Best Laid Plans

     Well, I was hoping to offer a post full of sun and surf, retirement fun and hilarity. Instead, we ran into the rain. We played golf on a cloudy Friday, then started out on Saturday, in the rain, with a weather report that predicted 100 percent chance of rain. It continued to rain, off an on, for the next four hours, but we soldiered through the day and finished like the proud retirees we are.

     The next day we'd scheduled as a day off, and it was a good thing, too, since it rained all day. Then on Monday we set out, again in the rain, until we were washed out after nine holes.

I spent five minutes on the windswept beach

     That night I developed a runny nose and a sinus headache to beat the band. I took some Advil. It didn't seem to help at all.

     Ever the trooper, on Tuesday I got myself out of bed and over to the golf course with my friends -- only to be rained out yet again before we'd even finished the first hole. We slogged home, and I spent most of the rest of the day in bed. I did get up and dragged myself across the street to the grocery store to pick up some DayQuil and NyQuil, and some vitamin C. That's all I know to do for a cold.

     That evening I called B about 8 p.m.  "I've got a terrible headache," I told her. "Do you know, can I mix Advil and NyQuil? I took some DayQuil earlier. But I was thinking I'd take an Advil now and then the NyQuil in a couple of hours."

     "No," she told me. "Don't take any Advil. Take the NyQuil now. You'll get a good night's sleep."

     "But it's too early to take it now," I said. "It's only 8 o'clock. I'll fall asleep, then wake up at 5 a.m."

     "No you won't," she insisted. "Take it now. You'll go to sleep in an hour or two. And you'll sleep till 8 in the morning."

     So after we rang off, I downed the NyQuil and read my book for a little while (Inferno by Max Hastings, about World War II, which was recommended by Dianne at Schmidleysscribbling and which is a great book, but a little depressing when you're already feeling lousy with a cold). I drifted off to sleep around 10 p.m. And sure enough, I woke up a little after 8, feeling a whole lot better.

But this is what made me feel better

     My group hadn't scheduled anything for our last day, figuring it would be a make-up day in case we got rained out. But the rains continued, and so we missed out on our rain date as well. We weren't too happy, and a few minor arguments broke out. One of us is a cleanliness freak; the rest are not. One of us brought some DVDs of old TV shows and pressed everyone else to watch along with him. We were going out to dinner. We all like seafood -- except (you guessed it) for one guy, so we ended up at a roadside greasy spoon that no one liked.

     I did finally make it down to the beach this afternoon, before coming back to the condo and taking some more NyQuil. I was feeling better, but not all better. And so, once again . . . Zzzzzzzzz . . .