New year, new cold

It wouldn't be a new year if I didn't start it with some type of malady. I believe last year I was throwing up. This year, I have a head full of snot. I'd like to think I'm getting my 2008 illnesses out of the way early, but we all know it's just the beginning.

I did forget to take my vitamins for two days in a row. On the second day, I began to show signs of my cold. Good thing I don't need to take birth control. I'm a forgetful pill taker.

I'm also a forgetful vehicle operator. The other day, when driving my son's car while he is using mine for some extensive traveling, I became frustrated with the dim dash lights so I tried to turn make them brighter. The label above the sliding light switch looks like this:

LO________HI_INT

so I moved it from "low" to what I thought was "high intensity." Apparently, the INT stands for "interior" so I inadvertently turned on the dome light. This was discovered the next day when I tried to go to work and the battery was dead. My dearest R closed up his shop, picked up a battery and came to my rescue. He didn't even call his stupid wife a stupidhead. What is particularly stupid is that I used to own the car, and I drove it for about 8 years.

Today he took the car to give it a tune up while it's here. I think it was really an excuse to keep me from messing it up further. So I drove his truck and managed to hit a median while making a tight left-hand turn on a busy intersection. There are two left-hand turning lanes at this intersection and the car in the other lane was crowding mine. Good thing I had the truck. Don't think I hurt it (it's a bit of a heap anyway) but the check engine light came on afterwards. I didn't even hit the dang engine! Why would it need checking?

It warmed up a little today, and the ice on the roads may disappear this weekend. I hope so because I haven't been able to walk or run. I miss it and I miss fresh air. I did walk the halls around the local university's arena this morning and it felt good to push my heart rate up a little with something other than coughing or sneezing.

If I had a check engine light, it would be on now.