, per se. When I get sick it has to do with this eerie feeling that the world is sliding away from under me. My sense of smell is heightened to extremes where the faintest odor of perfume or air fresheners drives me nuts and makes me want to vomit. And yes, there is the slimy, slippery feeling of nausea. I suddenly get the urge to eat things I know are going to make me sicker, yet any time I try to eat something good for me (like crackers), I get sick.
Well, the last five days have been exactly like that, except I had nothing to drink to induce it. On top of the normal sense of nausea, I had a splitting headache that made me want to hide in a corner and disappear. The weirdest part of having been sick this time around, though, was the cravings that I got. Somewhere along the line - when I wasn't even able to keep down crackers and water - I got a craving for chicken fried rice. What the hell is that? My mind thought that the same body that was rejecting water wouldn't mind a dose of msg, bad chicken and oily, fried rice. I've got a great mind-body meld working here.
Now that I'm slowly coming out o the sickness funk, I'm finding that my old friend, dizziness, is returning for a spin. I've written before how I suffer from these ridiculous bouts of vertigo for weeks or months at a time, and this isn't one of those times where I'd like to talk about it. I'd like to ignore it, but it's hard with the world swimming about me. I was hoping that the flu would knock the dizziness right out of my head and for a while, I thought it did. I was wrong, it was just the needling headache gnawing at my brain.
Oh well, swimming is better than sleeping.

Steph and I are zooming across the German country-scape (between Frankfurt and Hamburg) and a flood of memories has cropped up. In the beginning of September 1994, I first arrived in Frankfurt with my AFS group sometime early in the morning (if I remember correctly it was around 8 am). I was sixteen then.
At 28 (going on 29) my perception of my surroundings has certainly changed. One thing that remains, though, is my excitement every time we come back. This is the first time, though, that Steph and I are making the same maiden voyage together I made over twelve years ago. So many of the landmarks and sights I remember from the age of sixteen remain very much the same. I'm fascinated with the way towns develop in Germany. When compared to land use planning in the States, Germany gives the appearance of having gone through much more organic and evolutionary growth. I think I understand why they developed differently (considering the fact that people have lived in what is now Germany for well over a millenia, it isn't hard to imagine) and each has its own charm. One thing I've always found convenient about cities in the US is the N-W-S-E layout of the streets. In Germany, you're lucky if a street in a given city has the same name for more than a few kilometers and goes straight for more than a few blocks.
While Steph snoozes away, I remain fascinated by my second home. I wish we were able to spend more time here, and perhaps someday we will have the ability to do so, but for now, I try to take in as much as I can in the short time we're here. I do wish that my view of this great country weren't so clouded by the politics I have learned more of since I first lived here. Some of the newness has, indeed, worn off, much as the edges of an oft looked upon photo become rounded. One of the worst things we as humans seem to do is get used to things and lose fascination with the world around us (and in my mind, it is fascination that fosters creativity and imagination). That is one of the things I most enjoy about coming here. Even though it is like home, it is different enough to shock my system and jump start my imagination once again.
I'll be updating as often as time permits. On Monday I go to visit Lukas in Prague - another city I haven't been to since '94. So, I should have lots to say and lots of pictures.

I laughed when I read the following post from Sarah's weblog*:

Naughty Wine

Her post is relatively short, so I'll let you click through. What a hilarious gaffe!

* At some point in time, Sarah and I were at Hillsdale College at the same time. I don't remember whether I met her or not (I knew of her by name, but can't remember why), but I try to keep up with some former grad's blogs, and hers happened to be hit by my bookmarks-not-hit-for-a-while list.

Finally, after two weeks of enduring Piri's impact on our sleep patterns, I crashed yesterday - twice. (I know, I haven't written yet about Piri, the new addition to the S & S Fettig family. It's coming.) I got up around 4:30 am (again) to let her out. She starts whining when she needs to go outside, which is a good thing. At least she has decided that it's not worth peeing (& tc.) in the cage - that would be a mess - so, we do our best to make sure we get up in a relatively short amount of time after she starts whining.
I went through the routine:
...open the cage, pick her up...
...trip over the stool used for Pete to get in bed...
...almost lose grip of Piri...
...move towards the bedroom foyer door...
...shuffle downstairs wondering whether I should feed her to the Coyotes...
...she licks my face and whimpers a few times...
...I remember why the Coyotes haven't gotten Rottie pup...
...turn on the outside lights, hope it isn't too cold (still in shorts and a t-shirt) and go outside...
...let her do her thing...
...(remember to) praise her...
...bring her in and fumble my way back upstairs to the kitchen...
...feed her...
...(remember to) praise her again...
...eat myself...
...put her back in the cage...
...get ready for work...
Except this time, I finished in the bathroom and decided to lay back in bed for a few minutes. Nothingness... I wake up suddenly, Steph's not there, the dogs aren't there and it is very light out. What the hell happened???
I look over to the clock. 8:15
Nice... You just slept from 5:45 until 8:15. That's almost three hours more than you've gotten on any day in two weeks. Nice...
Work ended up being a slow day. I had a lot of running around to do and because I didn't load up on my normal coffee concoctions, I was a bit slow. I had enough and was able to scoot out of the office at 4 pm and head home. I figured, great... it's warm out, I'll sit outside with Steph and her mom and can enjoy the rest of the evening.
I got home and felt the call of sleep all of a sudden. Even after having a huge bottle of Coke, I couldn't keep anything straight while I worked on my laptop. So, I decided to lay down. Nothingness...
Anyway, you get the idea. In a matter of one day, I was almost able to play catch-up on the sleep I've lost due to Piri in the past two weeks (I know, catching up on sleep doesn't work, but trust me, sleeping more than normal on any given day helps).
She's turning out to be an amazing pup (very intelligent, very quick to learn, but very dominant - she'll definitely be a handful), but she has gotten the better of me and my much needed sleep. It's been two weeks since I was able to concentrate on Aristotle and I think with yesterday's game of checking my eyelids for leaks, I'm ready to read and write again.

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