2002-03-31 - 9:01 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Something", Beatles

Well, looks like I'm finally managing to write a journal entry when I promised one, but I've got bad/annoying news to report. After a whole winter of "retirement" during which he was healthy as a horse, Poindexter suddenly came down with a headache.

Then aches.

Then fever.

That's what he gets for going to work. Damn offices are breeding grounds for this crap. At my office, since it's so tiny, we have a strict "STAY THE HELL AWAY" policy when people are sick. Seriously, people get yelled at for bringing germs to the office. If they need to work, most of them can telecommute.

So, Poindexter. The poor thing. He looks so adorably pathetic. I hope it doesn't last too long. We did get flu shots, and supposedly when you do that, even if you get a different strain it's not as severe. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. So far he's only got the aforementioned symptoms, and ibuprofen seems to be taking the edge off them a bit.

It's weird, how flu hits. He was fine this morning, and then suddenly at 3pm he was sick as a dog.

I walked over to the drugstore and picked him up some drugs and a thermometer to watch his fever. The thermometer took me forever to find because I was looking for one of those old-fashioned mercury thermometers and walked right past the display of digital ones that they're selling now. My age is showing. (It's also showing because I was horrified at the jeans at Structure yesterday -- they have those sitting-down wrinkles at the top of the legs PAINTED ON , which has to be one of THE dumbest fashion trends I've ever seen. But I digress.)

Well, keep your fingers crossed for me. I have another hellish week at work coming up (hopefully this and one more and then it'll be over), and I DO NOT NEED TO GET SICK.

Meanwhile, since my personal chef is bedridden, I had to actually cook dinner. I was scared. But since the bed is only two feet away from the kitchen, he just instructed me every step of the way and it turned out perfectly. I was amazed and pleased. And stuffed.

I am also immensely proud of myself because I had the good sense to put my taxes into a spreadsheet last year. We had the same types of income and deductions this year, so all I had to do was plug in the new numbers and everything calculated itself. Took less than 10 minutes to do both federal and state. And we're getting a refund.

Plus, it felt like I was working -- I create and use spreadsheets like this on a regular basis -- so I wasn't paying too much attention to how much of my money is getting stolen from me.

Before I forget:

Last Wednesday, I went up to go grocery shopping with Stacey at a proper supermarket, and stock up some on sale items. We have a mini pantry going on in the hall closet here, so we had room.

The shopping trip was amusing, since Kelsey wanted to get in my cart. She sat there, buried under groceries, arranging them about herself and asking me for "something small to fit right here". Funny kid.

When I got to the meat aisle, I stopped to look at the Perdue chicken breasts and my jaw dropped open in shock.

Stacey came by, saw me gaping, and said, "Yeah, you have to wait for it to go on sale around here."

I looked at her, still gaping, and said, "No, you don't understand; this is HALF THE PRICE I PAY IN VIRGINIA."

I'm accustomed to paying about $8 for a pound and a half of chicken; here it was $4. I was honestly floored. It almost makes up for the goddamn wage tax.

Earlier in the day, I had been having a conniption fit because my office manager at work informed me that my 401K salary reductions are taxed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I started trying to figure out how much extra it's costing me in income taxes to live in Philadelphia versus Virginia, and wasn't very happy with the number. Poindexter was all set to buy a house in the suburbs when he heard that.

However, the amount we'd save by living in the suburbs instead of the city is still in the range of, "Well, I'm willing to pay that to live in the city." This is good, since the city/suburb difference is the only real factor to consider. Moving back to Virginia is not what we want to do.

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