Had the sniffles last week, handed it off to Kylie, and then was feelin' pretty swell ( yes, swell, Beaver) by the weekend.  Went out to dinner with friends Jerry and Tina on Saturday night, and by the time we got home that evening I knew something wasn't right.  Sunday was abismal, but serendipitously I had scheduled my annual physical exam for Monday with my regular doctor.  Sweet, now I could turn my head & cough and get some good meds all in one trip.  Of course, the way insurance works, even though you're only there once, they have to charge you for two office visits.  Oh well, it was worth it. Long stoy short, my cholesterol's great.  My flu resistance?  Not so much.  The good news is I got what I think is my first official Dr's excuse to play hookie since 6th grade.  The bad news is, I'm quarintined to the house.  Actually, I can go out in public, but according to the handy "Home Care Instructions for Patients with the Flu Virus" sheet I was given, "a sick person (i.e. me) should wear an [awesome-looking] surgical mask when near uninfected persons to prevent the spread of the flu virus.  When he/she is unable to wear a surgical mask" - and this is my favorite part coming up - "everyone else should wear a surgical mask when around that person."  Don't get me wrong, there's both pros and cons to wearing the mask.  The biggest pro is that you tend to get expedited service when you wear it out in public.  I mean, c'mon... who wants to be stuck by a guy wearing a mask and sniffling every couple seconds, right? Seriously, stuck in a line at the walk-up ATM?  Put on the mask and cough a time or two.  Line gets a whole lot shorter pretty quick.  8 people ahead of you at the grocery deli?  Not for long.  People seem to get particularly freaked out when germs get close to their food.  Welcome to the front of the line.  I'm filing away this little experience for the holidays this year.  I expect any last minute shopping will get a whole go exponentially faster when I dawn the mask and where a CDC jacket. So what's a con to wearing the mask, you might ask?  Well, I'm pretty sure the poor girl at the CVS pharmacy drive-through window nearly offered me all the money in the cash register when I pulled up with mask covering my nose and mouth to pick up my prescription.  Yah, kinda wigged her out for a second. Anyway, so for the last 2 days me and the couch have been gettin' reacquainted. I've got a steady diet of Sprite and crackers goin' with an occasional bowl of soup or stack of pancakes mixed in.  I apologize in advance to the environment, though... I think I've killed 3 trees worth of Kleenex tissues so far. Other than the phot above that I fired off this afternoon, I haven't picked up my camera in a couple days.  In fact, the 2 images below were from Saturday afternoon; the last time I felt good.  Hmmm... maybe one of the spots below is ground zero.